433 Brilliant World History Topics, Essay Prompts & Examples

Writing an essay on world history is one of the most interesting and engaging tasks a student can do. However, brainstorming these topics for your paper can prove to be a real challenge. There are so many ideas concerning the history of the whole world. Especially, when there are no limitations on the period and geography of your title.

So, what is the best solution?

Find thought-provoking and comprehensive world history topics carefully prepared for you by IvyPanda ! The article is aimed to help with discovering the best ideas for your essay. Plus, you’ll find out how to choose a perfect topic.

We divided the list into four main sections. There are sections for essay questions, term paper, thesis, and research ideas. We’ll also explain how to start your world history paper and list various essay prompts.

  • ☀️ What Are Some Good World History Topics?

💡 Most Interesting World History Topics to Write about

👍 good essay topics on world history, 🏆 best world history topic ideas & essay examples, ✅ simple & easy world history essay titles, 📑 good research topics about world history, 📌 interesting topics to write about world history, 😎 how to start a world history paper.

  • ✍️ Essay Questions
  • 🧐 Research Paper Topics
  • ✒️ Term Paper Topics
  • 📖 Thesis Topics

⭐ World History Essay Prompts

❓ world history essay questions, 🌞 what are some good world history topics.

Choosing your perfect world history topic is a fascinating process. When choosing the best topic you must take into account several pieces of advice:

1. The topic must correspond with the goal of your work.

The title is dependent on the required format. Basically, your assignment determines how you’re going to write and how your topic should look like.

Essay formats demonstrate it best:

The argumentative essay differs from an opinion essay by the number of necessary viewpoints. In an opinion essay, the author gives their own opinion about a historical event or persona. In an argumentative one, it is vital to list several opinions on the subject.

Cause and effect essays contain an explanation of the event itself and its historical consequences. Persuasive essays should create an impression on the reader. Compare and contrast works should analyze and contrast historical events, figures, eras, etc.

Tip for essay writing regardless of the essay type.

Topics for your research paper must be specific to research one subject. Also, it should be possible to divide your paper into logical sections. Titles for term papers and theses must contain themes and periods familiar, engaging to a student. Plus, they should correlate with the format of your educational facility.

2. Topics must be logical and coherent.

When discussing history, there should be no inconsistencies. Always re-read and proofread your works before submitting them.

3. Your topic can be unusual if it’s justified.

If your idea isn’t standard, this can be an advantage to your paper. You may look at a historical event from a different point of view or find something unexplored before.

