World History· File No. 10
Grade 10 · Full Year · Middle East & Europe
Was history really
Was history really
going somewhere?
This course studies the Middle East and Europe from 1400 to the present — and treats "progress," the belief that history bends toward improvement, as a claim to test, not a fact to assume. A second thread, tolerance, runs alongside it: every era in this diverse region had to decide how much difference it would permit within its borders.
1400 → Present
six centuries, one region, two contested ideas
11Units
36Weeks
40+Primary Sources
2Threads Tracked
What the course tracks
Two ideas, tested unit by unit
Rather than assuming either idea is true, the course asks who promoted it, what evidence they offered, and how it held up against events.
Thread A
Progress
The belief that history bends toward happier, more moral lives — a belief the English language didn't even have a word for until the 1600s. Students trace who advanced this claim, why it gained influence in some periods and not others, and whether it held up against events its own advocates would have to reckon with.
Thread B
Tolerance
Because this region has always been religiously and ethnically diverse, every era had to decide how much difference to permit — through pragmatic policy, philosophical argument, law, or its explicit rejection. Students track whether tolerance has a real trajectory, or is itself a claim each era made and then tested.
36-week sequence
The eleven units
Each unit's file is stamped with where the progress claim and the tolerance thread stand by the end of it. Hover or focus a unit to reveal its key question.
Docket
Essential questions for the year
Q1
Is "progress" a discovery about how history actually works, an ideology that certain thinkers and states promoted, or both? How would we tell the difference?
Q2
Why did the idea of "progress" emerge only recently in human history — and who had a stake in promoting it?
Q3
How did pre-modern societies — empires, states, and minority communities alike — organize themselves for stability, and why?
Q4
What did revolution, emancipation, and appeals to "progress" actually offer different peoples of Europe and the Middle East — and what did they demand in return?
Q5
What evidence did believers in progress point to, and what counter-evidence — including atrocity and regression — did events supply?
Q6
Across six centuries, has tolerance expanded, or has it simply changed its justification — pragmatic in one era, philosophical in another, legal in a third — while remaining just as fragile?