23 History

The American Yawp Vol. 1: Before 1877

Edited by Joseph L. Locke (University of Houston-Victoria) and Ben Wright (University of Texas at Dallas)

2019

Licence: CC BY-SA

The American Yawp is a free, online, collaboratively built American history textbook. Over 300 historians joined together to create the book they wanted for their own students—an accessible, synthetic narrative that reflects the best of recent historical scholarship and provides a jumping-off point for discussions in the U.S. history classroom and beyond.

Formats: Online and PDF

Suggested for: HIST 235

The American Yawp Vol. II: Since 1877

Edited by Joseph L. Locke (University of Houston-Victoria) and Ben Wright (University of Texas at Dallas)

2019

Licence: CC BY-SA

The American Yawp is a free, online, collaboratively built American history textbook. Over 300 historians joined together to create the book they wanted for their own students—an accessible, synthetic narrative that reflects the best of recent historical scholarship and provides a jumping-off point for discussions in the U.S. history classroom and beyond.

Formats: Online and PDF

Suggested for: HIST 235

Ancient World History to 1300 C.E.

Meshack Owino, Shelley Rose, and Kelly L. Wrenhaven (Cleveland State University) 

2019 

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA

This textbook is divided into three sections: Africa, Asia & Americas, and Europe. It explores the history of the world from pre-historic times to 1300 C.E., paying specific attention to the interconnections (or disconnections) between peoples and regions. Students are encouraged to think beyond their experiences with western civilizations to recognize the widespread impact of historical events and trends, including how they helped shape the world today. Touching upon each world region, the readings investigate the impact of environment, economics, politics, and religion on diverse societies. Key topics are sites of change and integration such as the rise of cities, religion, technology, migration and trade, the spread of disease, gender relationships, warfare and social movements. 

Formats: Online, EPUB, and MOBI

Suggested for: HIST 208

Canada 150: Migration and Multiculturalism – Global Challenge, Canadian Experience

Edited by Desmond Glynn (The Chang School, Toronto Metropolitan University)

2017

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA

Audio program on the themes of migration and multiculturalism as a historical retrospective to mark Canada’s 150th anniversary. The recordings consist of excerpts from audio lectures by renowned university professors (John Bosher, David Gagan, Robert Harney, and Roberto Perin) that were originally recorded as part of print/audio courses offered through CJRT-FM and Open College.

Formats: Online, audio files

Suggested for: HIST 225

Canada and Speeches from the Throne: Narrating a Nation, 1935-2015

Alexander Washkowsky, Braden Sapara, Brady Dean, Sarah Hoag, Rebecca Morris-Hurl, Dayle Steffen, Joshua Switzer, and Deklen Wolbaum (University of Regina)

2020

Licence: CC BY

The Speech from the Throne is one of the most important moments in the Canadian Parliamentary calendar. It signals the beginning of a new Parliament, and it lays out the government’s agenda for the upcoming session as well as the Prime Minister’s vision for the country.  In this book, senior undergraduate students and graduate students enrolled in their History course on Canadian Political History at the University of Regina in the fall of 2020 researched how Prime Ministers have articulate a national identity through their speeches marking the opening of Parliament. It offers their perspective on the engaging question of Canadian identity.

Formats: Online, EPUB, PDF, and MOBI

Suggested for: HIST 225

Canadian History: Post-Confederation – 2nd Edition

John Douglas Belshaw (Thompson Rivers University)

2020 

Licence: CC BY

This textbook introduces aspects of the history of Canada since Confederation. “Canada” in this context includes Newfoundland and all the other parts that come to be aggregated into the Dominion after 1867. Much of this text follows thematic lines. Each chapter moves chronologically but with alternative narratives in mind. What Aboriginal accounts must we place in the foreground? Which structures (economic or social) determine the range of choices available to human agents of history? What environmental questions need to be raised to gain a more complete understanding of choices made in the past and their ramifications? Each chapter is comprised of several sections and some of those are further divided. In many instances you will encounter original material that has been contributed by other university historians from across Canada who are leaders in their respective fields. They provide a diversity of voices on the subject of the nation’s history and, thus, an opportunity to experience some of the complexities of understanding and approaching the past. 

Formats: Online, EPUB, PDF, MOBI, and more 

Suggested for: HIST 225

Canadian History: Pre-Confederation – 2nd Edition

John Douglas Belshaw (Thompson Rivers University) 

2020 

Licence: CC BY

Canadian History: Pre-Confederation is a survey text that introduces undergraduate students to important themes in North American history to 1867. It provides room for Aboriginal and European agendas and narratives, explores the connections between the territory that coalesces into the shape of modern Canada and the larger continent and world in which it operates, and engages with emergent issues in the field. The material is pursued in a largely chronological manner to the early 19th century, at which point social, economic, and political change are dissected. 

