In this introductory chapter, Lebow and Norman identify the Weimar Republic and its collapse as the paradigmatic historical example shaping political thinking about fragility and robustness in the postwar world. It spells out the volume’s analytical focus on Weimar lessons in comparative perspective and identifies its theoretical starting points in a broader scholarly field concerned with the role of historical analogies in politics.

Classroom teaching has changed dramatically over the last 100 years. If you were to ask your grandparents what they remember about learning history in school, there is a good chance they will describe a scene where emphasis was placed on memorising facts, figures and dates, and not the student-centred, collaborative approaches, such as inquiry or source analysis, that are common in twenty-first-century classrooms. It would seem we have come a long way in our thinking about what makes for good teaching and learning in history, but why is that? Using educational psychology as a lens, this chapter shows how changing ideas about learning led to changing practices in history teaching, and examines how constructivism, social constructivism, developmental models and even neuroscience have influenced the teaching of history. It will be shown that we are best served by not relying overly on one approach alone, but that we should be utilising the best of all that came before, diversifying our teaching to meet diverse student needs.