  • Advantages & Disadvatages of Biography or Memoir as a Source Memoirs have subsequently been used in recording of past accounts as Fowale points out.[1] Memoirs express the truth in history due to the fact that they are primary sources of evidence and as such the […]
  • The History of Cars The next natural thing that the inventors of the wheel did was to design the axle so that it could fit into the hole made in the centre of the wooden wheel.
  • Compare and Contrast the Totalitarian Regimes of Germany and the Soviet Union The two regimes had one political party that normally suppressed all the others claiming to represent the interest of the vast majority of their population.
  • Criteria of Significance in History Studies In order to appreciate and contextualize the importance of the past, it is crucial to consider how deeply people were affected by an event.
  • A History of Romantic Love The paper examines the history of love starting from the ancient times then to the medieval chivalry and finally the contemporary period.
  • World History: Is Competition Good? Proponents of competition assert that throughout history, the growth and development of human societies has always been a factor of competition.
  • Overview of the Scientific Revolution Periods The supporters of humanistic theory agree with the ideas of great influence of people on the development of science. The emergence of the Western culture has given rise to the development of new directions of […]
  • The Comparison of the Roman and the U.S. Senate First of all, one should mention that the institutions have to be responsible for limiting the power of political leaders. This is one of the tasks that the Roman Senate had to cope with.
  • Marriage and Adultery Laws of Emperor Augustus The laws were enacted to deal with marriage avoidance, the preference for childless unions, marriage of lower class women by the Roman elite, and adultery, all of which threatened the continuity of the Roman aristocracy.
  • History: Cultural Exchanges in the Medieval Period Based on an appreciation of the contribution of international trade to the growth and development of the medieval world, this paper explores the role of spice, salt, sugar, and silk as important trade commodities of […]
  • Imperialism in India By 1858, the British regained control and immediately passed the Government of India Act, which allowed the British Crown administrators to run the country instead of the British East India Company.
  • Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire The battle of Nicopolis also saw the empire expand into other regions of the European continent but later, other conquests such as the battle of Ankara, the conquest of Constantinople and the invasion of Otranto […]
  • Technological Change in the Industrial Revolution Just to sample the impact technological changes had on the general demographical patterns of England and Wales, a technological invention to improve the smelting of Coke saw the shift in population growth from the South […]
  • The Process of Production The hit of the industrial revolution in Europe and America in the 18th century led to a lot of changes and advancement in the production industry.
  • The Survival of the Sotho Under Moshoeshoe The survival of this group of people is attributed to the strong leadership of their king Moshoeshoe the Great that was necessitated by frequent cattle raids.
  • Historical Methodologies This approach sets to highlight the economic history of the society by examining the modes of production used in the society through time.
  • The Industrialization Era Aspects such as gender and race were rarely used to group people because a large proportion of the population was focused on taking advantage of industrialization.
  • Money and Its Value Throughout the World History What is important is the value that people place on whatever unit they refer to as amoney.’ Money acts as a medium of exchange and an element of measurement of the value of goods and […]
  • East Versus West The East usually refers to Asia and the Middle East while the West usually refers to Europe and the American continents. The East views the West with contempt in terms of how the Orient values […]
  • Communism and Capitalism Through the History In this system, the means of product and service production is mainly carried out and owned by the individuals instead of the government while communism also known as fascism is contrary to this where production […]
  • Has Nationalism Been a Unifying or Divisive Force During the 19th and 20th Centuries? It can therefore be said that colonial rule gave rise to the two forces of unifying nationalism and divisive tribalism and that the appropriate and legitimate framework for decolonization was nationalism, which emanated from the […]
  • Reflecting the Horrors of War People learn more about the horrors of war through literature but do not infer from experience they gain; the only way they apply the knowledge about the war is the development of more sophisticated weapon […]
  • History: Role of Knowing the Past The present is a myriad of events in the past. As a historian, the study of these preserved artifacts is important in knowing about the past.
  • Role of Cricket in Australia During the 1930s In spite of the evolution of a uniquely Australian cricket in the country, the mark of imperialism and Anglo dominance remained.
  • Modernism, Modernization and Modernity in Australia, 1919-1939 The figure of the ‘flapper’ and her mode of dressing initiated Australians quest for pleasure and changes in moral and social values and attitudes.
  • Meaning of History The main idea of the paper is to consider different points of view and various attitudes to the history meaning. Greek approach is one of the perspectives of the history.
  • Historical Primary Sources: Discussing and Comparing The charters and fueros, as well as the Digger Pamphlet, proves that the relations between poor and rich people had their own peculiarities and principles in different centuries and defined the quality of life according […]
  • How Did the Cold War Order of the Asia-Pacific Differ From That of Europe? The primary difference in the cold war order of the Asia-Pacific and that of Europe was instigated by the reason for security arrangements between the two regions.
  • The History of Catapults Technology Before 1850 Most of the other literatures detailing the use of the catapult claim that the inspiration came from the bow and sling, which is well known to be a popular weapon in the ancient times.
  • Australian Law and Native Title In particular, the Native Title became a custom will and at the same time, traditional law in order to bring equality and justice before the law.
  • History of the European Union The signing of the Lisbon Treaty on December 13, 2009, transformed the structure of the European Community, which was subsequently renamed the European Union.
  • The Cuban Missile Crisis: The Causes and Effects The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 in which the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the United States were involved was the turning point of the states’ confrontation in the Cold War because of risks to develop […]
  • Great Women Artists in the World History The first overreaching cause of the absence of great female artist throughout history was the subjugated position of women as a gender in the majority of societies.
  • Technology and Innovation: Western Civilization History The people living in the Western world were stuck in the innovation and technology that was available in the Medieval Age.
  • Moral Treatment of the Mental Illness Before the 19th Century confinement and use of mechanical restraints was prevalent mode of treatment for the patients who were mentally ill in many parts of the world.
  • Historical Facts of Australia Among those events that Australia considers most important politically, economically as well as socially are the establishment of the colony of New South Wales, the Victorian Gold Rushes, the Federation in 1901 and the Second […]
  • Postcolonialism and Diaspora in the World History Colonialism is the political ideology that legalizes the invasion, occupation, and exploitation of a given land by stronger states which use their military powers thus displacing the powers of the original inhabitants of the land.
  • Narragansett Indians Act of Submission 1644 The details of the act submission entail declaration of their loyalty to the King and offer their lives to the majesty.
  • World History: Globalization in the 1970s-2000s The period of the 1970s 2000s is the most vivid for understanding the impact of the process of globalization and changes in the world order.
  • Impacts of Slavery and Slave Trade in Africa Slavery existed in the African continent in form of indentured servitude in the previous years, but Atlantic slave trade changed the system, as people were captured by force through raids before being sold to other […]
  • World History: “Empire: A Very Short Introduction” by Stephen Howe It is irrefutable that the first chapter of the book is a vivid discussion of ancient territories and their influence in the development of modern empires.
  • Seven Weeks’ War Through the Lens of Clausewitz’s Paradoxical Trinity Concept Bismarck considered Austria as a potential ally and there were no need to waste combat power when the object was to neutralize the force of Austria, which followed the principles of Clausewitz’s paradoxical trinity exactly, […]
  • Short-Term and Long-Term Consequences of Removals for the Indigenous Children The authors make accents on the formal aspects of women’s socio-political organizations in Australia and connect their development with the progress of social movements associated with the problem of human rights in Australia from the […]
  • Concept of Studying History The use of calendars, dating events, and dividing history into different periods are the major tools used in the study of the past occurrences which help explain the present and foresee the future. A good […]
  • The Early Modern Age and Today’s World The activities of this era resulted in the interaction of people from different backgrounds and linked most parts of the world together.
  • The Industrial Revolution and Beyond: Culture, Work, and Social Change The Industrial Revolution is the era of massive enormous technological advancements and social changes, which affected people to the extent which is often contrasted to the change from hunter and gathering to agriculture.
  • Post-Cold War Challenges At the time when strained relations between the US and the Soviet Union ended, the financial systems of several countries, particularly those in Eastern Europe, were in the process of collapsing.
  • Enlightenment and Revolution: Europe, America, and India The main goals of enlightenment period were to gain freedom in all aspects of life like religion and government. They were based on the liberty and equality principles or else the rule of the people.
  • The Second Industrial Revolution and Its Social Consequence In as much as there was a lot of changes in terms of the institutions that were present; together with the environmental conditions surrounding the changes, the economic play was so relevant and of great […]
  • Industrial Revolution Significance The Industrial Revolution started in 1760, while the French revolution started in 1789 and ended in 1799. The Industrial Revolution was established in England in 1760 and lasted until the late 1840s.
  • Schelling and Kahn on the Deterrence Power Schelling proposed that the power of deterrence in the nuclear age is pegged not only on the equality or balance of the nuclear-possessing countries, but on the “stability of the balance”.
  • Plantation and Settler Colonies The British pressed the resident Americans out of their way to establish the settler and plantation colonies. In settler colonies, the safety and productiveness of women was crucial to the colonial practice.
  • Protestant Reformation and Enlightenment Certain ceremonies that demonstrated customary practices such as baptism and sacraments were abolished by the reformed churches, and this affected the lives of the people because the initial rituals used to shape the social lives […]
  • History of Modern South Africa Began With the Discovery of Diamonds and Gold Evidently the perception of South Africa as an overseas investment saw the exclusion of the locals in the participation of the mining business.
  • Influence of Japanese Culture in Hawaii From the census, it is clear that the culture and the cuisine Hawaii, which are known today, were created by the history of the migration of Japanese to Hawaii when they settled there to work […]
  • Revolution in Physics and Chemistry The urge to carry out a series of experiments and research led to the initiation and the ultimate breakthrough of chemical and physical revolution by ancient scientists.
  • The Beginning of Modern World Based on Science and Technology The utilities enjoyed in the modern world such as cell phones, computers and the internet can be credited to the work of scholars such as Charles Babbage, who was the first to conceive the idea […]
  • A Brief History of Chili Other theories have also suggested that it first spread from Portugal to India and to the rest of the world. Several theories have come up to describe the origin and distribution of chili throughout the […]
  • Patrick Manning’s Navigating World History Book In his book Navigating World History, Patrick Manning defines world history as a field of study that seeks to understand the connections and interactions between different regions and societies throughout human history.
  • Science and Technology in World History It was the beginning of a new way of thinking about the world and the universe and provided a framework for further advances in science and technology.
  • November 25th as a Day in the World History In addition to that, November 25, 1963, was the day of the state funeral of John F. It was the day of an attempt to set New York on fire, the day of the world […]
  • The Great Wall Street Crash in the World History The 1929 stock market crash was a breakdown of stock prices that led to the worst economic declines in the United States. One of the causes of the event was the speculation on the stock […]
  • Chapters 9-10 of Women in World History by Hughes Women were in charge of domestic chores and the planning and coordination of family gatherings. Dalit women were among the poorest in India, with a high percentage of illiteracy.
  • Chapters 3-4 of Women in World History by Hughes In this chapter of the book Women in World History, the Mughal rule and its consequences for women in conquered lands are discussed.
  • Chapter 1-2 of Women in World History by Hughes In addition, the Chinese government restricted the position of widows since they were forced either to live in the household of their late husband and take care of the family or to remarry, leaving all […]
  • England’s Colonies. World History Issues The English government established the so-called Virginia Company that was invested by the king and investors, but the company failed, and the colonies found themselves under the rule of the English government.
  • Importance of the Economic System to the World History The economic system is the essential structure in which the world functions. Economic socialism is where limited ownership of the means of production and a system of prices, losses, and profits are not used as […]
  • Themes in U.S. & World History The need for the African Americans to be treated like lawful United States citizens has been noted in the years preceding the slave trade.
  • World History From 1800 to Present The convergence of people from different parts of the world at the Atlantic basin, which acted as a global cultural and intellectual exchange centre, led to a wealth of knowledge1. The main causative factor for […]
  • World History: Gunpowder Technology Its adoption in Europe marked a significant milestone in terms of state development, as the use of gunpowder technology catalyzed the emergence of centralized states and the abolition of feudalism.
  • Empires in World History: How Empires Kept Their Ethnically Disparate and Geographically Distant Populations Under Control The article’s relevance is in its descriptions of the various rebellions in the empire and the methods used to suppress and prevent them.
  • Industrial Revolution World History: Factors That Helped to Develop the Industrial Revolution Currently, in the 21st century, the vast majority of the world population no longer needs to think of how to produce enough rice to survive the winter.
  • World History in The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx Communism is the political and economic teaching which goal is to abolish private property and a profit-based economy and introduce public ownership and communal control of the resources instead.
  • World History of 1890-1990 in Artifacts In the author’s eyes, every addition that man makes to the regulation of his environment to harness better productivity out of the environment brings certain implications with it that cannot be ignored and these implications […]
  • Islamic World History: Ottoman Empire & Qajar Iran In ancient times, leadership in some regions of the world was in the form of Empires and kingdoms that were ruled by Kings and queens.
  • Empires’ Success in Ancient World History They include The Roman empire, the Persian empire, Indian empire and the Parthian empire, there are also a lot of other empires that were also formed. The British empire was also able to withstand a […]
  • Early World History: Learning From Various Sources It is clear to everyone that the world had a long and complex way of transformation before it became similar to the world we live in now.
  • Events in the 1910s and Their Effect on the World History The most significant of these events was the sinking of the Lusitania after an attack by German U-boats, the Zimmerman telegraph that added insult to the injury caused to the U.S.by the sinking of the […]
  • Essential World History by Duiker & Spielvogel One of the greatest legacies of Greek civilization is their contribution to the development of arts and sciences. Christianity and its pacifism are also said to have killed the militantism of the Romans.
  • Historical Event: Hitler in the World History Taking into consideration the fact that the World War II and its appalling events are still remembered and feared of, I would really want to interfere with nature and erase from the history the day […]
  • Ideas of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao in World History To begin with, it is necessary to mention, that the Ideas of Lenin Stalin, and Mao have the same origin Marxism and the essence of communism stated in the communist manifesto by Marx.
  • French Revolution in World History The French revolution, in this part of the world at least, was the inspiration for all subsequent uprisings and revolts throughout Europe in the nineteenth century and its ideals, in part, are visible in many […]
  • Air Pollution and Its World History From the times of industrial revolution, smoke pollution was a concern and continues to be one with vehicles and industries replacing coal and wood.
  • Contributions of the Barbarians to Modern World History E, Charlemagne the Frankish King, Charles Martel of the Kingdom of Austrasia hailed for the Battle of Tours and many others.
  • World History to 1500: Civilizations and Monuments By the instant of the early era of the dynastic history of Egypt, individuals with adequate resources were hidden in mastabas which were in the form of bench structures.
  • Make-Up Throughout the World History In the Fiftiesweb website, the basis of any fifties make-up look is “peaches and cream complexion”. Make-up became more bold and daring in the 1960s.
  • Modern World History: Why Tsar Alexander II Great Man The reforms that Alexander II has carried out during the years of his reign allow him to be ranked as one of the great makers of modern Russia.”If the effect of Alexander’s reign is to […]
  • The Act of Torture in World History: Physical and Mental The concept and ethicality in terms of justifying torture are of crucial importance, especially nowadays in the light of the recent events regarding the terrorist attacks in the United States and in the United Kingdom.
  • Warfare and Culture in the World History For example, the impact of the war in literature is reflected through a method that authors choose to portray the events.
  • Power Acquisition and Balance: Modern World History In contrast to the ideas of Communism, Marxism stressed the victory of capitalism over feudalism and emphasized its role in the development of the economy.
  • Ecological Imperialism in World History Therefore, the impact of the conquest of America is that it led to the introduction of new diseases to different countries.
  • Voyages in World History Away from the impeccable works of art that characterize the palace, the palace also reveals the cultural and political aspects of the empire.
  • Ottoman Empire in World History The main reason for this is the fact that Britain had stakes in India, Egypt, and the Mediterranean all of which were under significant impact from the Ottoman Empire. The stability of the empire was […]
  • World History From the 20th to the 21st Century The ideology presupposed the elimination of the institution of the market as it had led, according to Marx, to the erosion of society and its segregation.
  • Western Dominance Decline in World History The Western civilization has clearly left a mark on the evolution of the humankind, spawning the changes of a tremendous scale in all domains of life, including the cultural, the political, the economic, and the […]
  • Money Development and Its Stages in World History Being the most powerful state in the world, the USSR did not manage to get rid of money, using labor as a currency and the authoritarian power to make people work.
