History remains one of the most popular subjects at A-level, with some figures suggesting that it continues to gain favour with youngsters beyond GCSE. While that is, of course, welcome, the subject at this level remains ironically confined in historical scope.

Despite many attempts to widen the curriculum, time after time, students, and indeed schools, are returning to modern subjects. So endemic is this trend that it has been bestowed the moniker Hitler and the Henrys. In short, Nazism and Tudor history reigns supreme.

Now, arguably, this is a consequence of context. These topics are more immediate and accessible than, for example, medieval history and thus theyare easier to broach (not necessarily easier to understand).

Additionally, when we attempt to understand the present, it is all too easy to frame current events against events that are, historically speaking, more recent. Take for example the rise of the Islamic State, the Ukraine Crisis and the latest conflict in the Middle East.

Answers to these problems present themselves immediately before, during and after the first world war and, while that may be true in some respects, others may just as powerfully argue otherwise.

As the American historian Roy P. Basler once remarked: 'To know the truth of history is to realise its ultimate myth and its inevitable ambiguity." Still, such truths warrant scepticism – the historian must investigate, deliberate and record.

While the limited nature of Hitler and the Henrys remains troublesome, they fact that we (students, schools, colleges, scholars, media outlets) return to them time after time says something of their hold over our 'historical imagination'.

It is also important to note there is a bureaucratic element to this – attainment levels of schools inform the choices they make across all subjects when it comes to the formation of a curriculum.

Here is a rundown of the top three OCR A-level history topics that were offered last year in order of popularity.

1. Russian Dictatorship (1855-1992)

Beginning with the ascension of Alexander II to Tsar, considered to be one of the greatest Russian reformers since Peter the Great, this topic takes us through one of the most radical periods in the history of any nation.

It concludes with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, an unfortunate legacy of the second world war that did very little to improve tensions between countries, despite the horrors of the conflict.

2. Civil Rights in the USA (1865-1992)

It tragically took a civil war for the United States to end slavery on the continent, yet, that was not the end of the struggle for equality. While the deliberate bondage of another based on race was outlawed, in its place came segregation – the Jim Crow laws – which ensured the subjugation of African Americans.

So it was that in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War, the fight to end racial discrimination evolved from the abolition of slavery into a fight for civil rights. It would be another long battle, but one that had to be carried out. Is it not so that "all men are created equal", as the Declaration of Independence's preamble stated?

3. Dictatorship & Democracy in Germany (1933-1963)

The rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism and its inherent malevolence is one of the most visible and known-about epochs in modern history, which reveals, all too tragically and graphically, how far into the nadir of barbarity humanity can fall.

We look back at this period and are lost for words. It is still difficult to properly explain Hitler's ascent to power, the second world war and the Holocaust, as the historian Ian Kershaw once noted: "Hitler was no inexorable product of a German ‘special path’, no logical culmination of long-term trends in specifically German culture and ideology. Nor was he a mere ‘accident’ in the course of German history."