Exam questions

Question 1

To what extent did the Romans see the expansion of their empire as religiously sanctioned?

Question 2

Does Roman expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean mark a firm break with the East’s Hellenistic past?

Question 3

What military factors contributed to Rome’s conquest of the Mediterranean in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC?

Question 4

In what ways did the Punic Wars change Roman society?

Question 5

What role do Roman authors such as Livy and Polybius play in our understanding of the Roman Republic?

Question 6

Compare and contrast Mary Beard and Greg Woolf’s analyses of the rise of Rome in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC

Question 7

Discuss the role of the Mediterranean in Roman Republican history

Question 8

How can we use ancient evidence to tell the story of the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean? Discuss ar least two different types of evidence in your answer

Question 9

To what extent were the Punic Wars inevitable?

Question 10

How did contact with the Mediterranean shape elite Iron Age society in Gaul?

Question 11

How did contact with Rome shape the material culture of northwest Europe in the late Iron Age?

Question 12

Discuss the role of Carthage in the ancient Mediterranean

Question 13

To what extent is the term ‘post-Roman’ an accurate description of the western empire during the 5th and 6th centuries?

Question 14

How would you account for the development in kingship in early medieval Europe?

Question 15

How significant was the influence of ‘Rominatas’ (Romanness) on the post-Roman kingdoms of western Europe?

Question 16

Account for the surge in Viking piracy that took place in the 9th century

Question 17

To what extent and in what senses were the Viking of the 9th and 10th centuries an existential threat to the Christian policies of the early medieval west?

Question 18

To what extent was religion the cause of religious wars in the early medieval period?

Question 19

What made the ideal knight in the period 1000-1200?

Question 20

Why was France so riven with disunity and disorder in the central Middle Ages?

Question 21

Explain the role(s) that the Church and religion played in the resolution of conflict in medieval France c.900-1200

Question 22

To what extent was the Church the dominant force in society between 1000-1200?

Question 23

Examine the reasons for the collapse of one of the following wild animal populations in the modern era: sperm whales, American buffalo, passenger pigeons, African elephants, North American beavers

Question 24

‘The use of fossil fuels as the prime source of energy has vastly increased the power to produce but it is accompanied by environmental hazards which threaten disastrous consequences.’ Discuss.

Question 25

We should not lament ‘the sad fate of the buffalo’ because their extermination enabled economic growth. To what extent do you agree with this statement

Question 26

‘The primary cause of the buffalo’s extermination, and the one which embraced all others was the descent of civilisation’ To what extent do you agree with this statement?

Question 27

What was the relationship between environmental change and economic growth in the modern era?

Question 28

How has the ‘celebration’ of Jack the Ripper in popular history and entertainment divorced itself from a critical, historicised view of the case?

Question 29

What is the legacy of Jack the Ripper?