Modern History and its Importance in Curriculum

It is a fact that many universities have included Modern History in the curriculum. Doing so enables students to become key thinkers about the forces that have formed today’s world as well as offer them a wider and profound comprehension of the planet in which they reside. Although the emphasis is on the 20th century, the syllabus includes the shaping changes right since the late 18th century so that the students can connect them with the changing phases of the 21st century.

The subject boosts interest, imagination, and admiral of well-built themes, movements, leaders, and ideas that have led to the present, contemporary world. The curriculum includes themes such as local and global conflicts along with their resolution, decline of imperialism, the rise of nationalism, decolonisation, struggle for human rights, social and economic transformation and influence of ideologies. With this vast coverage, the curriculum aims to offer key developments that have delineated the modern world. 

Such coverage offers a scope for the study of diverse movements that have confronted the local, national, or global authority. The students tend to examine the crises that challenged the states in the recently past century, the different responses to them and the different paths that countries have taken today. Further, the student also comes to know about the unique aspects of world order that were initiated after the World War II, which is the hub of comprehending the present world.

With so many things to know of the past, the Modern History curriculum helps the students to develop the historically analytic, inquiry, and interpreted skills so that they can form reasoned answers to the complex questions about the past. They develop progressively sophisticated historical skills as well as understanding about the significant events along with the nature of contemporary societies.

Moreover, the students are introduced to the intricacies linked to the changing nature of events, the unique aspects of modern historical image and the skills needed to examine the controversial issues that have a robust modern reverberation. They are exposed to several historical sources such as artefacts, diary extracts, films, oral stories and other written accounts to examine the cause and effect, motives and forces and motivators and demotivators influencing inhabitants and events. Via the process of historical investigation, students are motivated to query and evaluate the sources, representations and versions of records, use evidence to verify their own interpretations and converse their findings in several ways.