Internet Modern History Sourcebook: Studying History

Introduction: Using Primary Sources
Nature of Historiography
- Writing History
- Ancient Theories
- 19th Century Philosophies of History
- Professional Theories
- History and Epistemology
- History and Anthropology
- History and Identity Politics
- Post-Modern Theories
- Misc. Discussions
Other Sources of Information on Modern History
- General Guides to Net Text [link to texts at other sites.]
- General Etext Projects [sites with texts online.]
- Economics
- Law
- Military
- Religion
- Philosophy
- Literature
- Music Lyrics
- Western Civilization/Europe
- United States History
- Latin American History
Student Papers and Projects
- Student Papers
- Student Web Projects

Introduction: Using Primary Sources

How to Read A Primary Source [at Bowdoin College]
James H. Robinson: Why Study History Through Primary Sources
History in the Raw [At National Archives]
Using Primary Sources [At Then Again]
The Need for Source Criticism: A Letter from Alexander to Aristotle? [At this Site]

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Nature of Historiography

Writing History
- Gerald W. Schlabach: A Sense of History: Some Components [At St. Thomas] [His Ten Commandments of Historical Writing are also worth a look.]
Ancient Theories
- Thucydides: On Inventing Speeches, from History of the Peloponnesian War [At this Site]
19th Century Philosophies of History
- Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803): Materials for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind, 1784 [At this Site]
- Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762�1814): Addresses to the German Nation, 1806 [At this Site]
  Political nationalism as a response to Napoleon.
- Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762�1814): Address To The German Nation,
- G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831): Introduction to the Lectures on the Philosophy of History,(1840 edition) [At WSU]
- G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831): The Dialectic of History, 1812-1820, an epitome [At this Site]
- Karl Marx (1818-83): Scientific Socialism, 1844-1875, an epitome [At this Site]
- Thomas DeQuincey: Literature of Knowledge and Knowledge of Power, 1848 [At UFL]
Professional Theories
- Leopold Ranke
- 'Professional History', from the Prefatory Note of the English Historical Review, 1886
- Lord Acton: Inaugural Lecture on the Study of History, 1906 [At this Site]
  Acton defends a moral interpretation of people's actions in the past.
- Collingwood
History and Epistemology
- Louis O.Mink: Modes of Comprehension and the Unity of Knowledge in Historical Understanding, ed. Brian Fay, Eugene O. Golob, and Richard T. Vann. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1987, pp. 35-41. From Proceedings of the Xllth International Congress of Philosophy (Firenze: Sansoni Editore, 1960) V, 41 1-17 [At UFL]
History and Anthropology
- Clifford Geertz: Ideology as a Cultural System [At Gongfa]
- Clifford Geertz: Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture [At Linz]
History and Identity Politics
- Elizabeth Fox-Genovese: Between Individualism and Fragmentation: American Culture and the New Literary Studies of Race and Gender [At Montclair]
Post-Modern Theories
- Roland Barthes: The Discourse of History, Comparative Criticism 3 (1981): 7-20 [at UFL]
- Roland Barthes: Myth Today [At Washtington U./St.Louis]
Misc. Discussions
- Lynne V. Cheney: Politics in the Classroom [At HistoryPlace] [Modern Opinion Piece] [Conservative]
- The Nature of History: A Debate between Marc Trachtenberg and James M. Banner, Jr., 1998 [At this Site]
- Natalie Zemon Davis: "Any Resemblance to Persons Living or Dead": Film and the Challenge of Authenticity, The Yale Review, 86 (1986-87): 457-82. [At Stanford]
- Samuel P. Huntington: The West Unique: Not Universal, Foreign Affairs 75/6, Nov-Dec 96 [At Colorado]
- Brave New World or Blind Alley? American History on the World Wide Web, Journal Of American History, (June 1997) [At GMU]

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Other Sources of Information on Modern History

Period/subject specific sources are indicated throughout this site. Under this heading are links to wide-ranging reference, text, and image source collections.