  • Educational Material on World History The high school world history curriculum designed by Georgia Department of Education for the World History course of the state of Georgia is targeted at providing students with a comprehensive overview and study of the […]
  • World History in the Songs The high emphatic accent is made by the author through the description of murdering children of the miners. Through this song, the author reveals the absence of legal rights of the employees at the time […]
  • New Imperialism’ Role in the World History On balance, it is possible to note that the new imperialism was concerned with the desire to get access to resources and new markets.
  • Mi’kmaq and Saudi Arabia’s Native Communities The history of the Mi’kmaq communities explains how they were created by Glooscap. The Mi’kmaq communities were also spiritual.
  • Waitangi Treaty History: Intentions, Expected and Results Signed on February, 6, in 1840, it was supposed to signify the recognition of the rights of the M ori people to own the land of New Zealand, as well as the acceptance of Europe […]
  • Understanding the Events Participants’ Values However, despite the obvious significance of the family background and the specifics of personality, the analysis of historical background is crucial for understanding the values and moral principles of the people, who organized the event […]
  • Colonial Period of Australia’s History Though colonial Australia is traditionally represented as the location for the European convicts to serve their sentence, whereas little light is shed on the conflict between the local people and the colonialists, the armed resistance […]
  • Communism Collapse in the USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was one of the earliest communist societies to embrace the ideologies of communism. The collapse of communism in the USSR began in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin […]
  • New York and Bombay History From 1500 to the XX Century 4 In the case of New York, it is early settlers who initiated a range of economic activities, mostly related to trade, but for Bombay, the main economic activity of early settlers was not trade, […]
  • The History of the Silk Road Islamization Muslims used the word ‘Islam’ to mean the submission of a community to the authority of another community; it did not mean the spread of their beliefs.
  • “Traditions and Encounters” by J. Bentley Migrations of tribes and nations around the region led to the spreading of knowledge in the spheres of farming and metallurgy.
  • Ireland History and Development 8 million people live in the Republic of Ireland while the rest inhabit Northern part of Ireland and is part of the United Kingdom.
  • The Christian Commonwealth of Byzantium The success of the Roman Empire’s eastern half depended on such aspects as the strategic geographical position of Constantinople as the capital city, the centralized authority based on the principle of caesaropapism, the power of […]
  • The Medieval and Renaissance Periods Description The medieval age lasted between the fifth and the fifteenth century in Europe and it started with the collapse of the Roman Empire.
  • Revolution in the Middle East In spite of the injustices experienced by the citizens in the Middle East, their leaders said that the countries were not similar to Tunisia.
  • World History: The Roman Empire Understanding the document first requires one to understand the historical background of the Roman Empire: the formation of the Republic and its collapse.
  • History: Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site Under Authority records, you will find the document “The Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site” The Fortress of Louisbourg document like any other historical manuscript seeks to create an understanding of the events that led […]
  • History in “Empire: A Very Short Introduction” by Stephen Howe In the very beginning of his book, the author emphasizes that the influences and connections between the empires and the territories they colonized and owned in the past keep lasting decades and even centuries the […]
  • The Mayan Civilization History In the 17th century, the kingdom dubbed the Mayan society comprised of influential cities that covered both north of Honduras and south of Mexico.
  • History: French Operations in Algeria 1954-1962 Fig 1: Map of Algeria with Tunisia on its North East Border The intense and brutal campaign undertaken by French forces to counter the FLN network of terror contributed to the failure of France in […]
  • World History: Enlightenment in Society A new intellectual force was realized in the fields of literature, science, art, and music during the German enlightenment era. It is also crucial to mention that additional emphasis was laid in the study of […]
  • History: Evolution of the Scientific Revolution The onset of the scientific revolution is associated with Copernican technical inventions of 1543 and the discovery of motion science by Galileo.
  • “History and Topography of Ireland” by Gerald of Wales Gerald of Wales states that the beginning of the Irish history happened with the arrival of Cesara, the daughter of Noah, to the shores of that land.
  • History: The Imperial Succession Problem The establishment of the imperial family in Russia was promulgated by Emperor Paul I in the fundamental laws of the Russian Empire.
  • Nomadic Pastrolism History During the thirteenth century, Chinggis Khan forged the tribes of the Mongol into an alliance that builds the largest empire in the world.
  • Australia’s Transformation and Change Between 1850-1945 There was a great number of people who traveled to Australia in search of gold, and this led to an even greater increase in the population.
  • History: The French Declaration of 1789 The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen is regarded as the main document produced by the French Revolution.
  • History of the Indian Castes The aim of this essay is to describe the system of castes in India as well as to characterize the diversity of Indian society. In general, the caste system in India represents the stratified hierarchy […]
  • The Communism History: Red Scare and McCarthyism Facts The quote means that the world was afraid of a new World war to happen; this is why the most powerful states of the planet became very suspicious of each other.”The climate of fear and […]
  • Political Background of the Nagasaki Bombing On the other hand, Japan was ready to negotiate for peace with the Allies, but the country’s top administration was uncomfortable with the call for ‘unconditional surrender.’ This paper explores the political background of the […]
  • Money as an Emerging Market Phenomenon According to the principle of finance, money has a higher value in the present as opposed to the future because it can earn interest, which makes it worthwhile.
  • Ordinary People’s Involvement in Politics In addition, the receptive nature and openness attitude of the Mongols eased the Europeans exploration of the Asian region in the 15th century.
  • Muslims Increase and the Spread of Islam Also, the paper will highlight the reasons that have hampered the spread of Islam in the US and in the modern world.
  • The Significance of Scientific Revolution in Our History People used religion to explain the happenings of and within the universe by viewing the universe as godly beginning with nothing to do with scientific development.
  • Scientific Thought Through the History In France, Voltaire and colleagues struggled to enlighten the society that strongly held the culture of church and monarchy.d’Alembert, Montesquieu, and Pierre were some of the arebellious’ who supported Voltaire in the campaign for freedom […]
  • Concepts of the Penal Laws: The Popery Acts 1695-1756 Penal laws sought to continue the supremacy of the Church of England over Roman Catholics and nonconformist Protestants. Nevertheless, many Catholics in Ireland lost property and land at the expense of penal laws.
  • America and Britain Strategies The cultural, intellectual, and religious existence observed in most of the British colonies significantly changed from the fiscal 1700 to 1750.
  • Expeditions of Europeans Sailors to New Lands This chapter also reveals the impact of sailors and explorers and how their actions led to the exploitation of resources and the establishment of colonial administration in these territories.
  • Features of World Dominance in 1500 and 1800 Years During 1500-1800, religion influences the political situation, the development of social groups, the whole social situation within the country, and the culture and morality of the public.
  • Cortes and Machiavelli’s Type of Conquest Using Christianity as a decoy, he found his way up to the top and succeeded in overthrowing Montezuma, who had been previously doubtful of being outnumbered by Cortes’ men.
  • World History: the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal Empires Conquest of the new territories and taking over the lands of other tribes and people has been the main strategy of spreading power and influence of the Empires.
  • Feedback Control: An Invisible Thread in the History of Technology The invention of the mechanical clock towards the end of the 13th century led to a remarkable accuracy and reliability in the measurement of time.
  • History of Abolishing Slavery The abolishment of slavery in Britain empires and the involvement of the British in preaching against slavery contributed immensely towards the end of slavery in the United States and France.
  • The Post World War II Nuclear Arms Race Costs The nuclear arms race led to a monumental increase in the military expenditure of the US and the Soviet Union.
  • Transformation and Change in Australia In the year 1870, the expansion of the suburban settlement had absorbed the bulk of a rapid and sustained growth of the colonial population.
  • The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia The Europeans came and took over the land of the Aboriginal people and even adopted their methods of farming. According to Tony Stephens who reviewed the book by Gammage, the author’s aim was to inform […]
  • Movement Against the British Rule in India Between 1920 and 1922 there was a non-cooperation movement that was organized by the Indians against the British rule. The movement also had an issue with the Indian soldiers that died during the World War […]
  • Ethnographic State in India He stated that their ignorance of the customs and beliefs of the Indian people had a hit against the British and that this had resulted to a distant loss of administrative power to British government.
  • Major Impacts of Consumerism in Contemporary World History This was spread to the rest of the world. Consumerism has necessitated the need to have advanced methods of doing business because products must be delivered to the market in mass, in time and of […]
  • “The Dead Hand” by David E. Hoffman After the end of the cold war and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, there were still huge amounts of nuclear weapons that left on the face of the earth.
  • The Case of American Involvement in the Philippines Insurrection and the French in Algeria Similarities The French military involvement in Algeria during the counterinsurgency displayed a couple of similarities and differences with the tactics that the American forces used in countering the insurgency in Philippine.
  • History of Empires in Past and Modern World During the 16th and 17th century, the Spanish empire was one of the strongest empires in the world. Later on, during the 19th and 20th century, the British Empire became the largest and strongest empire […]
  • Revolution: America and France Between 1775 and 1815, a revolution was witnessed in warfare that corresponded with the advent of American and French revolutions. Military personnel were made to take a new oath of commitment to France and unwilling […]
  • Constructing Boundaries: Five Famous Walls In this essay, I will discuss five walls, namely: The Hadrian wall The Great wall of China The Berlin wall which separated East Germany from west Germany Moroccan wall The Maginot line between the border […]
  • The Role of the Cold War in Shaping Transatlantic Relations in the Period 1945 to 1970 It was considered to give a connotation to the international structure throughout the cold war and could work as a dynamic aspect in generating the dynamics of the east-west conflict.
  • Contribution of Empiricism and Rationalism to the Emergence of the Scientific Perspective in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries This paper seeks to critically discuss the contribution of empiricism and rationalism to the emergence of the scientific perspective in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
  • Michigan Newspapers’ Biased Coverage of Jewish Persecution in Germany In the period of 1933-1939, which encompasses Hitler’s rise to power that saw a sustained persecution of Jews in Germany and the pogroms, which culminated in the Night of The Broken Glass, the reception of […]
  • The Relationship Between the Rubber Boom and the Second Industrial Revolution The practical use of rubber was not well developed until 1800s when the first rubber factory was built in the United Kingdom, France and the United States increasing the demand of the product in the […]
  • Issues that Affected the History of Australia and the Aborigines As a result of the diversity of the communities of the Aborigines, there are historical differences in the cultural practices of the people.
  • Lessons From the Great Depression and Postwar Global Economy: A Critical Analysis The economic slump that hit industrialized economies of the world, starting in the U.S.and later spreading to Europe, began in earnest in 1929 and lasted until about 1941, making it the longest and most ruthless […]
  • Lessons Learned From the History of the Marshall Plan About the Importance of the USA in the Process of European Integration Suffice to say most of the countries exceeded the developments targets by the end of the plan in 1952. To make this possible the US made it known to the Europeans that the efforts to […]
  • Key Factors That Led To Reversal of the Accelerating Acquisition of Nuclear Weapons in the Eighties The end of the 1980 marked a new beginning in world history, with insurmountable efforts getting a boost from the talk associated with the then President of the United States, Ronald Reagan.
  • Misperceptions and the Cold War After the WW II, the America rose to become the most powerful nation in the world, however, the USSR perceived this negatively, which resulted into fierce rivalry between the two nations and the war hang […]
  • Cuban Missile Crisis Management The US administration of the time believed that Moscow’s activities in Cuba were a threat to International security, hence; the ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba enhanced a major security blow to the leadership of United […]
  • The Role of Sea Power in International Trade
  • Showdown Between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
  • The Problem of Slavery in Africa
  • French and Spanish Conquests
  • New Imperialism and Politics 1850 and 1914
  • Impacts of the First World on British Policies in India
  • Total War in Modern World History
  • History of Soviet Union and America in 20th Century
  • The First World War’s Aftermath
  • The Perfect Machine: Building the Palomar Telescope
  • The West: Encounters and Transformations
  • Aboriginal Imagery and Policy in Australia
  • The Colonial War in Southwest Africa
  • Purposes of Historical Reenacting
  • The First Industry Revolution: A Description of Impacts
  • The Onset of the Cold War
  • The Book The Age of Empire
  • Human Rights in History Teaching
  • The Social Labor Movement as an Important Political Force
  • Atomic Audit: Nuclear Posture Review
  • History: Imperialistic Inclinations of European Countries
  • Fischer on Historical Fallacies
  • Conquest and Colonization of America by Europeans Countries
  • Historical Political Event: The Marshall Plan
  • The Ottoman Military and Political Organization
  • Imperialism History and Legacy
  • Using Science and Technology as the Measure, When Did the Modern World Begin?
  • The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings by Olaudah, Equiano
  • King Leopold’s Ghost: European Power Crimes in Congo
  • Congo’s Brutal History of Conflict
  • Parallels Between the Revolutions of 1848 and Arab Revolutions
  • Beginnings of British Colonization of America
  • Conflicts in the World
  • Indifference Has Robbed Generations of Our History
  • Cold War Politics, Culture and Wars
  • Social Consequences of Industrial Revolution
  • Impact of the United States on Europe During 1945-1990
  • Documented Journalism: Black Death
  • Mexican and Russian Revolution: Comparative Analysis
  • The Origins of Fascism’s Brutal Ideology
  • The History of the 9/11 Decade
  • Industrial Revolution in Various Sectors of the Economy
  • Technological Catastrophe: Titanic in 1912
  • Factors That Explain Britain’s Total Domination of India During the First One Hundred Years of British Rule
  • Mad and Depressed Women in America
  • Economic Factors That Explain Britain’s Total Domination of India During the First One Hundred Years of British Rule
  • British Dominion in India
  • British Policy and the Indian Mutiny
  • How New Imperialism Was Shaped
  • Ottoman Empire: The Tanzimat Period
  • Why the West Rules
  • The Consequences of Interaction in Cultures and Civilizations
  • Political Organizations Through the History
  • British Involvement in the Atlantic Slave Trade
  • Major Historical Vents: Evolution or Revolution
  • Modernization Poised Between History and Prophecy
  • Would Macimilien de Robespierre Have Supported America’s War With Iraq?
  • How Did the Gold Rushes Change Colonial Australia?
  • The Impact of Racial Thought on the Aboriginal People in Relation to Australian History
  • World War II as the Most Devastating War in World History
  • The Merits and Pitfalls of Using Memoir or Biography as Evidence for Past Events
  • Imperialism and Modernization
  • The Protestant Church Reformation
  • Human Interactions in the Americas During the 16th and the 17th Century
  • Battles and Wars Through the History
  • Australian Aborigines Genocide
  • First Draft of Policeman of the World Paper
  • Comparing and Contrasting three Versions of Slavery
  • The Perils of Imperialism: Through the Lens of History
  • Western Industrialization Socio-Economic Impacts
  • History of Indigenous People in Australia
  • Why Were Some Countries More Successful in Responding to the Challenge of European Imperialism Than Others?
  • The Ottoman Empire: A Political, Social, and Economic Description and Its Relationship to Western Europe
  • Picasso and His Paintings in the Modern World History
  • Concept of Imperial Powers in History
  • Colonization: Why Africa Suffers
  • The Role of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great in Modernizing Russia
  • Diffusion of Water as the Important Factor in the Development Egypt and in United States
  • The Great Depression’ Influence on the World
  • Islam, Democracy and the West Summary
  • Colonialism in North America
  • The Global Economic Recession of the United States
  • A Comparative Perspective: African Slave Trade and Spanish Rule in Peru
  • Turning the Course of History Back: The Questions Which Have Been Left Unanswered
  • Eurasian Region: Developing Global Trade
  • Influence of Imperialism on World Cultures
  • Comparison Between Chinese and Spanish Colonialism
  • Global Developments that Affect State Sovereignty and Territoriality
  • Origins of the Cold War
  • The Causes of the First World War
  • Chapter Review: The Epic First Voyage
  • East Meets West: Culture Differences
  • NATO: From Creation to Current Status
  • History of the Australian Referendum During the 1967
  • The 1972 Munich Olympics
  • Calvino’s Perspective on the World History
  • World History: A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin
  • The Revolutionary Struggle in European Countries and America
  • Global Evolution in “Midaq Alley” by Mahfouz Naguib
  • The Atlantic Slave Trade: Causes, Operation, and Effects
  • Human Interaction and Cultural Exchange in the Sixteenth Century
  • Cultural Exchange Through Trade in the Sixteenth Century
  • Middle East Studies in Fromkin’s A Peace to End All Peace
  • The Cold War Between the United States and the Soviet Union
  • Impact of Industrialization and Colonization on Both the British and Indian People
  • Empire by Purchase or Lease
  • Influence of Nationalism and Communism on the Non-Western World
  • History of Indigenous Australians before the Arrival of the First Fleet
  • Age of Enlightenment: The Rebirth of Europe
  • The Major Causes of the Cold War Between the Soviet Union and the United States
  • Reasons of the Cold War Between the Soviet Union and the US
  • History of Law
  • The Issue of the Partitioning of India Into India and Pakistan in 1947
  • The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History Book
  • The Constant Change in Human History Since 1500
  • The Floating Threat: Somali Filibusters and the World Safety
  • Industrialism, Progress or Decline
  • Violence From Cultural Ideals, Politics, and Religion
  • How Capitalism Beat Communism/Socialism
  • Overview on the World’s History
  • History to the 18th Century
  • The Middle East and World History: 1850 – 2001
  • The Ottoman-Turks and the Third Empire: They Came, they Saw, They Conquered
  • The Ottoman Empire’s Policies Against Secessionist Minorities During the Period of 1820-1918
  • The American vs. French Revolution: Ideals Matter
  • History of NATO in 20th and 21th Centuries
  • Decolonization or Nationalistic Self-Determination Movements
  • David Birmingham’s “The Decolonization of Africa”
  • Ottoman and Safavid Empire
  • Historical Causes and Effects

