IB Diploma Programme History HL (first assessment 2020; current guide). This topic equips PAPER 3 — the HL-only REGIONAL DEPTH paper. Schools choose one of four regions 地区 (history of Africa and the Middle East; the Americas; Asia and Oceania; Europe), studied through THREE of its listed topics in depth; the paper sets three essays 论文 from a choice on the region, 150 minutes, marked like Paper 2 but expecting DEEPER regional knowledge and HISTORIOGRAPHY — knowing not just what happened but how historians have argued about it. This handout teaches the depth-and-historiography craft and kits each region with its classic topic menu.

Must-know for Paper 3:

Depth means the evidence becomes regional and precise 精确: not “industrial growth” but the Bessemer converter's spread; not “reform” but the Reform Act's specific clauses; not “the revolution” but who held which street on which day. The Paper 2 skeleton (thesis, named evidence, counter-case, judgement) carries over, but the top markband's “precise, relevant knowledge” now means detail a textbook summary omits — and TWO cases per point where the question spans a period.

Historiography 史学 is Paper 3's signature: the history OF the history. An essay on the Cold War's end that weighs Gaddis's “victory” narrative against revisionist accounts of Soviet agency; an essay on empire that knows the orthodox-prosperity school, the nationalist critique and the post-revisionist synthesis. The craft: Name the historians 历史学家 or schools (“the Gaddis view”, “revisionists such as…”), state their claim, and use the disagreement as an analytical tool 工具 TOOL — the essay asks why they disagree (sources? politics? decade?) and what the evidence favours. Historiography is not decoration; it is the counter-case professionalised.

Timing: three essays in 150 minutes, the essay structure 结构 discipline — 45 minutes each with five to plan, same discipline as Paper 2; and choose questions where your depth is strongest, not where the question looks shortest.

History of Africa and the Middle East: from the pre-colonial states 国家 and the slave trades' impact, through nineteenth-century European penetration (Egypt under Muhammad Ali, the Scramble's Berlin Conference 1884–85), to independence and the modern Middle East (mandates, Israel–Palestine, Nasser's Egypt, Iran's revolutions). Classic depth pairings: decolonisation in Algeria or Ghana with the Arab–Israeli conflict.

HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS: from independence (the United States 1776, Latin America 1810–25) through the nineteenth century (Civil War and Reconstruction, Latin American caudillos and modernisation) to the twentieth (the New Deal, the Cuban Revolution, civil rights, and Latin American authoritarianisms and transitions). Classic depth pairings: the US Civil War 内战 with the Mexican Revolution.

HISTORY OF ASIA AND OCEANIA: empire and its end (British India to 1947, Dutch Indonesia, French Indochina), China's century from the Late Qing through revolution to reform (1911, 1949, 1978), Japan from Meiji modernisation to its twentieth-century wars and postwar settlement, and the Pacific after 1945. Classic depth pairings: the Chinese revolution with Indian independence.

HISTORY OF EUROPE: from the French Revolution and Napoleon, through 1848, the unifications of Italy and Germany, the world wars and the totalitarianisms, to the Cold War division and integration 一体化 (the EU from coal and steel to Maastricht). Classic depth pairings: German unification (1871) with Italian unification, or Weimar's failure with the Russian revolutions.

Worked example. A Europe-depth question — “Evaluate the historiographical debate on Weimar's failure” — is answered with the schools: the classic “weak from birth” reading (structural: Versailles wounds, proportional representation, elite disloyalty), the revisionist “golden years” view (Stresemann's stability 1924–29, the failure contingent on Depression), and the synthesis (structures set the trap; the slump and Nazi agency sprang it) — with named evidence for each (the 1923 hyperinflation; the 1928 Reichstag results; Brüning's deflation after 1929) and a judgement weighing structure against contingency.

• Depth defined: regional, precise, two cases per point where a period is spanned (craft).
• Historiography defined: schools named, claims stated, disagreement analysed, not decorated (craft).
• Timing: three essays in 150; choose by depth, not by question length (craft).
• The four regions with their pairings; the Weimar schools; Paper 3 shares Paper 2's markbands with higher expectations of precision and historiography.