A comprehensive resource section for A-level History teachers — built from 1,000+ episodes of expert modern history content and written by a former Pearson/Edexcel examiner. Select your exam board below.
Choose your exam board
AQA
Full coverage of all Component 1 and Component 2 options. Two AO3 Interpretation Packs live now (Russia 1H, Germany 2O). All 30 options linked.
Pearson Edexcel
Papers 1 and 3 fully mapped. Written by a former Edexcel examiner. All 31 options linked. Strong archive coverage for Russia (1E, 2C.2, 38.1), Germany (1G, 2D.2, 37.2) and the Cold WarCold War The geopolitical and ideological confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union that dominated global politics from 1947 to 1991. It was fought not through direct military conflict between the superpowers but through proxy wars, arms races, espionage, and ideological competition across the developing world. The Cold War began before the Second World War had fully ended: American and Soviet disagreements over the post-war order in Europe were visible at Yalta in February 1945 and had hardened into open confrontation by 1947, when the Truman Doctrine committed the United States to resisting Soviet expansion and the Marshall Plan began binding Western Europe to American economic leadership. The term itself was popularised by journalist Walter Lippmann in 1947, capturing the essential quality of a conflict that neither side could allow to become hot — because both possessed nuclear weapons capable of annihilating the other’s cities. The resulting stalemate was managed through deterrence, alliance systems (NATO in the West, the Warsaw Pact in the East), and the deliberate avoidance of direct superpower confrontation even while both sides fought intense proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Afghanistan, and dozens of other theatres. The Cold War was simultaneously a strategic competition and an ideological one: each side claimed to represent the future of humanity, and each used development aid, propaganda, cultural diplomacy, and covert action to advance its model in the non-aligned world. It ended not with a military defeat but with the internal collapse of the Soviet system between 1989 and 1991. The Cold War’s most important characteristic was its globality: what began as a European dispute about occupation zones became a worldwide competition that shaped the politics of every continent. For the United States, it justified interventions that overthrew democratic governments (Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973) on the grounds that any leftist government was a Soviet beachhead; for the Soviet Union, it justified the crushing of reform movements within its own bloc (Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968) on the grounds that any deviation threatened the socialist camp. The Cold War’s legacy is therefore not only the fall of the Berlin Wall but the long list of democracies destroyed, developmental alternatives foreclosed, and civil wars fuelled in the name of containing the other side. The Third World paid the price for a confrontation between two powers that never actually fought each other..
OCR
All 58 options across Components 1, 2 and 3 linked. Two Interpretation Packs live now (Russia Y318, Germany Y221). Packs target Component 3 Section B historical interpretations.
WJEC
For teachers in Wales. All units across Units 1–5 mapped. Strong archive coverage for Russia and Germany. Interpretation packs applicable to Unit 3 Thematic Study.
What makes these resources different
Examiner-verified accuracy
Every historian named is real. Every argument is faithfully represented. Nothing is published without Nick Shepley’s personal sign-off. Generic AI tools hallucinate historians and misattribute arguments. These resources don’t.
Written to mark scheme logic
Resources are built around what exam mark schemes actually reward: analytical argument, contextual evaluation, and evidenced judgement — not description or paraphrase.
1,000 episodes of depth
The Explaining History archive is 13 years deep. These resources draw on that depth — not an algorithm generating plausible-sounding content from thin sources.
About Nick Shepley
Nick Shepley is a former A-level History teacher, the author of A-level History textbooks published under the Pearson/Hodder imprint, and a former Pearson/Edexcel examiner. He has hosted the Explaining History podcast for 13 years, producing 1,000+ episodes of expert modern history content covering exactly the periods A-level specifications examine. These resources exist because he knows not just the history, but what actually gets marks.