📋 Ultimate World History Essay Topics List

Here you’ll find the historical topics we prepared for you. We divided the list into four sections to ease your studies.

✍ World History Essay Questions

Essay questions can help you to brainstorm ideas and write a comprehensive paper. Here you will find the best world history essay topics.

  • What defines a civilization?
  • How and why did the first civilizations appear in the Middle East? Explore geopolitical conditions that allowed these civilizations to thrive.
  • What led Greek and Phoenician civilizations to their initial success in the Mediterranean?
  • Why was the Mediterranean considered the center of the world in Antiquity?
  • What were the leading powers of the early Antiquity? Explore the reasons behind their success.
  • How did Ancient Rome rise to power on the Apennine peninsula?
  • Why did the Qin dynasty emerge victorious from the Warring States period in Ancient China?
  • How did Rome defeat Carthage? Explain how Romans eventually prevailed over the superior Carthaginian fleet.
  • How did the Roman military system evolve?
  • Why is the Han period considered the golden age in Chinese history?
  • What were the factors that led to the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire?
  • How Chinese technology advanced during the Three Kingdoms period?
  • What events caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire? Explore why and how the Eastern Roman Empire survived in these uneasy times.
  • How can you describe the Early Middle Ages?
  • How did Islam arise in the Arabian peninsula?
  • What are the events that caused a split of Islamic religion into Sunnis and Shias? Delve into other branches of Islam that were created at that time.
  • How did Christianity rise in the Middle East?

The Middle East is the birthplace of Christianity.

  • What events led to the division of the Roman Empire into the Western and Eastern?
  • Why were the Islamic conquests so successful?
  • Why was the Islamic world so prosperous in both riches and culture?
  • Why did Europe become obsessed with the idea of Crusades to the Holy Land?
  • How did the Crusades affect Christian and Muslim nations?
  • What were the consequences of the Black Plague?
  • How did Europe eventually rise from the Dark Ages into the Age of Renaissance? Analyze factors that define the Renaissance.
  • What events caused Europeans to begin the Age of Discovery?
  • What philosophical ideas led to the Age of Enlightenment?
  • What was the cause of the American Revolution? Explore the events that defined it.
  • What was the cause of the French Revolution? Explore the events that defined it.
  • How did Napoleonic wars shape XIXth century Europe and affected the modern world we live in?
  • What were the reasons behind the Cold War?
  • Why were there so many proxy wars in the XXth century? Dive into the details and reasons behind them.
  • Why did European nations increase their colonization efforts? Analyze and compare colonial nations and their impact on modern-day Africa.

Europeans explored and colonized for gold, glory, and God.

  • What was the general picture of the world at the dawn of the XXth century?
  • What ideologies emerged at the end of the XIXth century?
  • Why is World War I so important?
  • How is World War I connected to World War II?
  • What is a Bipolar World term? Investigate its origins and characteristics.
  • Why did the United States of America lose the Vietnam War? Explore the events that led to the withdrawal of the US forces from Vietnam.
  • Soviet-Afghan War: Soviets’ Vietnam? Explain why the Soviet Union was largely unsuccessful in the Soviet-Afghan War. Elaborate why many historians draw parallels between America’s defeat in Vietnam and the Soviets’ defeat in Afghanistan.
  • Why did the USSR fall apart? Explain the complications behind its political and economic system.

🧐 World History Research Paper Topics

World history is full of fascinating events. They should be analyzed and researched to discover new facts about them.

Below, you’ll find the best world history topics for research:

  • King Gilgamesh. His personality and deeds. Why is he still a popular character today?
  • The leading nations of the Bronze Age.
  • The personality of Julius Caesar and his effect on Rome .
  • Family institute in Ancient Rome. Dive into the ordinary life of Roman citizens and explore the structure of a Roman family.
  • Circus Maximus in Rome .
  • Jewish tribes and kingdoms of the Bronze Age.

Israel first appears shortly before the Bronze Age collapse.

  • The expansion of Indo-European languages.
  • Ancient Greek civilization history .
  • The dominance of Athens and Sparta over other Greek city-states.
  • Alexander the Great: Western civilization .
  • The kings of Ancient Egypt .
  • The origins of Roman imperialism . Explain how Rome conquered the world and the consequences of its dominance.
  • Engineering in the Roman Empire. Analyze what engineering solutions Rome used to dominate culturally, politically, and militarily.
  • The personality of Constantine the Great and his deeds.
  • The Dark ages as the golden ages of European History .
  • Abbasid Caliphate: The age of Muslim Enlightenment.
  • Women in World War II .
  • Denazification of Germany after World War II. Explore the means of Germany’s denazification efforts after World War II and their effectiveness.
  • Espionage of the Cold War. How the USSR and the USA spied on each other.
  • The anti-war movement and American views on the Vietnam War .
  • Iraq and Afghanistan wars impact on the USA’s economy .
  • The War of Spanish Succession. Talk about one of the crucial periods of European history and explain why Spain’s global power started to decline.
  • The Caribbean and the golden age of pirates in the XVIIIth century.
  • American Civil War and its impact on American society.
  • Japanese Revolution and the Meiji Restoration in Japan.
  • T.E. Lawrence and his efforts to create an independent Arab World. Explore the personality of Thomas Edward Lawrence and his life.
  • The effect of new ideologies on Europe and the Americas.

✒ World History Term Paper Topics

A term paper is a research done on a specific subject. Students are usually assigned to this task at the beginning or the middle of the semester. It should test their comprehension of a subject and their ability to analyze. However, choosing the right topics for world history can prove difficult.

Here you’ll find the best ideas for your research:

  • Region of Ancient Mesopotamia. Sumerian and Akkadian civilizations.
  • The rise of Babylonian and Assyrian empires.
  • Cultural and trade connections between Rome and Ancient China.
  • Law and Order in Rome.
  • Life and death of Prophet Muhammad. His influence on the minds of Arab tribes.
  • Psychological impacts of Christianity and Islam on the Medieval world.
  • The era of Holy Crusades. Analyze their goals and impact.
  • Means of Warfare and violence in ancient times.
  • Life and Death in Ancient Egypt. Explain the life of different classes in the Old Kingdom, their religious beliefs, warfare, civil life, etc.
  • How did the conquests of Alexander the Great affect the ancient world?

Many of the cities that Alexander founded were named Alexandria.

  • Medicine and spiritualism in Ancient Rome.
  • Women’s roles in the societies of Early Antiquity.
  • Art in Rome and Greece. The pinnacle of human thought.
  • The birth of modern sports in Ancient Rome.
  • King Richard I and Saladin. A rivalry between great leaders. Analyze and compare the personalities of both Richard I and Saladin, describe their relationship.
  • The Black Death, the Late Medieval demographic crises, and the standard of living controversies.
  • Weapons and warfare of the Medieval Era. Analyze weapons and means of warfare in the Medieval Era, their use, and evolution.
  • Reconquista of Spain and Age of Discovery. Talk about these events and explain their connection.
  • Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Reasons behind its spread across the Empire.
  • Religious customs of the Roman Empire and its successors.
  • The rise of the Sassanid Empire. Its political system, military, and Parthian heritage.
  • The religion of Islam. Geopolitical reasons behind the rise of Islam in the Arabian peninsula.
  • The Borgia family. Their impact on Renaissance Italy.
  • Great Italian painters of the Renaissance. Study and analyze their characters, works, relations with influential families and the Pope.
  • Qing Empire: the last dynasty of China.
  • Technological military advancements of the XVII-XVIII centuries. Spanish Tercio and invention of the flintlock.
  • Rise of the Russian Empire and Peter I. Dive into events that lead to the creation of the Russian empire and Peter I character.
  • Liberty! The American Revolution . Dive into the exciting period of American history that defined the nation. Explore precursors and main events of the American Revolution.
  • The World Wars of the XXth century and their influence on the modern world.
  • The post World War II nuclear arms race .

📚 World History Thesis Topics

Writing a thesis is one of the most challenging and crucial tasks a student can have. For this paper, you spend years researching, writing, and perfecting your paper. So, choosing the right topic is essential.

See intriguing and well-composed major topics of world history worthy of your time and energy below:

  • The samurai of Japan: why were they so effective? Explore the rich and mesmerizing military history of Japan. Remember to talk about the rise of Feudalism and samurais, their role in Sengoku Jidai, and the abolition of this warrior class in the modern era.
  • Trail of Tears and the tragedy of Native American people. Explain why the United States government was forcefully relocating Native American tribes and the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Talk about the hardships on that journey.
  • History of Earth’s Electrification. Present a detailed overview of electricity’s history and scientists who contributed to its development.
  • The importance of the Crusades. Analyze their influence and the Christian and Muslim worlds.

Crusades were organized by western European Christians.

  • The Gold Rush of the XIXth century. Analyze the roots of the Gold Rush around the world and the USA. Discuss how miners seeking their fortune contributed to San Francisco’s rapid growth and creation of the Californian Dream .
  • The Automobile. A case study of the automotive industry. Discuss the first car prototypes and their creators who pioneered the industry. Remember to talk about the first automotive companies and their innovations.
  • Oil. The Black gold of the XXth century. Talk about the discovery of oil and how it eventually became a strategic resource. Explore fiery competition between the first oil tycoons.
  • African American involvement in the Vietnam War. A case study. Talk about African Americans in the Vietnam War and the extent of inequality they had to deal with.
  • The tragedy of Afghan wars. How the Soviet’s invasion of Afghanistan led to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Dive into Afghanistan’s history to analyze their perseverance against foreign occupation. Talk about the CIA and Saudi involvement in the Soviet-Afgan war, the creation of the mujahideen and the Taliban.
  • Trench warfare in World War I. Provide detailed characteristics, origins, and reasons behind the trench warfare doctrine in World War I.

In World War I, trenches became a fundamental part of the strategy.

  • The impact of World War II on the global political landscape. Analyze the political and economic consequences of the Second World War.
  • The Cuban Missile Crisis. A case study of the biggest Soviet-American standoff. Analyze political motifs behind one of the darkest events in human history and use sources on nuclear warfare to speculate what would have happened, if the situation had had not deescalated.
  • Vietnam Anti War of the 1960s. Describe anti-war movements across the United States in the 1960s and the hippie counterculture as a way to oppose the war.

Now you’ve chosen one of the topics on world history to write about. But how do you start the actual paper? How to compose an entertaining and informative essay? How to get both a good mark and respect from your professor?

If you follow several simple and solid rules listed below, you’ll have no problem beginning a good paper. Each piece of advice is explained in detail for your convenience.

