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OCR J410 · twelve modules · each taught by a simulacrum of a major historian of the period
This is the complete option tree of OCR GCSE History A (Explaining the Modern World), specification J410, built as twelve modules. The qualification asks a student to study five things: one period study, one non-British depth study, one British thematic study, one British depth study, and one study of the historic environment. Rather than build a single fixed route, the Universitas has built every option — so an autodidact can roam the whole modern world, and a student preparing for the examination can go straight to the three or four modules their school has chosen.
What is distinctive is who teaches each one. The period study is led by the Eric Hobsbawm Simulacrum, who wrote the twentieth century as a single connected story. The depth studies are led by the historians who defined them: Ian Kershaw on Nazi Germany, Frank Dikötter on Mao’s China, the Nelson Mandela Simulacrum on apartheid South Africa, Richard Hofstadter on the United States. The British studies are led by Peter Fryer on migration, A.V. Dicey on power and the constitution, John Keegan on war and society, Linda Colley on empire, Eamon Duffy on the Reformation, Christopher Hill on the Stuart crisis, and R. Allen Brown on the castle as a historic environment. (Living historians are represented as scholarly traditions rather than impersonations.)
Each module is independently enrolable. Take any single one for revision, or assemble a valid combination for the full qualification.
Building a valid course. A complete entry is one period study (Module 1, taken by everyone), one of the five non-British depth studies, one of the three British thematic studies, and one of the three British depth studies with its historic environment. The thematic study and the British depth study are linked and must be taken together: Migration with Empire & Urban Environments; Power with the Reformation & Castles; War with the Stuart crisis & Castles. OCR’s Specification Creator confirms a valid combination.
The common spine of the qualification — the unfolding narrative of the twentieth century, ending in the skill of weighing rival interpretations.
Eric Hobsbawm Simulacrum
The world from the peace of 1918 to the long Cold War standoff of the 1970s: the failure of internationalism between the wars, the descent into the Cold War in Europe, the global confrontations in Cuba and Vietnam, and finally the historians’ argument over Appeasement and over who was responsible for the Cold War. Breadth, not depth — fifty years held in view at once.
Open module →A close excavation of one society. Pick one of the five to pair with the period study.
Kershawian Nazi Germany Simulacrum
How a modern, educated nation moved from a struggling democracy to a genocidal dictatorship and into occupation and division. The rise and consolidation of the Nazi regime, the relationship between the German people and the Nazi state, and the transformation worked by war — explained through structures rather than the language of evil.
Open module →Dikötterian Mao-Era China Simulacrum
The relationship between the Chinese people and the Communist state across three decades — the establishment of Communism and the catastrophe of the Great Leap Forward, the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution, and the changed course set by Deng after Mao’s death — read through the archival record rather than official narrative.
Open module →Nelson Mandela Simulacrum
From the Sharpeville Massacre to the collapse of apartheid and the first free elections — how a racial state met, repressed, and was finally forced to negotiate with a movement of resistance. Opposition in the 1960s, the renewed resistance of the 1970s, and the many converging pressures that ended apartheid.
Open module →Richard Hofstadter Simulacrum
The relationship between the American people and their government from the prosperity and prejudice of the 1920s, through the Depression and the New Deal, to the transformations of the Second World War — read as an argument the nation was having with itself about what the state is for.
Open module →Richard Hofstadter Simulacrum
From the early Cold War at home, through the Civil Rights movement, to the dissent and division of the late 1960s — McCarthyism, the struggle from Brown v. Board to the Civil Rights Act, and the broadening of dissent from Black Power to the movements for women, Native Americans, Chicanos, and gay Americans.
Open module →A thousand-year sweep through one theme. Each is linked to a British depth study below and must be taken with it.
Peter Fryer Simulacrum
A thousand years of migration to Britain, traced through the recurring themes of reasons, experience, response, and impact — from the medieval centuries, through the era of empire and industry, to the political arguments of the modern age. The people were always here; the archive was ignored, not empty. Taken with Module 10.
Open module →A.V. Dicey Simulacrum
A thousand years of power in Britain, from kings who ruled to parliamentary democracy — traced through who holds power, on what claim, by what methods, and how it is challenged. From Anglo-Saxon kingship and Magna Carta, through the Glorious Revolution, to the widening of the franchise and modern devolution. Taken with Module 11.
Open module →John Keegan Simulacrum
Over a thousand years of the relationship between war and British society — the impact of different kinds of war on people and on the bond between governments and the governed. From the Viking raids and the Norman Conquest, through civil and Jacobite wars, to the total wars of the twentieth century and the conflicts of our own time. Taken with Module 12.
Open module →A short, dense period paired with a source-based study of a place. Each is linked to a thematic study above and must be taken with it.
Colleyan British Empire Simulacrum · with the Peter Fryer Simulacrum on the Urban Environments site study
What empire did to Britain in the decades around 1688–1730 — to its economy, its politics, its society, and its sense of itself — paired with a source-based investigation of an urban migration site (the OCR set site is Spitalfields). Taken with Module 7.
Open module →Duffian Reformation Simulacrum · with the R. Allen Brown Simulacrum on the Castles site study
The English Reformation seen from the parish and the ordinary believer — a vigorous, popular faith dismantled from above, not a religion in decay — paired with a source-based study of a castle (the OCR set site is Kenilworth). Taken with Module 8.
Open module →Christopher Hill Simulacrum · with the R. Allen Brown Simulacrum on the Castles site study
The crisis that broke Britain apart from 1629 to 1660 — the descent into civil war, the execution of a king, the experiment of a republic, and the return of monarchy — looked at from below as well as above, paired with a source-based study of a castle (the OCR set site is Kenilworth). Taken with Module 9.
Open module →A diploma in GCSE History A — Explaining the Modern World is awarded on completion of a valid combination of modules and a final examination. The examination system and the diploma itself are in design.
Coming soon