This podcast examines President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “New Look” foreign policy and its specific impact on Cold War dynamics within the Western Hemisphere. The texts describe a strategic shift towards massive retaliation and nuclear deterrence intended to reduce military spending while aggressively containing communist expansion. A significant portion of the material evaluates the use of covert CIA operations, particularly the 1954 overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala to protect American economic interests. The sources also detail Vice President Richard Nixon’s volatile 1958 tour of South America, which highlighted growing Latin American resentment towards United States support for anti-communist dictators. Ultimately, the collection debates whether these policies represented a genuine “new” departure or a continuation of Truman-era containment, while assessing their long-term consequences for regional stability and democracy.

ActiveHistory provides a comprehensive range of podcasts based around the topics and materials available at the ActiveHistory IBDP History Hub. Spotify Apple Podcasts

Many episodes include worksheets, teacher notes, and quizzes. Contact me to request more resources.

Explore the Podcast Archive or the Video Archive.

AI-assisted historical inquiry and historiographical exploration

Generate focused historical investigation questions, historiographical context, and possible research perspectives for:

• IBDP History Internal Assessments (IAs)
• Extended Essays (EEs)
• A-Level History Non-Examined Assessments (NEAs)

This tool is intended to support brainstorming and independent inquiry. Students remain responsible for refining their question, verifying sources, and ensuring compliance with academic integrity requirements.

The extended essay is a formal piece of academic writing containing no more than 4,000 words, accompanied by a reflective statement of no more than 500 words.

It is supervised by your History teacher, but marked by the IB board.

It gives you a chance to study in real depth a topic that you have an interest in and to work closely with your History teacher to ‘fast-track’ your historical skills with one-to-one tutoring.

As such it is a great opportunity to produce a mature academic study on something that you might never again have the chance to research.

Part of the new Extended Essay support section on ActiveHistory.

Here is a student-friendly version of the IB mark scheme, combining the generic guidance from the IB as well as its subject-specific criteria for History.

After your supervisor has commented on one full draft, the next version of the essay that the supervisor sees must be the final one submitted to them before the viva voce. This version of the extended essay must not contain any comments from the supervisor or any other person. Once this version has been submitted to the supervisor, you are not permitted to make any further changes to it, unless deemed appropriate by the supervisor because of an administrative error. So you must ensure that your work meets all formatting and submission requirements before it is submitted.

The “Reflection” involves thinking about how the Extended Essay process has impacted on you as a learner. This includes how you envisage transferring the skills and lessons you have learned to other circumstances, including future studies, career or life in general.

To assist you with this, there are three formal reflection sessions with your supervisor. Your reflective thinking is recorded as a 500-word reflective statement that is written at the end of the extended essay process.

Keeping an ongoing record of your reflective thinking will support you in the writing of the reflective statement.

Complete this after your essay has been submitted and the Viva Voce interview with your supervisor has taken place.

The Viva Voce is a short discussion which should celebrate completion of the essay and reflect on what the student has learned from the process. Unless there are particular problems (e.g. of plagiarism or some other form of academic misconduct), the viva voce should begin and end positively. Completion of a major piece of work such as the extended essay is a great achievement for students.

This podcast offers a focused investigation into one of the most contested case studies in Cold War Latin America: the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973. Through discussion of declassified U.S. documents, economic data, and Chilean political developments, it explores the relative importance of foreign intervention versus domestic factors. Students preparing for IB Paper 3 will find this episode particularly useful for evaluating U.S. foreign policy in the Americas, Cold War containment, and the causes and consequences of military rule in Latin America.

The early years of the Republic are a favourite point of focus for the Cambridge IGCSE Modern World History examination. This podcast, building on the interactive decision-making simulation at ActiveHistory.co.uk, considers the impact of such things as the Armistice, the Treaty of Versailles, and the Constitution in provoking the Kapp Putsch and the Spartakist Uprising.

What were Mao Zedong’s goals for China, and how successful was he in achieving them? In this episode, we examine the political, social, and economic policies of Mao’s leadership, evaluating both the accomplishments and the profound challenges of his transformative but controversial rule.