Essay structure consists of an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

To start a comprehensive paper:

  • Determine what ideas you want to discuss in a paper. Think about the key ideas you want to mention in your essay. They will determine the general outline of your work, making it easier for the reader to follow.
  • Find good evidence (use reliable sources). Reliable and comprehensive sources are crucial for a historical paper. Try to be skeptical of its neutrality and remember to cross-check everything. Search for reliable secondary and primary sources and carefully check the facts if the data is ambiguous. You’ll never find a completely unbiased source, as every historian has some personal opinion on the subject.
  • Make an outline. Even when you don’t struggle with the body of your paper, outline your work. You will waste less energy with a general plan.
  • Introduce your topic. Make your introduction concise and explicit. You should catch the reader’s attention with a hook. Avoid using vague statements and facts.
  • Compose a clear thesis statement. A good thesis determines whether your whole work is going to succeed or not. Make sure you answer the main question of your paper and present your perspective on a subject. After stating your thesis, elaborate on it in every paragraph.
  • Analyze the information. So many students tend to make the mistake of retelling instead of analyzing the event. Of course, some context is necessary to give the idea of an event but never go too far with it. Analyze the found information before writing it down.
  • Don’t abuse your sources and quote reasonably. If the majority of your work consists of excerpts from your sources, you are in trouble. Quotes cannot exceed 10-15% of the total word count. Use them within reason to prove your point. Remember, your analysis is the key aim of your paper.
  • Start beforehand. Never postpone your term/thesis/research paper. The sooner you start—the better.
  • Use writing prompts. Find examples or prompts to rely on, writing a history paper for the first time. You can use our prompts to start your essay.

A writing prompt provides a potential topic idea of an essay.

  • Alexander the Great’s conquests should be accredited to his father Philip II, as he was the original creator of the mighty Macedonian phalanx. Do you agree with that statement? What can you say about Philip’s actions to modernize his army and state? Plan and write an essay in which you compare and contrast.
  • The fall of the Roman Empire was inevitable. Internal complications played a bigger role in Rome’s downfall than external ones. Do you agree with that statement? What can you say about Rome’s political system in the Late Antiquity?
  • Tatar-Mongol Yoke of Russia was a centuries-long symbiosis of the two cultures. Russians gained more things than lost from the Yoke. Do you agree with that statement? What can you say about Russian state affairs under the Yoke?
  • The Fall of Constantinople sparked the Age of Discovery and Renaissance in Europe. Do you agree with that statement? Describe Europe’s reaction to the Fall of Constantinople.
  • If France and Britain did not cripple Germany with reparations after the end of World War I, the Second World War would not have happened. Do you agree with that statement? Talk about the aforementioned reparations and why they played a role in Germany’s ideological radicalization.

Writing prompts can help you to develop your writing style and turn into a more mature writer.

Thank you for reading our article. We sincerely hope that this ultimate list of world history topics will assist in preparing and writing your perfect paper. Share it with other people who might need some guidance for their studies.

  • How Versailles Treaties Shaped World History?
  • What Are the Six Major Time Periods of World History?
  • What Are the Seven Concepts of World History?
  • How the Middle Ages Changes in History Impacted World History?
  • How the Arab Spring Changed the World History?
  • How Did the Renaissance Influence Europe and World History?
  • How Can a Discipline of World History Remain Relevant?
  • Why Is the Year 1968 Considered as Unique Year in World History?
  • What Is President Truman’s Impact on World History?
  • Where Does the World History Begin?
  • What Is American Revolution’s Effects on World History?
  • What Are the Sources of World History?
  • Why Is the Black Death Pandemic Was Important for World History?
  • Who Is Called the Father of World History?
  • Why Is the French Revolution Has So Much Impact on World History?
  • What Were the Consequences of Roman Empire’s Fall for World History?
  • What Is the Difference between Global History and World History?
  • What Role Did Cross-Cultural Trade Play in World History?
  • What Is the Balance of Power in the Context of World History?
  • Were Gender Issues Always a Problem in World History?
  • What Are the Five C’s of World History?
  • What Do Polyethnicity and National Unity Mean in World History?
  • What Place Did the Turks Take in World History?
  • What Is the Rise of the West in World History in 1500-1850?
  • What Does Consumerism Mean in World History?
  • What Are the Axial Civilizations in World History?
  • What Are the Five Theories of World History?
  • What Was the Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh in World History?

🔗 References

  • World History Topics: Newspapers.com
  • 100 Good Research Paper Topics for History Class: Jule Romans, Owlcation
  • Hot Topics in World History: World History Center, University of Pittsburgh
  • Writing a Good History Paper: Writing Resources, Hamilton College
  • Writing a Thesis and Making an Argument: History, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, The University of Iowa
  • How to Write a Research Paper: David R. Caprette, Rice University
  • How to Write a Research Question: The Writing Center, George Mason University
  • Guidelines For Term Papers: Donald Simanek’s Page
  • Beginning the Academic Essay: Patricia Kain, for the Writing Center at Harvard University
  • How To Write Academic Papers, A Comprehensive Guide: The College Puzzle.html
  • Before You Start Writing That Paper…: Student Learning Center, Berkeley University of California
  • Chicago (A-D)
  • Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, March 1). 433 Brilliant World History Topics, Essay Prompts & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/world-history-essay-topics/

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "433 Brilliant World History Topics, Essay Prompts & Examples." March 1, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/world-history-essay-topics/.

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History help

Global History Essay Topics

Looking for an essay topic on global history? Check out this list of 150 potential topics covering a wide range of historical periods and geographical locations. From the rise and fall of empires to the impact of religion on history, there’s something here for everyone. And you can always count on our history essay writer to guide you on your way to writing the essay, which will give you the best mark in the class!

100 Global History Topics

  • The Crusades
  • The Black Death
  • The Mongol Empire
  • The Renaissance
  • The Reformation
  • The Age of Exploration
  • The French Revolution
  • The Industrial Revolution
  • The American Revolution
  • The Korean War
  • The Vietnam War
  • The Cold War
  • The Gulf War
  • The War on Terror
  • The Arab Spring
  • The Syrian Civil War
  • The Ukraine Crisis
  • The European migrant crisis
  • The Brexit referendum
  • The rise of ISIS
  • The Charlie Hebdo shooting
  • The November 2015 Paris attacks
  • The Orlando nightclub shooting
  • The November 2016 U.S. presidential election
  • The Dakota Access Pipeline protests
  • The Battle of Aleppo
  • The Battle of Mosul
  • The Rohingya refugee crisis
  • The Las Vegas mass shooting
  • The Parkland school shooting
  • The 2018 FIFA World Cup
  • The Syrian chemical weapons attack
  • The 2018 U.S.-Mexico border separation policy
  • The 2018 Men’s FIFA World Cup
  • The 2020 coronavirus pandemic
  • The 2020 U.S. presidential election
  • The Black Lives Matter movement
  • The #MeToo movement
  • The 2017 Unite the Right rally
  • The 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting
  • The 2017 Manchester Arena bombing
  • The 2017 London Bridge attack
  • The Finsbury Park mosque attack
  • The 2017 Charlottesville car attack
  • The Christchurch mosque shootings
  • The Sri Lanka Easter bombings
  • The 2019 Delhi riots
  • The 2019–20 Hong Kong protests
  • The 2020 Beijing coronavirus outbreak
  • The 2020 George Floyd protests
  • The 2020 Belarusian protests
  • The 2020 United States presidential election
  • The January 6, 2021 storming of the United States Capitol
  • The COVID-19 pandemic
  • The 2020–21 Australian bushfires
  • The 2020–21 Western Saharan protests
  • The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
  • The 2020 Yemen war
  • The 2020 Ethiopian–Somali conflict
  • The 2020 Kivu Ebola outbreak
  • The 2019–2021 Cameroonian protests
  • The 2020 global economic recession
  • The 2021 storming of the United States Capitol
  • The 2021 Myanmar coup d’état
  • The 2021 military coup in Zimbabwe
  • The 2020–21 Russian protests
  • The 2020–2021 Kuwaiti protests
  • The 2021 Sudanese coup d’état
  • The 2020–2021 Libyan conflict
  • The 2020 Minsk Agreement
  • The Second Libyan Civil War
  • The 2014 Libyan Civil War
  • The 2011 Egyptian Revolution
  • The 2010–2011 Tunisian Revolution
  • The 2009 Iranian Green Movement
  • The Iranian Revolution
  • The 2006 Lebanon War
  • The Second Intifada
  • The September 11 attacks
  • The Iraq War
  • The War in Afghanistan
  • The Israeli–Palestinian conflict
  • The Northern Ireland conflict
  • The Troubles
  • The Falklands War
  • The Iran–Iraq War
  • The Yemeni Civil War
  • The First Libyan Civil War
  • The Lebanese Civil War
  • The Iranian Green Movement
  • The Green Revolution

Interesting Global History Research Paper Topics

  • How did the Cold War shape the world we live in today?
  • What were the most important causes of World War I?
  • How did the Industrial Revolution change the world?
  • What were the causes and effects of the French Revolution?
  • How did the American Revolution impact the world?
  • What were the most important events of the 20th century?
  • What is the history of the United Nations?
  • What are the origins of the European Union?
  • How did the Cold War affect Europe?
  • What is the history of the Berlin Wall?

Global history regents thematic essay topics

  • The rise and fall of empires
  • The impact of religion on history
  • The role of geography in history
  • The importance of trade in history
  • The impact of war on history
  • The role of technology in history
  • The impact of art and culture on history
  • The importance of political systems in history
  • The impact of economic systems on history
  • The role of social movements in history
  • The importance of science and medicine in history
  • The role of education in history
  • The role of women in history
  • The role of minorities in history
  • The role of youth in history
  • The impact of environmental factors on history
  • The role of pandemics in history
  • The impact of natural disasters on history
  • The role of technology in warfare
  • The impact of colonialism on history
  • The role of migration in history
  • The impact of population growth on history
  • The role of climate change in history
  • The impact of globalization on history
  • The role of media in history
  • The role of consumerism in history
  • The role of terrorism in history
  • The role of organized crime in history
  • The role of the internet in history
  • The role of artificial intelligence in history

Advanced topics global history

  • The rise and fall of civilizations
  • The impact of religion on civilizations
  • The role of geography in civilizations
  • The importance of trade in civilizations
  • The impact of war on civilizations
  • The role of technology in civilizations
  • The impact of art and culture on civilizations
  • The importance of political systems in civilizations
  • The impact of economic systems on civilizations
  • The role of social movements in civilizations
  • The importance of science and medicine in civilizations
  • The role of education in civilizations
  • The role of women in civilizations
  • The role of minorities in civilizations
  • The role of youth in civilizations
  • The impact of environmental factors on civilizations
  • The role of pandemics in civilizations
  • The impact of natural disasters on civilizations
  • The impact of colonialism on civilizations

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global history essays

Global history

One ship, many stories

How a single, unglamorous, workaday merchant vessel tells the history of the 19th-century world in many violent chapters

Boyd Cothran & Adrian Shubert

global history essays

Reconstructed hemisphere

In the 19th century, civil wars tore apart the US, Mexico and Argentina. Then came democracy’s fight against reaction

Evan C Rothera

global history essays

The Asian world order

Before modern Europe existed there was a grand, interconnected political world, rich in scientific and artistic exchange

Ayşe Zarakol

global history essays

History of technology

A silken web

From its mythic beginnings in a Chinese garden, the story of silk is a window into how weaving has shaped human history

Peter Frankopan, Marie-Louise Nosch & Feng Zhao

global history essays

Hear from blasphemes, sceptics and free-thinkers in this ‘tour of medieval unbelief’

Many figures in traditional dress are gathered beneath a structure from which hang paper lists. In the foreground are horses. The colours are muted with age

The exam that broke society

Keju, China’s incredibly difficult civil service test, strengthened the state at the cost of freedom and creativity

Yasheng Huang

global history essays

Meet the jesters who’ve spoken truth to power around the globe and across centuries

global history essays

Praying in shoes

The Sunni movement of Salafism was born at the beginning of the 20th century, with the goal of modelling life on the 7th

Aaron Rock-Singer

global history essays

Nations and empires

Settler colonialism

Displacing and destroying peoples by colonisation is not just a historical Western evil but a global and contemporary one

Lachlan McNamee

global history essays

Dream of the Russian tropics

Imperial Russia had little access to the bountiful tropics that other empires enjoyed. So it created its own in the Caucasus

Oleksandr Polianichev

global history essays

Architecture

Tour the European architecture that dreamed of a wondrous, fictitious China

global history essays

Thinkers and theories

Photographs offer a colonialist window to the past – one that must be challenged

global history essays

The rise and fall of Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong’s infamous urban monolith

global history essays

The polycrisis

Is this the word we need to describe unprecedented convergences between ecological, political and economic strife?