Formats: Online, EPUB, PDF, MOBI, and more 

Suggested for: HIST 224

Colonialism, Capitalism and Racism: A Post-Colonial Chronicle of Dutch and Belgian Practice

Jan Brennan

2024

Licence: CC BY-NC

For a long time, Europe’s colonizing powers justified their urge for expansion with the conviction that they were ‘bringing civilization to territories where civilization was lacking.’ This doctrine of white superiority and indigenous inferiority was accompanied by a boundless exploitation of local labor. Under colonial rule, the ideology that later became known as neoliberalism was free to subject labor to a capitalism tainted by racialized policies. This political economy has now become dominant in the Western world, too, and has reversed the trend towards equality. In Colonialism, Capitalism and Racism, Jan Breman shows how racial favoritism is no longer contained to ‘faraway, indigenous peoples,’ but has become a source of polarization within Western societies as well.

Formats: PDF

Confronting Canadian Migration History

Edited by Daniel Ross (Université du Québec à Montréal)

2019

Licence: CC BY-SA

The essays published here speak to the broad range of research being done in Canadian migration history; they also highlight the commitment of their authors to an engaged, public-facing scholarly practice. Read together, we believe they offer a much-needed historical perspective on contemporary Canadian debates around immigration and refuge, questions that cut to the heart of who we are as a society. Part of Active History ebook series.

Formats: Online, EPUB, PDF, and MOBI

Critical Perspectives on Migration in the Twenty-First Century

Edited by Marianna Karakoulaki, Laura Southgate, and Jakob Steiner (e-International Relations)

2018

Licence: CC BY-NC

This text covers concepts in 21st-century migration, from human rights to the 2015 migrant crisis.

Formats: Online and PDF

Decoding the 1920s: A Reader for Advanced Learners of Russian

Nila Friedberg (Portland State University)

2021

Licence: CC BY-NC

Pre-reading assignment, preparatory written assignments, discussion and textual analysis, supplementary assignments.

Formats: Online, PDF

Suggested for: HIST 327

Digital Meijis: Revisualizing Modern Japanese History at 150

Tristan R. Grunow and Naoko Kato (University of British Columbia)

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA

A companion volume to the Meiji at 150 Digital Teaching Resource that aims to present and widely disseminate research on the Meiji Period in a public format designed for easy adoption in the Japanese studies classroom. By pairing digitized materials and documents with historical narrative and interpretive analysis, the “visual essays” contained within encourage readers to review and rethink modern Japanese history through images.

Formats: Online, PDF

The European Experience: A Multi-Perspective History of Modern Europe, 1500–2000

Jan Hansen (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Jochen Hung (Utrecht University), Jaroslav Ira (Charles University), Judit Klement (Eötvös Loránd University), Sylvain Lesage (Université de Lille), Juan Luis Simal (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), Andrew Tompkins (University of Sheffield)

Licence: CC BY

The European Experience brings together the expertise of nearly a hundred historians from eight European universities to internationalise and diversify the study of modern European history, exploring a grand sweep of time from 1500 to 2000. Offering a valuable corrective to the Anglocentric narratives of previous English-language textbooks, scholars from all over Europe have pooled their knowledge on comparative themes such as identities, cultural encounters, power and citizenship, and economic development to reflect the complexity and heterogeneous nature of the European experience. Rather than another grand narrative, the international author teams offer a multifaceted and rich perspective on the history of the continent of the past 500 years. Each major theme is dissected through three chronological sub-chapters, revealing how major social, political and historical trends manifested themselves in different European settings during the early modern (1500–1800), modern (1800–1900) and contemporary period (1900–2000)

Formats: Forthcoming

Suggested for: HIST 216

Global History and New Polycentric Approaches: Europe, Asia and the Americas in a World Network System

Edited by Manuel Perez Garcia (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) and Lucio De Sousa (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)

2018

Licence: CC BY

Rethinking the ways global history is envisioned and conceptualized in diverse countries such as China, Japan, Mexico or Spain, this collection considers how global issues are connected with our local and national communities. It examines how the discipline had evolved in various historiographies, from Anglo Saxon to southern European, and its emergence in Asia with the rapid development of the Chinese economy motivation to legitimate the current uniqueness of the history and economy of the nation. It contributes to the revitalization of the field of global history in Chinese historiography, which have been dominated by national narratives and promotes a debate to open new venues in which important features such as scholarly mobility, diversity and internationalization are firmly rooted, putting aside national specificities. Dealing with new approaches on the use of empirical data by framing the proper questions and hypotheses and connecting western and eastern sources, this text opens a new forum of discussion on how global history has penetrated in western and eastern historiographies, moving the pivotal axis of analysis from national perspectives to open new venues of global history. (Description from publisher Palgrave Macmillan)

Formats: Online, PDF, and EPUB

Suggested for: HIST 335

Great Power Policies Towards Central Europe 1914–1945

Aliaksandr Piahanau

2019

Licence: CC BY-NC

This essay collection provides an overview of the various forms and trajectories of Great Power policy towards Central Europe between 1914 and 1945. The volume is designed to be accessible and informative to both historians and wider audiences.

