Mr Worldwide

"Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived." The dreary chant of generations of British schoolchildren forced to learn by roteA memorisation technique based on repetition. what became of all Henry VIIIThe King of England from 1509 to 1547, best known for his six wives. 's six wives.

The TudorsA royal house that held the English throne from 1485 to 1603. remain one of the most popular subjects for History students up and down Britain. And it is easy to see why. The Tudors marked a turning point in English history and the history of the British Isles. Henry VIII transformed England into a ProtestantA Christian religious movement that began in Europe in the early 16th Century. country. It was Elizabeth IThe Tudor Queen of England from 1558 to 1603. who began settling Protestants in Ireland, which would cause decades of civil war four centuries later.

And Tudor history is full of compelling characters: the odiousRepulsive or extremely unpleasant. Henries, the ambitious Duke of Northumberland, cunning Thomas CromwellEnglish lawyer and statesman (1485-1540). During the reign of Henry VIII, he began the English Reformation., along with two of the strongest and most complicated queens in history, Elizabeth and Mary.

But for some time, historians have been worried that British pupils are leaving school with a limited understanding of history. Many find themselves with little knowledge beyond Henry VIII and World War Two.

Now one historian is calling for that to change. Simon Sebag Montefiore thinks the history we teach is too narrow and parochialNarrow-minded or insular. . 

He has written a monumental 1,300-page book on the history of the world, that roars through time from ancient China through to the modern Middle East. 

He ignores the grand old stories, like the ReformationA major movement in 16th Century Europe in which the Western Church split into Protestantism and the Roman Catholic Church. and the Industrial RevolutionA period of sudden, rapid industrialisation that transforms a country from an agricultural to an industrial economy.. Nor does he get bogged down in the details of everyday life. Instead, he has brought out what connects us with all other human beings across time and space. 

Historical figures can often seem very distant, all the more so when they belonged to cultures very different from our own. Montefiore wants us to see that human beings are really the same everywhere and all throughout time: often nasty and cruel, greedy, bigotedA bigot is a person who hates or refuses to accept the members of a particular group., and foolish, but also kind, gentle, joyful, wise and good.

He thinks the history taught in schools should be the same. Rather than focusing on the same old episodes in English history, students should learn about the wider world and what we have in common with all other human beings.

Learning about the history of Russia and Ukraine, he points out, would have helped us to understand why the war broke out earlier this year.

And it could draw much-needed attention to events that are still taking place around us. Almost no-one in Britain, he argues, has ever heard of the Great African War, which started in 1990 and carries on in some forms today.

Yet with 5.4 million casualties, it has been the deadliest war since World War Two, and resulted in the deforestation of an area of rainforest around the size of Belgium.¹

But others say this is not what we learn history for. They think the point is really to understand who we are as a nation. This does not mean shutting the world out, since all nations have influenced each other. But the focus in the UK should still be on how our own ancestors built the world we live in.

Yes: British pupils are being let down. History could give them the tools to understand the increasingly unstable world they live in. Instead, they get force-fed boring facts about long-dead kings.

No: History teachers do not have enough time to teach the history of the whole world. Instead, they should teach pupils enough about their own history that they will be inspired to go and learn more about the world.

Or... There can be no history of Britain without a history of the world. We should not study Britain in isolation or the world at large, but rather Britain's historic place in the world.