Ville Lähde

global history essays

Environmental history

Masts like a forest

How the trees of China – fir, camphor, ironwood and nanmu – were used to build an empire that lasted for centuries

Ian M Miller

global history essays

Demography and migration

Asians in early America

Asian sailors came to the west coast of America in 1587. Within a century they were settled in colonies from Mexico to Peru

Diego Javier Luis

global history essays

The strange tale of how mangoes became hallowed objects in Maoist China

global history essays

Tracing Goya’s ‘dark’ journey from Spanish court painter to macabre visionary

global history essays

The famed medieval map that stretched beyond Earth to heaven, history and myth

global history essays

Language and linguistics

The problem with English

Is Earth’s most-spoken language a living ‘gift’ or a many-headed ‘monster’? Both views distract us from the real dilemma

Mario Saraceni

global history essays

After the mother tongues

Cultural exchange between Iran and India led to the creation of literary histories that inspired modern nationalism

Alexander Jabbari

global history essays

The strange journey of the Parthenon Marbles to the British Museum

global history essays

It never existed

The idea of a ‘precolonial’ Africa is theoretically vacuous, racist and plain wrong about the continent’s actual history

Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

global history essays

Economic history

The golden fuel

Asia’s rise to economic power and food security has been powered not by rice but by American maize, the ultimate flex-crop

Peter A Coclanis

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History Resources

The Declaration of Independence in Global Perspective

By david armitage.

Recueil des loix constitutives des colonies, 1778 (GLC01720)

The Declaration was addressed as much to "mankind" as it was to the population of the colonies. In the opening paragraph, the authors of the Declaration—Thomas Jefferson, the five-member Congressional committee of which he was part, and the Second Continental Congress itself—addressed "the opinions of Mankind" as they announced the necessity for

. . . one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them. . . .

After stating the fundamental principles—the "self-evident" truths—that justified separation, they submitted an extensive list of facts to "a candid world" to prove that George III had acted tyrannically. On the basis of those facts, his colonial subjects could now rightfully leave the British Empire. The Declaration therefore "solemnly Publish[ed] and Declare[d], That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES" and concluded with a statement of the rights of such states that was similar to the enumeration of individual rights in the Declaration’s second paragraph in being both precise and open-ended:

. . . that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do.

This was what the Declaration declared to the colonists who could now become citizens rather than subjects, and to the powers of the earth who were being asked to choose whether or not to acknowledge the United States of America among their number.

The final paragraph of the Declaration announced that the United States of America were now available for alliances and open for business. The colonists needed military, diplomatic, and commercial help in their revolutionary struggle against Great Britain; only a major power, like France or Spain, could supply that aid. Thomas Paine had warned in Common Sense in January 1776 that "the custom of all courts is against us, and will be so, until by an independence, we take rank with other nations." So long as the colonists remained within the empire, they would be treated as rebels; if they organized themselves into political bodies with which other powers could engage, then they might become legitimate belligerents in an international conflict rather than treasonous combatants within a British civil war.

The Declaration of Independence was primarily a declaration of interdependence with the other powers of the earth. It marked the entry of one people, constituted into thirteen states, into what we would now call international society. It did so in the conventional language of the contemporary law of nations drawn from the hugely influential book of that title (1758) by the Swiss jurist Emer de Vattel, a copy of which Benjamin Franklin had sent to Congress in 1775. Vattel’s was a language of rights and freedom, sovereignty and independence, and the Declaration’s use of his terms was designed to reassure the world beyond North America that the United States would abide by the rules of international behavior. The goal of the Declaration’s authors was still quite revolutionary: to extend the sphere of European international relations across the Atlantic Ocean by turning dependent colonies into independent political actors. The historical odds were greatly against them; as they knew well, no people had managed to secede from an empire since the United Provinces had revolted from Spain almost two centuries before, and no overseas colony had done so in modern times.

The other powers of the earth were naturally curious about what the Declaration said. By August 1776, news of American independence and copies of the Declaration itself had reached London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, as well as the Dutch Republic and Austria. By the fall of that year, Danish, Italian, Swiss, and Polish readers had heard the news and many could now read the Declaration in their own language as translations appeared across Europe. The document inspired diplomatic debate in France but that potential ally only began serious negotiations after the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777. The Franco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce of February 1778 was the first formal recognition of the United States as "free and independent states." French assistance would, of course, be crucial to the success of the American cause. It also turned the American war into a global conflict involving Britain, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic in military operations around the globe that would shape the fate of empires in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean worlds.

The ultimate success of American independence was swiftly acknowledged to be of world-historical significance. "A great revolution has happened—a revolution made, not by chopping and changing of power in any one of the existing states, but by the appearance of a new state, of a new species, in a new part of the globe," wrote the British politician Edmund Burke. With Sir William Herschel’s recent discovery of the ninth planet, Uranus, in mind, he continued: "It has made as great a change in all the relations, and balances, and gravitation of power, as the appearance of a new planet would in the system of the solar world." However, it is a striking historical irony that the Declaration itself almost immediately sank into oblivion, "old wadding left to rot on the battle-field after the victory is won," as Abraham Lincoln put it in 1857. The Fourth of July was widely celebrated but not the Declaration itself. Even in the infant United States, the Declaration was largely forgotten until the early 1790s, when it re-emerged as a bone of political contention in the partisan struggles between pro-British Federalists and pro-French Republicans after the French Revolution. Only after the War of 1812 and the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, did it become revered as the foundation of a newly emergent American patriotism.

Imitations of the Declaration were also slow in coming. Within North America, there was only one other early declaration of independence—Vermont’s, in January 1777—and no similar document appeared outside North America until after the French Revolution. In January 1790, the Austrian province of Flanders expressed a desire to become a free and independent state in a document whose concluding lines drew directly on a French translation of the American Declaration. The allegedly self-evident truths of the Declaration’s second paragraph did not appear in this Flemish manifesto nor would they in most of the 120 or so declarations of independence issued around the world in the following two centuries. The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen would have greater global impact as a charter of individual rights. The sovereignty of states, as laid out in the opening and closing paragraphs of the American Declaration, was the main message other peoples beyond America heard in the document after 1776.

More than half of the 192 countries now represented at the United Nations have a founding document that can be called a declaration of independence. Most of those countries came into being from the wreckage of empires or confederations, from Spanish America in the 1810s and 1820s to the Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Their declarations of independence, like the American Declaration, informed the world that one people or state was now asserting—or, in many cases in the second half of the twentieth century re-asserting—its sovereignty and independence. Many looked back directly to the American Declaration for inspiration. For example, in 1811, Venezuela’s representatives declared "that these united Provinces are, and ought to be, from this day, by act and right, Free, Sovereign, and Independent States." The Texas declaration of independence (1836) likewise followed the American in listing grievances and claiming freedom and independence. In the twentieth century, nationalists in Central Europe and Korea after the First World War staked their claims to sovereignty by going to Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Even the white minority government of Southern Rhodesia in 1965 made their unilateral declaration of independence from the British Parliament by adopting the form of the 1776 Declaration, though they ended it with a royalist salutation: "God Save the Queen!" The international community did not recognize that declaration because, unlike many similar pronouncements made during the process of decolonization by other African countries, it did not speak on behalf of all the people of their country.

Invocations of the American Declaration’s second paragraph in later declarations of independence are conspicuous by their scarcity. Among the few are those of Liberia (1847) and Vietnam (1945). The Liberian declaration of independence recognized "in all men, certain natural and inalienable rights: among these are life, liberty, and the right to acquire, possess, and enjoy property": a significant amendment to the original Declaration’s right to happiness by the former slaves who had settled Liberia under the aegis of the American Colonization Society. Almost a century later, in September 1945, the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh opened his declaration of independence with the "immortal statement" from the 1776 Declaration: "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." However, Ho immediately updated those words: "In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples of the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free." It would be hard to find a more concise summary of the message of the Declaration for the post-colonial predicaments of the late twentieth century.

The global history of the Declaration of Independence is a story of the spread of sovereignty and the creation of states more than it is a narrative of the diffusion and reception of ideas of individual rights. The farflung fortunes of the Declaration remind us that independence and popular sovereignty usually accompanied each other, but also that there was no necessary connection between them: an independent Mexico became an empire under a monarchy between 1821 and 1823, Brazil’s independence was proclaimed by its emperor, Dom Pedro II in 1822, and, as we have seen, Ian Smith’s Rhodesian government threw off parliamentary authority while professing loyalty to the British Crown. How to protect universal human rights in a world of sovereign states, each of which jealously guards itself from interference by outside authorities, remains one of the most pressing dilemmas in contemporary politics around the world.

So long as a people comes to believe their rights have been assaulted in a "long Train of Abuses and Usurpations," they will seek to protect those rights by forming their own state, for which international custom demands a declaration of independence. In February 2008, the majority Albanian population of Kosovo declared their independence of Serbia in a document designed to reassure the world that their cause offered no precedent for any similar separatist or secessionist movements. Fewer than half of the current powers of the earth have so far recognized this Kosovar declaration. The remaining countries, among them Russia, China, Spain, and Greece, have resisted for fear of encouraging the break-up of their own territories. The explosive potential of the American Declaration was hardly evident in 1776 but a global perspective reveals its revolutionary force in the centuries that followed. Thomas Jefferson’s assessment of its potential, made weeks before his death on July 4, 1826, surely still holds true today: "an instrument, pregnant with our own and the fate of the world."

David Armitage is the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies in History at Harvard University. He is also an Honorary Professor of History at the University of Sydney. Among his books are The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (2007) and The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760–1860 (2010).

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Global history

Patrick o'brien.

In 1990, as Director of the Institute of Historical Research (IHR), I convened the Institute's first ever seminar in global history, to the amusement of my colleagues. Predictably that seminar began and continued by discussing a then rather short list of famous books locatable in this new field: Wirtfogel, McNeill, Braudel, Hodgson, Wallerstein, Gellner, Jones, Hall and Mann were in print; Landes, Frank, Goody, Bin Wong and Pomeranz soon published their controversial theses comparing Europe with Asia.( 1 )

Shortly after my retirement as Director I was invited back to the London School of Economics (LSE) to help the department of economic history set up the first ever master's degree for this subject in the kingdom. This degree is advertised as global history, but (as you might expect from a group of economic historians) with credentials that cover Europe, the Americas, Africa, China, India and Japan, the course is in effect an integrated programme focused upon the long-run history of 'material life'.

The syllabus was designed for graduate students to study what is (perhaps) the mega problem of our times: namely, when or why some societies (located largely in the West and North of our modern world) became and remain affluent, while the majority of the world's seven billion people who reside in countries (to the East and the South) are still poor. Demarcated into component courses the degree takes on board a range of themes that underpin most modern meta-narratives in histories of the world focused on environments, states, geopolitics, religions, cultures, gender, diseases and of course economic change.

Unsurprisingly, the design of an innovative degree brought the entire problem onto the table of how 'professional historians' (obsessed, as most of us are, with erudition, detail and archives) could read, teach, write and undertake research upon a 'global scale' – unconfined by space and time. In short, could this unavoidably relevant, increasingly fashionable and – as I will maintain – morally significant and politically necessary academic endeavour be undertaken in ways that might meet standards for theoretical rigour set by the social sciences? Furthermore, could the respect for evidence, the comprehension of contexts and chronology as well as aspirations for imaginative insights and for eloquent clarification demanded by modern styles of micro-history be satisfied?