REFERENCE
- WEB Virtual Reference Desk
- WEB United States Historical Census Browser [At Virginia]
- Links for Students of History and the Social Sciences [At VWC]
  A comprehensive guide by Dan Graf of Virginia Wesleyan College.+
TEXTS
It its possible to search most of these respositories simultaneously from the Search Page
- General Guides to Net Text
  These sites link to texts online at other sites.
  - Online Books Page [At CMU]
  - Includes complete guide to locations of Project Gutenberg etext edition.
  - The Internet Public Library
  - Electronic Texts on the Internet Ordered by Language
  - CARRIE: An Electronic Library
  - Yahoo!: Guide to Electronic Publishers
  - Full-Text Online Newspapers [CMU]
- General Etext Projects
  These sites put texts online.
  - Humanities Text Initiative: Resources [At Michigan]
  - UVA Electronic Text Library [At UVA]
  - Oxford Text Archive [At Oxford]
  - Athena: French Literature [in Switzerland]
  - ABU - CATALOGUE AUTEURS
  - The New Bartleby: A National Digital Library.
  - Renascence Editions
  - Eldritch Press
  - Hanover History Text Project and Electronic Text Collections
  - Eserver History
  - The ETEXT Archives
  - GASLIGHT electronic text and discussion site
  - ArtServe
  - Cromohs: Library Catalogue
  - Center for World Indigenous Studies
  - Historyxx
  - World Civilization Reader: Table of Contents [At Internet Archive]
- Economics
  - Library of Economic Thought [At McMaster] or British Mirror Site [At Bristol]
    A very large collecttion of public domain texts, based on a wide definition of "economic thought". The texts are too large for class assignments, but a goldmine for preparation of shorter handouts.
  - History of Economics by Schools of Thought
- Law
  - University of Michigan Documents Center [At Michigan]
    A source for US Federal and state documents, as well as international governmental documents. Major statistical sources also available.
  - International Constitutional Law [At Wuerzburg]
    Maintains online texts in English, and search machines for comparative studies of constitutions.
  - U.S. House of Representatives Internet Law Library
  - Liberty Library of Constitutional Classics [At Constitution.org]
  - Depository Library Services Program/Department of State Electronic Research Collection
  - German Law Archive [At Oxford]
    Texts on German constitutional and statute law in English translation.
- Military
  - Documents in Military History [At Hillsdale]
    A wide-ranging collection of short and excerpted texts describing warfare and its effects.
- Religion
  - Mircea Eliade: From Primitives to Zen [at Eliade]
    Complete texts of Eliade's religion anthology online.
  - Christian Classics Ethereal Library
  - EWTN http://www.ewtn.com (for Catholic Documents)
- Philosophy
  - Postmodernism and Postmodern Theorists; Essays at Public Sphere [At Internet Archive]
  - The Value of Knowledge: a Miniature Library of Philosophy
- Literature
  - Victorian Women Writers Project Library
  - Renaissance Electronic Texts [At Toronto]
    A series of old-spelling, SGML-encoded editions of early individual copies of English Renaissance books and manuscripts,and of plain transcriptions of such works.
- Music Lyrics
- Western Civilization/Europe
  - EuroDocs: Primary Historical Documents From Western Europe [At BYU]
  - United Kingdom -- Primary Documents- [At BYU]
  - CELT Corpus of Electronic Texts [At UCC]
    Online resource for contemporary and historical Irish documents in literature, history and politics.
  - Gerhard Rempel: Western Civilization II [At Western New England College]
    Very extensive online lectures from Luther until 1989.
- United States History
  - AmDocs: Documents for the Study of American History [At Kansas]
  - William Brinton: An Abridged History of the United States [At us-history.org]
    An online narrative history.
  - Hypertext on American History from the colonial period until Modern Times [At RUG-NL] or here
    An online narrative history. The site contains multiple source and secondary readings.
  - Basic Readings In U.S. Democracy, Edited by Melvin I. Urofsky, USIA [At Civnet]
  - Library of Congress Online Exhibits
    An ever exapanding set of illustrated online exhibitions, some with considerable textual content.
  - American Memory [At National Digital Library/Library of Congress]
  - National Archives and Records Administration: Resources for Teachers and Students/li>
- Latin American History
  - The Buried Mirror: Etexts [At Internet Archive]
    A major collection of sources and secondary material on Latin American history.
MAPS, IMAGES, and MULTIMEDIA
- Modern History Image Bank [At Brooklyn]
- Images from World History [At UAB]
- UCR/California Museum of Photography [At UCR]
- PCL Map Collection [At UTexas]
  Has over 230,000 maps covering every area and period of the world history.
- FEEFHS Map Room
  Area and city maps of Eastern Europe.
- National Geographic Map Machine
  Over 155,000 images and maps.
- Historical Picture Collections [At San Diego]
  Guide to Websites with historical images.
- Old Time Victrola Music
  The site contains multiple sound clips of pre-1920 recorded music in RealAudio format.

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Student Papers and Projects

Examples of Student Papers

The following papers, posted with the consent of the authors, are all good (not perfect) examples of student papers from introductory classes. Let me remind readers that it is plagiarism to hand in one of these papers as yours.

Michael La Regina: The Struggle for Gay Rights in America and MS Word Format [At this Site]
Anne Marie Huysman: Women, Economic Instability, and Poverty in London During the Nineteenth Century and MS Word Format [At this Site]
Dresden Dickie: Margaret Sanger and Eugenics and MS Word Format [At this Site]
Larisa Ayrapetova: The Decembrists and The Russian Intelligentsia and MS Word Format [At this Site]
Marie Vento: One Thousand Years of Chinese Footbinding: Its Origins, Popularity and Demise [At Brooklyn College] and here [At this Site]
John Spencer Neumann: Clash of Religious Titans: Kingsley Vs. Newman [PDF format][At Concord Review]
Paper by an AP History student. See Concord Review: Sample Essays Page for more very good student papers.

NOTES:

Dates of accession of material added since July 1998 can be seen in the New Additions page.. The date of inception was 9/22/1997.

Links to files at other site are indicated by [At some indication of the site name or location]. Locally available texts are marked by [At this Site].

WEB indicates a link to one of small number of high quality web sites which provide either more texts or an especially valuable overview.

Since September 22, 1997, this site has been accessed times
[the counter is approximate since it only records graphical hits.]

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created 1997: last revised 3/28/2007