Goals of AP European History
AP European History is designed to be the equivalent of a two-semester introductory college or university European history course. In AP European History students investigate significant events, individuals, developments, and processes in four historical periods from approximately 1450 to the present. Students develop and use the same skills, practices, and methods employed by historians: analyzing historical evidence; contextualization; comparison; causation; change and continuity over time; and argument development.
The course also provides six themes that students explore throughout the course in order to make connections among historical developments in different times and places: interaction of Europe and the world;
- poverty and prosperity;
- objective knowledge and subjective visions;
- states and other institutions of power;
- individual and society; and
- national and European identity.
The AP European History course is structured around themes and
concepts in four different chronological periods from approximately
1450 to the present:
Period 1: c. 1450 to c. 1648
Period 2: c. 1648 to c. 1815
Period 3: c. 1815 to c. 1914
Period 4: c. 1914 to the present
Within each period, key concepts organize and prioritize historical developments. Themes allow students to make connections and identify patterns and trends over time
Includes video lessons, chapter readings, research resources, interactive activities, discussion, and essay-writing skills.
Chapters in AP European History
AP History Disciplinary Practices and Reasoning Skills
The AP history courses seek to apprentice students to the practice of history by emphasizing the development of disciplinary practices and reasoning skills while learning historical content. The practices and skills that students should develop in all AP history courses are listed below, along with a condensed description of what students should be able to do with each.
Every AP Exam question will assess one or more of these practices and skills.
AP HISTORY DISCIPLINARY PRACTICES
Practice 1: Analyzing Historical Evidence
• Explain the relative historical significance of a source’s point of view, purpose, historical situation, and/or audience.
• Evaluate a source’s credibility and/or limitations.
• Explain how a historian’s claim or argument is supported with evidence.
• Analyze patterns and trends in quantitative data in non-text based sources.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of a historical claim or argument.
Practice 2: Argument Development
• Make a historically defensible claim in the form of an evaluative thesis.
• Support an argument using specific and relevant evidence.
• Use historical reasoning to explain relationships among pieces of historical evidence.
• Consider ways that diverse or alternative evidence could be used to qualify or modify an argument.
AP HISTORY REASONING SKILLS
Skill 1: Contextualization
• Use context to explain the relative historical significance of a specific historical development or process.
Skill 2: Comparison
• Explain the relative historical significance of similarities and/or differences between different historical developments or processes.
Skill 3: Causation
• Explain the difference between primary and secondary causes and between short- and long-term effects.
• Explain the relative historical significance of different causes and/or effects.
Skill 4: Continuity and Change Over Time
• Explain the relative historical significance of specific historical developments in relation to a larger pattern of continuity and/or change.