IB Diploma Programme History SL (first assessment 2020; current guide). Paper 2 and the world-history topics are shared by SL and HL: schools teach TWO of the TWELVE topics, each through TWO case studies from different regions, and the paper asks two essays [22] with every question centred on CAUSE, EFFECT and CHANGE. This handout teaches the essay craft and kits the most widely taught topics with classic case-study pairings and core contentions.

Must-know for Paper 2:

The [22] essay 论文 is thesis-led, not narrative-led: a direct answer 回答 to the question in the first two sentences, then three body paragraphs each arguing one leg of the thesis with named evidence 证据 (dates, actors, provisions — “the Enabling Act, March 1933” beats “he consolidated power”), a counter-case 反方论证 paragraph that concedes and answers the other side, and a judgement 判断 that weighs rather than repeats. The COMMAND TERMS decode as: “discuss/evaluate” — a case with strengths and limits weighed to a verdict; “compare” — a connective discipline (whereas, in both cases) with direct comparison in every paragraph, never two parallel stories; “examine” — the assumptions of the claim itself on the table. TIMING: 45 minutes an essay, five of them for planning; and the classic failures to avoid: narrative (telling what happened instead of arguing the question), single-case answers to “compare”, and evidence-free assertion.

AUTHORITARIAN STATES (20th century) — the most taught topic: rise (economic crisis, weak institutions, propaganda, violence), rule (political control, social policy, opposition) and impact, read through TWO states from different regions — the classic pairings: Hitler's Germany with Castro's Cuba; Mao's China with Mussolini's Italy. Core contentions: does the rise need crisis more than ideology, and does control rest on coercion 强制 more than consent?

CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF 20TH-CENTURY WARS — two world wars or a world war with a civil war; LONG-term (alliance systems, imperial rivalry, ideology), SHORT-term (crises, mobilisation) and TRIGGER causes distinguished, and effects measured politically (borders, regimes), economically (costs, reconstruction) and socially (demography, women's roles, memory). Classic pairing: the First World War with the Second.

THE COLD WAR: SUPERPOWER TENSIONS AND RIVALRIES — origins (ideology, security, power), development (crises from Berlin to Cuba; deterrence and the arms race; spheres and proxy wars), and end (economic failure, leadership, the revolutions of 1989–91), read through US–Soviet relations plus ONE regional case (classic: Korea, Vietnam, or Afghanistan).

The remaining topics kit briefly: SOCIETY AND ECONOMY (750–1400) and DYNASTIES AND RULERS (750–1500) — pre-modern states, trade and belief; SOCIETIES IN TRANSITION (1400–1700) and EARLY MODERN STATES (1450–1789), with expansion, absolutism, knowledge; CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF EARLY MODERN WARS (1500–1750); ORIGINS, DEVELOPMENT AND IMPACT OF INDUSTRIALIZATION (1750–2005); INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENTS (1800–2000), studied through classic India with a Latin American case; EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF DEMOCRATIC STATES (1848–2000) — liberal reform, suffrage, one democratic state's depth. Each supplies the same skeleton: two regions, one big question.

Worked example. A favourite Paper-2 question — “Discuss the view that authoritarian rule rested more on propaganda than terror” — is answered with the paired states: Germany's radio and rallies made a political religion, yet the Night of the Long Knives and the Gestapo's informant web answered dissent; Cuba's literacy campaign and symbolism coexisted with Committees for the Defence of the Revolution. The judgement: propaganda 宣传 manufactured consent; terror policed its boundary — the two were one system, but terror 恐怖 was the backstop that propaganda alone never was.

• Thesis-led structure with named evidence in every paragraph; counter-case conceded and answered; judgement that weighs (craft).
• The command terms decoded; timing 45 + 5 (craft).
• Authoritarian states: rise (crisis, ideology, violence), rule (consent and coercion), with two-region pairings; 20th-century wars: long/short/trigger causes and three effect families (menu).