Five years after the launch of the degree, the London School of Economics and Cambridge University Press sponsored the publication of a new journal – The Journal of Global History . I was asked by the editors to write a prolegomenon for its first issue and produced a long essay entitled 'Historiographical traditions and modern imperatives for the restoration of global history'.( 2 ) I wrote to reassure myself and a growing body of historians spearheading, collaborating upon or co-opted into the enterprise of delivering global history that our innovation or 'restoration' could be justified.

I attempted to do that by mobilising three related but distinct prefatory arguments.

First, I referred to Nietzsche's remark that 'knowledge of the past has always been desired in the service of the present' and concluded that the diffusion of global history into systems of preparatory and, above all, higher education is virtually unavoidable in our times of accelerated globalisation.

Second, I reached for an analogy to represent global history as the obverse of new nano-science which is based on theories and experiments into what happens to our universe when its basic components (molecules, particles and protons etc.) are reduced into infinitely smaller atoms. As science scales towards the miniscule, more and more historians scale towards the global.

Third, and despite the difficulties involved in coping with long chronologies , wider spaces and cultural heterogeneities, a raft of recent publications by distinguished historians shows there are no insuperable or particular problems involved in repositioning vistas for the interpretation of history outwards, backwards and forwards. To cite some examples: all the young scholars at Austin Texas involved in an exemplary endeavour, led by Tony Hopkins, to promote global history found no difficulties in exploring interactions and interconnections between the 'local' (which bounded their specialised knowledge) and the 'universal' which they recognised as the context for its comprehension and wider communication.( 3 )

Celebrated historical biographers have discerned nothing incongruous in exposing and contemplating the universal in the lives of individuals,( 4 ) while two distinguished social scientists ( 5 ) experienced no problems in inverting a tradition of Eurocentric historiography by analysing the 'East in the West'. In addition, the insertion of relevant experiences from Asia and Europe into the current, lively and significant debate on the United States as an 'empire' has attracted heuristic interchanges between historians, political scientists, sociologists and specialists in geopolitical relations to the comparative study of empires.( 6 )

Grand themes for global history have already provoked sustained debate across the natural and social sciences as well as several humanities, particularly history. For example, the natural sciences (which claim universality for their theories, methods of investigations and recommendations) are intensely interested in the speed and extent of environmental degradation.( 7 ) The queen of the social sciences (economics) is now really trying to comprehend the implications that might flow from the ever-closer integration of markets for commodities, capital labour and knowledge.( 8 ) Philosophers are debating the meanings attracted to human rights and notions of global citizenship.( 9 )

In short, there are wide-ranging and highly significant contemporary issues that fall within the remit of global history. These issues are now involving networks of historians and giving rise to serious historiographical debates around the world, concerned with the terms and parameters for professional engagement with a field that can be traced back to Herodotus. Positions range all the way from enthusiasm to outright rejection of the whole enterprise as intellectually untenable or, more often, as a morally malign agenda for cultural domination by the West.( 10 )

Unfortunately the case for an altogether more serious engagement with meta-narratives in global history continues to meet with idealistically based, but by now entirely 'anachronistic rejections' from otherwise erudite, postmodern and postcolonial sub-groups of our heterodox tribe of historians. In recent decades, and taking a lead from influential philosophers largely from France, the United States and India, postmodern opponents have recommended (to quote Lyotard) that people should treat all 'metanarratives with incredulity'.

To their credit these philosophers have also been engaged in heuristic exercises designed to 'destabilise', 'relativise' and 'provincialise' all manner of traditional histories; to expose their linguistic ambiguities, literary forms, foundational categories; and above all to reveal how inescapably centric and unavoidably situated all attempts to recover 'Truth', 'Meaning', 'Lessons' from the past really were.( 11 )

Having lived with and through this particular 'cultural war', I can now recognise its cathartic benefits. I also observe that lessons have been absorbed. It seems to me that further and prolonged engagement with philosophers of history, with linguistic turns and with literary theory have run into diminishing returns. For my part, I regard the task of persuading a hard-working, conservative or otherwise indifferent profession of historians to become engaged with global history as far more important for the future of our discipline and as urgent for the problems of this century.

Meanwhile those of us engaged with the genre may as well treat attacks on its agenda to create, refine and publish more inclusive meta-narratives for our times as ideologically situated antipathies to caricatured representations of the recent history of globalisation – and, to be blunt, as representative of an entrenched belief in original sin that presupposes that all meta-narratives from Western historians will be forever biased, exclusive and oppressively anachronistic.

Historians should reject spurious allegations that global history lends implicit support to claims from neo-liberals and neo-conservatives of 'progressive outcomes' (actual and potential) of all past and predicted trends towards global integration. In no way does our now extensive bibliography of histories analysing the records of interactions between the local and the global fail to deal with malign as well as benign effects of connections across time and space.( 12 )

Furthermore, neither economic historians nor a growing body of economists are any longer in thrall to Ricardian predictions that openness to trade, capital, labour and knowledge flows will lead to economic growth combined with greater equality in the distribution of the world's wealth. Our colleagues in political history and political science seem acutely aware that the formation of sovereign, autonomous and effective states to protect their citizens from unregulated connections with the rest of the world has historically been a protracted and complex process – easily thrown off course by incautious and uncontrolled engagements with powerful geopolitical, economic and cultural forces from beyond those porous and vulnerable frontiers of embryo empires, realms and republics.

To turn to our own academic tribe of historians: my alas superficial survey of the historiographies of China, Japan, Islamdom and Europe reveals that, for millennia, historians from all civilisations have been more or less involved with the universal problem of how to reconcile 'packages of modernities' on offer from outside their communities, polities and empires with indigenous traditions and values that they and their societies wish to preserve.( 13 ) Very few professional historians today (indeed only a minority of our now infamous 'Eurocentric' predecessors) lent unequivocal support to what has been represented as 'cultural genocide', have acted as 'a fifth column for Western values' or used history to support a 'Washington consensus'. We are emphatically not in the business of telling people that the only history they 'have to catch up with is other people's history'.( 14 )

Meta-narratives will probably remain in some senses unavoidably Western. But centric histories were never a monopoly of Europeans.( 15 ) Furthermore, there were several classical authors (Herodotus is just one), and traditions (medieval Christendom, the Enlightenment and the period after the devastations of the Great War, 1914–18) when cosmopolitan histories appeared to contradict, qualify and question a mainstream Eurocentric tradition running from Hegel all the way to Lynn Cheyney, the self-appointed guardian of American values for school textbooks used in the United States.( 16 )

Global history teaches us to recognise that there has been a relatively short period (three centuries, not much more) of Western geopolitical, scientific and technological hegemony when all historiographical traditions (including separable traditions of European nations) extolled, rejected or adapted to alien packages of modernities on offer from outside their own more or less insulated frontiers and cultures.

Many historians will wonder when they read those eloquent objections to any engagement with global history by post-colonial, subaltern and other postmodern theorists if their authors have read anything from our field since John Roberts published the Triumph of the West and Eric Jones wrote The European Miracle in the early 1980s.( 17 ) Of course, such books continue to sell and what is more dangerous appear on television whose gatekeepers (until they are replaced with re-educated and younger graduates in the humanities) persist in communicating histories that minister to the patriotisms (xenophobias) of publics in search of narrowly conceived national identities.

Fortunately such books are increasingly subjected to professional criticism for: centric bias, for ignorance of the histories of China, India, Japan, Africa and other 'knowable' others, and for dependence upon the now obsolete but formerly canonical authorities and foundational categories (often derived from Smith, Marx and Weber) underlying their narratives.( 18 ) Surely the days when jejune Eurocentric forays into world history could be treated as scholarship are fast disappearing?

Furthermore, since most academic historians tend to be located in departments of specialists, jostling for space and recognition, the exclusions of either 'peoples without a history' or wide ranges of human activity (however trivial) are no longer a danger that thought police from philosophy need worry about.( 19 ) That everything and everyone has a history has become a consensual presumption of modern history. The problem is not exclusions, but proliferations. How best to integrate our ever widening and deepening historical knowledge of the world into narratives that educated elites, politicians and even gatekeepers to mass media might read, absorb and communicate is the real problem.

Historians need no longer confront Hegel, revise Marx, bowdlerise Weber or provincialise Europe. Those in the loop know it would be more heuristic to engage in debates of what to include and exclude from narratives that seek to inform global as well as national histories. They know that if scholars and intellectuals in higher education do not engage directly (or indirectly by toleration and support) in the construction of new cosmopolitan meta-narratives then others, less educated, qualified and sensitive, will continue to take up that challenge and (as they have for centuries) write textbooks for schools, or nowadays more perniciously televise histories, in the form of teleological chronicles designed to reinforce people's very own set of values enshrined in canonical Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Confucian and other sacred texts. They will lend credence to their own established assumptions, in favour of particular forms of government, and support ideological arguments for economies based either upon unfettered private enterprise or upon systems of command based upon Stalinist precepts for the allocation of resources, income and wealth.( 20 )

Meanwhile new and plural ways of understanding world history and improved foundational categories for its reconstruction continue to emanate from the sciences, philosophy and social sciences, that are broadening out to incorporate the wisdoms from the East. Let us recognise, however, that the provenance and birth places of intellectuals of the stature of Montesquieu, Hume, Voltaire, Smith, Malthus, Hegel, St Simon, Marx, Comte, Mill, Durkheim and Weber does not a priori invalidate many of the insights they continue to offer to historians for reconstructing the past – even the pasts of societies and cultures outside Europe.

Their representations of 'other cultures' are all too easily parodied as imperial or Eurocentric.( 21 ) Western concepts, categories and theories have, however, evolved over time into a range of social sciences that are no longer the property of the West anymore than contributions derived from Chinese medicine, the flexibility of Sharia law or African art are the property of any Eastern culture.

Modern social sciences (including economics) are no longer based upon singular overarching paradigms. Instead they offer a competing plethora of theories, taxonomies and vocabularies for the study of history. History itself has become more open than ever to alternative ways of accessing, knowing and understanding the past through memory, oral testimonies , artefacts, ballads, dance, ritual as well as printed sources of all kinds, always provided that the inferences drawn from these diverse forms of evidence are subjected to the same theoretical and empirical tests that historians are trained to apply to all forms of knowledge of the past.( 22 ) Most historians do not assume that 'indigenous' ways of comprehending the past are necessarily inferior or superior to Western natural and social science.

As a novel field of study with strong potential for making its way (alas all too gradually) into higher education, global history has been concerned these past years with its own scope, scale and methods. Patrick Mannings's text Navigating Global History ,( 23 ) as well as numerous articles in the Journal of World History and the Bulletin of the World History Association dealing with the field's historiographical particularities and problems, testify to its youthful preoccupation with methods.

Yet, and until they came under a sustained attack from opponents who assert that all meta-narratives are a form of oppression, global historians allocated very little of their precious research time or made space in their syllabuses for methodological discussion. They leave that to historiographers and philosophers. They tend to ignore prescriptions from outsiders in favour of simple approaches, distinguished between comparisons and connections. To make the case for any particular sub-field of an ever-widening subject, historians prefer to cite exemplars of their own specialised genre – be it cultural , family , demographic , diplomatic or other forms of history, some of which (pace economic history) are attached to a social science.

Most global historians have not, however, formed close alliances with any particular social science, although more of them probably consult and use cultural anthropology and economics than other neighbouring disciplines. An increasing minority ( 24 ) who aim to bring about that promised synthesis between natural and cultural history have clearly digested a great deal of 'popularised' natural science, which is currently coming on stream in forms accessible to historians.

