By David Taylor. For Edexcel Specification A Core book.

By Malcolm Chandler and John Wright. Foundation book.

By Nigel Kelly. For AQA Specification B Core book.

By David Ferriby and Jim McCabe. Foundation book

By Tony Hewitt and Jane Shuter. Heinemann pound;13.99 each. The Modern World.

By Allan Todd. Oxford University Press pound;13.50. Modern World History Combined Edition.

By Paul Grey, Rosemary Little and Tony McAleavy. Cambridge University Press pound;13.95. Essential Modern World History.

By Steven Waugh. pound;14.17. Exam Support Pack for AQA, OCR, Edexcel.

pound;50 each. Nelson Thornes GCSE Modern World History.

By Ben Walsh. John Murray pound;13.50.

When I started teaching 26 years ago, the textbook was a pocket-sized book with no illustrations by S. Reed Brett, first published in 1933. I was instructed to plough sequentially through this (and old Reed Brett became sequentially more dog-eared in the pupils’ haversacks).

Does anybody still teach like that? A textbook nowadays is one of a range of teaching and learning strategies. There are nevertheless many teachers who - even if not wedded to the text in the old way - still rely on a textbook to deliver the knowledge their pupils need for the exam. A textbook is a safety net, especially if written by a recognised authority.

If you are looking for this kind of text, you could not do better than the Heinemann Modern World History series for each syllabus (OCR, AQA, Edexcel). These really are very good and, at a recent departmental meeting, it was these books my staff decided to buy. The list of authors bristles with names you know. Differentiation is explicit - for each syllabus there are two books (a Foundation and a Core). These follow each other precisely in design and content, so you could use both books in a mixed-ability group at the same time.

In contrast, Allan Todd’s The Modern World for OUP is a generic text, which tries to do everything in one volume. It addresses every exam syllabus, and even claims to include activities and advice for citizenship, ICT and key skills. The narrative text contains enough material for C-grade answers, while marginal information glosses and extends to differentiate. Each chapter begins with a starter, and ends with a summary and some examiners’ tips. This is an intense, sound but dull book which pupils could take home as a revision text.

Teachers who use the textbook as a resource alongside a more personalised programme of teaching will be more interested in the Cambridge Modern World History. The text is simple and sufficient. Design is clean and attractive. It is less a text to take home and learn from, and would need to be teacher-mediated. If I used a textbook in this way, this is the one I would adopt, for its judicious balance of text, sources, investigations and useful review spreads.

Steven Waugh’s Essential Modern World History for Nelson Thornes takes this approach to the ultimate. It is the Rolls Royce of history textbooks - a lavish production (636 pages), and amazing value at pound;14.17, but too flimsy to let the pupils take it home.

This book has the feel of a collection of classroom-tested materials. Each chapter starts with a glossary and ends with a summaryrevision section. Board-based assessment advice is available, offering modelling and practice questions, and at our departmental meeting, my staff decided to buy the accompanying Exam Assessment Pack as a stand-alone resource.

If Essential Modern World History has a drawback, it is just too big. Middle to lower-ability pupils complain constantly of information overload. My approach to differentiation is not to differentiate delivery, but to start all pupils with the simplest outline, and then guide them to add to their understanding on a basis of “how far can you go?”. This approach needs much-simplified materials for the initial presentation, and a textbook only for further development. The text I have used for this for the past few years is Ben Walsh’s GCSE Modern World History, and I am tempted to adopt the new expanded edition, although it adopts a non-chronological approach to the Cold War, which makes it more confusing for pupils.

Teachers who plan to continue using this textbook, however, will need to note that it will be impossible to use old and new versions together - even retained sections have been substantially revised.

The result is a comprehensive, informative text with which pupils will be ableto consolidate their understanding.

All these books are attractive and colourful, with differentiated content, carefully controlled language and a usable range of activities, sources and learning aids. Reed Brett would have been impressed.

John D Clare is deputy head of Greenfield Comprehensive School and author of Hodder History KS3 (Foundation) series