World history cheat sheet

Chronology

Arrange events in time before proposing causes. Period labels are tools that can differ across regions and historical traditions.

The same year can fall within different regional periodisations.

Connections

Trade, migration, conflict and communication connect societies. Compare exchanges in both directions rather than assuming a one-way influence.

A traded good can carry technologies and ideas as well as economic value.

Sources and context

Consider a source’s author, audience, purpose and circumstances. A primary source offers evidence, not an unfiltered account of every event.

A royal decree can reveal a ruler’s aims without proving how everyone responded.

Causation and change

Distinguish long-term conditions, immediate triggers and consequences. Continuity can persist alongside major change.

Explain why a proposed cause matters, rather than only listing earlier events.

Agriculture and settlement

Farming and settlement developed in different places through different processes. Changes in food production, population, labour and environment interacted rather than following one universal sequence.

Compare a named region and period instead of assuming that every society changed in the same way.

Networks of exchange

Trade moved goods, people, technologies, beliefs and disease. Routes changed with political power, transport and demand; exchange was not always equal or voluntary.

Distinguish an exchange network from the borders of one state.

Empires and colonial power

Empires used varied combinations of military force, administration, commerce and local intermediaries. Analyse both the structures of control and the responses of affected communities.

A policy’s stated justification is evidence of its presentation, not automatic proof of its effects.

Industrialisation

Mechanisation, energy use, investment and labour organisation changed production unevenly. Industrial growth also reshaped urban life and relations between regions.

Compare causes, timing and consequences in two specified locations.

Worked example: corroboration

A tax record suggests rising grain collections, while a petition describes severe hardship. The sources can be compatible: collections may have risen while some households suffered.

Ask whose activity each source records before treating different perspectives as a simple contradiction.

Common mistake: one cause explains everything

Historical explanations distinguish long-term conditions, short-term triggers, agency and contingency. The significance of each cause needs evidence tied to the question.

A timeline shows sequence; it does not alone establish causation.

Check your understanding

Why should a historian identify a source’s audience?

Audience helps explain what its creator chose to include, omit, justify or emphasise.

Curriculum connections

Sources