Much of the discussion about global history that is methodological in character makes do with arresting metaphors, extolling the benefits of scaled-up vistas from space, parachutes and skyscrapers; tells historians to think longer and harder about architecture than buildings, let alone bricks; recommends an escape from concerns that are particular, local; and above all proclaims in favour of a move towards an engagement with problems that are universal such as environmental degradation, human rights, poverty, gender, slavery, health, warfare and material life.

Most historians are now beginning to appreciate why the allocation of more space for global history is desirable and appreciate that the field could be both heuristic for their students and unifying for a would-be 'guild' of scholars to adopt. What remains more difficult to figure out is a set of acceptable guidelines (not methodologies) on how best to proceed. In short, how do we move on from exhortations and metaphors to methods? Personally I do not find the epistemological problems involved any more difficult than those encountered in writing histories of Europe or Latin America. Such problems will, I suspect, be resolved (not solved) by the appearance of a more impressive flow of exemplars of the genre.

Meanwhile what should be resisted, from those with years of scholarship and interest vested in the study of an area, is any suggestion that 'nomads' without passports or credentials be discouraged from venturing into 'their' territory in order to resituate 'their' scholarship into global contexts. Alas, this attitude is still prevalent in Western Orientalism and must be ignored. Persia is not (as that great Persian Orientalist, Anne Lambton, opined) accessible only to real scholars of that ancient and complex civilisation.

Yes, the credentials required for entry into any new territory should involve a serious engagement with the best secondary literature, hopefully abundant and available in languages that we can read. Furthermore, the interests and new insights that we claim will come from global history should be good enough to be potentially publishable in specialised journals for the areas we use as case studies. To help along the way the Journal of Asian Studies might (for example) begin to solicit attempts to compare Chinese and European history. Journals in Japanese history might also welcome articles that situate Japan in wider Asian and European contexts. The methods and traditions of scholarship in imperial, economic and transnational histories are clearly helpful. Discovering and synthesising the local in the global and global in the local clearly also has a major contribution to make.( 25 )

Since the historiographical tradition of attempts to detach history from its moral role and power to instruct in favour of Van Ranke's utopian historicist project to recover Truth from the past has been short-lived and is now recognised as a failure, is it not time to return to the ideals of constructing Narratives of Enlightenment for these our own exciting but dangerous times of accelerated globalisation?( 26 )

With its commitment to inclusion and to long chronological and wide spatial parameters, global history represents a challenge to all those who continue to claim primacy for Western civilisation along all of its manifold dimensions. The short-lived geopolitical and technological success of the West (or indeed of Song China) never embodied any kind of moral superiority. Only a few historians ever claimed that they did.

Global historians seek to follow recommendations from Herodotus to 'preserve the memory of the past by placing on record the astonishing achievements of both our own and Asiatic People'.( 27 ) We might, in this our 21st century, hopefully confine to archives for 'historiographers' millennia of historical writing that was basically confessional, providential and centric and which implicitly and often explicitly proclaimed the superiority of a particular civilisation (be it Egyptian, Hellenistic, Christian, Muslim, Byzantine, Hindu, Confucian or Western). Our mission for the third millennium (to quote our modern godfather William McNeill) is to write and communicate 'ecumenical histories'.( 28 )

Such histories should be designed to make room for global diversity in all its complexity and to provide proper acknowledgements for human agency (including the agency of women). Of course, its meta-narratives will remain unavoidably provisional and negotiable. But as more and more professional historians from systems of higher education from all parts of the world (not just from Europe and the United States or from diasporas of Asian academics) see it as their public role to reveal the universal in the personal; the global in the local; as well as reciprocal connections between East and West, North and South; then flows of relevant research from every style of history could provide building blocks for the next generation of Hodgsons, McNeills and Braudels to construct even better meta-narratives than those now on offer from our illustrious predecessors.( 29 )

At the very least, academic debate as it evolves into competition for popular attention might constrain the nationalistic myopias of politicians and elites in control of the mass media for the communication of history. Historians are, however, realistic and recognise that even as this begins to happen, the attachments of peoples everywhere to their own institutions, celebrities, heroes, communities, ethnicities and religions as well as mythistories feeding more malign kinds of chauvinisms and fundamentalisms will continue to remain extremely strong and not easily undermined by education in something wider than the national and provincial histories we all imbibed at school.

Nonetheless, and although the task looks daunting, global history seems to be both an inescapable task and a noble dream for departments of history to embrace. Steps towards the realisation of the field's mission could lead eventually to a better understanding of the past of our long connected world. By extension that could well contribute to consciousness, pressures and institutions currently under construction and in operation for citizenship in a global civil society.

As globalisation continues to accelerate such a society is no longer regarded as an oxymoron impossible to envisage and hardly on the drawing board, let alone defined as a site for serious intellectual debates of societal construction and the formation of institutions for global governance. As a utopian ideal it can he traced way back through a long and illustrious line of philosophers to Mencius in the East and to the admonitions of Stoics in the West.

Their ideals of specifying, promoting and, where possible, protecting basic human rights for peoples everywhere against violence, disease, hunger, discrimination, natural disasters, etc. etc began to take diffuse but transnational institutional forms (congresses, global networks, international societies, cosmopolitan associations, albeit for profit the rise of multinational business corporations) during the 19th century.

Today there are literally thousands of global institutions. Their concerns and services provided as public goods or sold as commodities by business corporations touch and influence the lives of an ever growing proportion of the world's populations.( 30 ) These institutions conceive of their missions' operational concerns and interests to be unbounded by frontiers. More often than not they operate in tacit or active alliance with sovereign states, but sometimes in opposition to the policies of governments and local authorities.

Historians have read and researched more deeply than other academic disciplines into the long and complex process of state formation, the evolution and consolidation of personal identities and cultures behind civic societies regarded as stable and more or less successful. They will recognise that, in diverse ways, the plethora of institutions now offering public goods and even selling private goods and services upon a global scale are the analogues of institutions that helped to form functional national societies, economies, cultures and states over centuries of time.

They will also recall the tensions and resistance this process met from vested political and economic interests, parochial religions and local cultures as well as personal antipathies to the widening of contexts for economic, social, political and family life. Their comprehension of the gains, losses and violence involved in this protracted history of nation building will enable them to recognise that the accelerated globalisation of our times is leading us, but slowly, towards some form of global civil society. Power is shifting away from sovereign states.

Local cultures are merging, adapting, surviving and contributing to universalising tendencies.( 31 ) Intellectuals from the sciences, social sciences and humanities are explaining the kinds of education that could underpin a culture for global citizenship and for the institutions that might foster the development of some kind of global civil society.

History contains knowledge that is politically, economically and culturally significant for the great debate of our times. Not because, as Ranke hoped, the subject could recover truth and scientifically valid evidence about the past, but because a historical understanding of social and political processes involved can be acute and useful.

The moment should be seized because historians without purposes or agendas have never existed. Ironic detachment and careful attention to evidence are virtues to be cultivated by historians who wish to remain intellectually persuasive, but so too are the construction and reconfiguration of meta-narratives that will educate the public, appeal to the young and serve the needs of our times for a sense of global citizenship.

That task might well revive the best tradition of a guild among a rather cantankerous profession of postmodern scholars, pursuing their own riskless and self-defined agendas. Anything less could be folly, and folly, as Bolingbroke anticipated, could be remedied 'by historical study which should purge the mind of ... national partialities and prejudices. For a wise man looks upon himself as a citizen of the world'.( 32 )

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Reverse footnote link

Patrick O'Brien is Centennial Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics.

This essay is adapted from Patrick O'Brien, 'Global History for Global Citizenship' (Global History and Maritime Asia Working and Discussion Paper Series, Working Paper No. 7, 2008)

School of Advanced Study

The Institute of Historical Research © 2008

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  • Curriculum Development Team
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  • Getting Started: Baseline Assessments
  • Getting Started: Resources to Enhance Instruction
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  • Unit 9.1: Global 1 Introduction
  • Unit 9.2: The First Civilizations
  • Unit 9.3: Classical Civilizations
  • Unit 9.4: Political Powers and Achievements
  • Unit 9.5: Social and Cultural Growth and Conflict
  • Unit 9.6: Ottoman and Ming Pre-1600
  • Unit 9.7: Transformation of Western Europe and Russia
  • Unit 9.8: Africa and the Americas Pre-1600
  • Unit 9.9: Interactions and Disruptions
  • Unit 10.0: Global 2 Introduction
  • Unit 10.1: The World in 1750 C.E.

Unit 10.2: Enlightenment, Revolution, and Nationalism

  • Unit 10.3: Industrial Revolution
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  • Unit 10.5: World Wars
  • Unit 10.6: Cold War Era
  • Unit 10.7: Decolonization and Nationalism
  • Unit 10.8: Cultural Traditions and Modernization
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  • Unit 10.10: Human Rights Violations
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  • Unit 11.2: American Revolution
  • Unit 11.3A: Building a Nation
  • Unit 11.03B: Sectionalism & the Civil War
  • Unit 11.4: Reconstruction
  • Unit 11.5: Gilded Age and Progressive Era
  • Unit 11.6: Rise of American Power
  • Unit 11.7: Prosperity and Depression
  • Unit 11.8: World War II
  • Unit 11.9: Cold War
  • Unit 11.10: Domestic Change
  • Resources: Regents Prep: Global 2 Exam
  • Regents Prep: Framework USH Exam: Regents Prep: US Exam
  • Find Resources

Global History II

End of Unit Assessments: Supplemental Writing and Regents Prep Resources

New York State has identified twenty-four themes of Global History. Of those twenty-four, only twelve have ever been used for a thematic essay on the Global History and Geography Regents exam, and only seven have been repeated more than once. This review sheet lists the seven themes that have been repeated on the Regents exam starting with the those most frequently asked, provides the prompts that have been used in the past and suggested topics that will help students prepare for the exam.

global history essays

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    The Document-Based Question (DBQ) asked students to evaluate the extent to which European imperialism had an impact on the economies of Africa and/or Asia. Responses were expected to address the time frame of the 19th through the early 20th centuries and to demonstrate the historical thinking skill of causation.

  5. PDF Global History and Geography Ii (Grade 10)

    The procedures on pages 2 and 3 are to be used in rating papers for this examination. More detailed directions for the organization of the rating process and procedures for rating the examination are included in the Information Booklet for Scoring the Regents Examination in Global History and Geography II. Rating the CRQ (open-ended) Questions.

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  7. PDF Global History and Geography II Regents Examination Practice Papers for

    ways. Overtime one enduring issue in history has been the influence of Western ideas on regions including Japan, Iran, and China. Western influence is an example of how foreign ideas can impact the political, cultural, and economic systems to which they are introduced. Western ideas and influence

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    The Journal of Global History aims to be the leading scholarly outlet for innovative analyses of global historical phenomena.JGH publishes articles that examine structures, processes, actors, and theories of global change; and that study connections and disconnections on a trans-regional scale, or on smaller scales that nevertheless transcend the boundaries of individual polities or environments.

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    January 2017. Regents Examination in Global History and Geography (1.02 MB) Scoring Key, Part I and Rating Guide, Part II - Thematic Essay (620 KB) Rating Guide, Part IIIA and Part IIIB - DBQ (1.2 MB) Scoring Key, Part I (20 KB) Conversion Chart. PDF version (38 KB) Excel version (16 KB) August 2016.

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  17. Enduring Issues Essay Outline and Grading Checklist

    The official NYSED rubric formatted so it is easier to use to give feedback to students. Next. Enduring Issues Essay Anchor Paper. A model enduring issues essay using the New Visions suggested outline and infused with words and phrases in New Visions writing resources. Materials created by New Visions are shareable under a Creative Commons ...

  18. PDF Regents Exam in Global History and Geography Ii

    essay booklet. This examination has three parts. You are to answer all questions in all parts. Use black or dark-blue ink to write your answers to Parts II and III. Part I contains 28 multiple-choice questions. Record your answers to these questions as directed on the answer sheet. Part II contains two sets of constructed-response questions ...

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  22. Regents Content: Thematic Essay Topics Review Sheet

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