How do I make sure my essays include historical analysis and not just narrative?

In order to be as anaytical as possible in your History essays, you must show an awarness of long-term processes of historical change, and how these manifest themselves in the short-term in specific events and in the medium-term in developing patterns of human behaviour. For instance, if you were to examine how Britain became a modern democratic state by 1950, then you would not just describe the political history of Britain. You instead would have to examine the influence of long-term factors, such as industrialisation and the forging of modern British 'liberal' economic policy. Yet, this would have to be combined with investigating specific events, for instance the impacts of the First World War or the Import Duties Act 1932, alongside changing patterns of behaviour, such as the rise of a popular politics and democratic culture, or the establishment of leisure consumerism. These would have to be explored, with the use of evidence (i.e. dates, statistics, historiography), in relation to the paramaters of the question - such as, what was the 'modern Britain' forged by 1950.

Answered by Jai T. History tutor

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