You have three hours for the exam. You will need to answer all FIVE parts of the case study question, before moving on to answer two other questions from other parts of the course. Use as much of the time as possible!

These examples are from the June 1999 exam paper.

Start each question on a separate sheet of paper.

Avoid duplication of material.

The questions (i-v) appear after the photographs and text (a-e).

(a) Family of brushmakers in London (c.1900)

(b) School meal delivery in London, 1947

Like many others in Germany who were profoundly involved with Hitler, she tries almost obsessively to defend herself against the one accusation that seems to matter.. She said time and again to me (and in her book) that she had never been anti-semitic "I told Hitler one that he shouldn't attack the Jews, that I could never dislike anyone because they were Jews or Negroes, and he said 'You are young. You will learn to understand.'" Her book is full of such quotes [sic] - things many of us may have wished in our daydreams we had said to Hitler, but of course would never have dared to say, even if we had had the opportunity. She is a complicated woman with formidable talents, and may well have come to believe her fantasies. Like practically every other contemporary witness I have talked to, she has no memory for dates, and many of her claims and quotes [sic] are contradicted by Goebbels diaries, in which he meticulously noted each night everything he did, everyone he saw and a resume of what has been said that day.

(c) Gita Sereny on Leni Riefenstahl, in Albert Speer: His Battle with the Truth (1995)

(d) Still from Trainspotting (1996). Renton and his parents on their way home from hospital after Renton's heroin overdose.

Questions:

1. Discuss EITHER photograph (a) OR photograph (b) as a social document of its time, and critically assess the issues involved in analysing it historically.
2. Is it possible for the historian to reconcile Riefenstahl's post-war denials of Nazi sympathies, as outline in extract (c) with the visual evidence of Triumph of the Will?
3. How does image (d) convey Renton's alienation? What skills do historians need in order to read feature films?
4. How would a historian's response to picture (e) differ from that of a journalist?
5. With reference to pictures (a), (b), (d) and (e), critically assess the claim that film and photographic evidence is 'neutral and objective'.

Return to Homepage