Formats: PDF

Healing and Reconciliation Through Education

Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre

2019

Licence: CC BY-SA

This open educational resource is focused on teaching the history of the colonial legacy of Residential Schools, with an emphasis on exploring the unique history of the Shingwauk Residential School which operated in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. This project builds upon decades of archival research and data collection, including the recording of oral histories, under the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre’s (SRSC) mandate of ‘sharing, healing, and learning.’ ‘Healing and Reconciliation through Education’ is designed to increase the capacity of the SRSC to educate local, regional, and national audience about the history of Residential Schools.

Formats: Online, PDF, EPUB

Suggested for: HIST 369

Historical and Contemporary Realities: Movement Towards Reconciliation

Susan Manitowabi

Licence: CC BY-NC

This open textbook is written as a resource for educators to teach students about the Indigenous historical significance of the lands encompassing the Robinson-Huron Treaty area and more specifically the Greater Sudbury and Manitoulin area. It also, through the use of interactive mapping strategies, serves as a guide for educators to develop a similar resource to document Indigenous stories from their own areas.

Formats: Online, PDF, EPUB, and more

Suggested for: HIST 369

Histories of Indigenous Peoples and Canada

John Douglas Belshaw (Thompson Rivers University), Sarah Nickel (University of Saskatchewan), Chelsea Horton (Vancouver Island University)

2020

Licence: CC BY

Since the 18th century, the historical study of “Indians,” “Natives,” and “Aboriginals” in universities and colleges was contextualized within the story of colonization and growing European influence. Whatever justification might be mustered for that practice, it had real and dire effects: Canadians — including many Indigenous people — came to understand Indigenous histories as tangential, small, unimportant, and even a blind alley. This kind of thinking enabled Canadian authorities and citizens to regard Indigenous communities as being “without history,” as in, outside of history, which we can agree in modern times is simply untrue, as this book strives to show. The preface introduces you to some of the practices and challenges of Indigenous history, focusing on the nature and quality of sources, innovative historical methodologies, and the leading historiographical trends (that is, what historians are thinking very broadly and what they have studied in the last decade or four). It turns, then, to histories of Indigenous peoples in the Western Hemisphere before ca. 1500. The twelve chapters that follow are arranged under three headings: Commerce and Allies, Engaging Colonialism, and Culture Crisis Change Challenge. And there is a thirteenth chapter that brings us deep enough into the twenty-first century to allow a visit with two of the most important recent developments in Canadian civic life: Idle No More and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Both of these processes arose from the failures of colonialism and the resilience of Indigenous communities. They reveal, therefore, as much about the history of Canada as they do of the historical experiences of Indigenous peoples.

Formats: Online, EPUB, PDF, MOBI, and more

Suggested for: HIST 368

History in the Making: A History of the People of the United States of America to 1877

Catherine Locks (Fort Valley State University), Sarah K. Mergel (Dalton State College), Pamela Thomas Roseman (Georgia Perimeter College), and Tamara Spike (University of North Georgia)

2013

Licence: CC BY-SA

This textbook examines U.S. History from before European Contact through Reconstruction, while focusing on the people and their history.

Formats: PDF

Suggested for: HIST 235

History of International Relations: A Non-European Perspective

Erik Ringmar (Ibn Haldun University, Turkey)

2019

Licence: CC BY

This textbook pioneers a new approach by historicizing the material traditionally taught in International Relations courses, and by explicitly focusing on non-European cases, debates and issues. The volume is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the international systems that traditionally existed in Europe, East Asia, pre-Columbian Central and South America, Africa and Polynesia. The second part discusses the ways in which these international systems were brought into contact with each other through the agency of Mongols in Central Asia, Arabs in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, Indic and Sinic societies in South East Asia, and the Europeans through their travels and colonial expansion. The concluding section concerns contemporary issues: the processes of decolonization, neo-colonialism and globalization – and their consequences on contemporary society.

Formats: Online and PDF

Household Politics: Conflict in Early Modern England

Don Herzog (University of Michigan)

2015

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA

Household Politics paints a vivid and prickly portrait of gender relations in early modern England. It’s just not true, Herzog argues, that contemporaries “naturalized” or “essentialized” patriarchal authority: they saw it as political and fought about it endlessly. Nor is it true that a gendered public/private distinction made the political subordination of women invisible: indeed understanding how women were public is crucial in understanding the terms of their domination. Against left and right alike, Herzog argues that conflict isn’t an acid bath eating away at social order, but is what social order ordinarily consists in.

Formats: PDF

Suggested for: HIST 460

How History is Made: A Student’s Guide to Reading, Writing, and Thinking in the Discipline

Stephanie Cole, Kimberly Breuer and Scott W. Palmer

2022

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA

This text outlines essential disciplinary skills for reading, researching, writing, and presenting in history.

Formats: PDF, eBook

Keys to Understanding the Middle East: Diverse Perspectives

Alam Payind and Melinda McClimans (Ohio State University)

2017

Licence: CC BY-SA

This book is intended for readers who have never studied the Middle East, or experts who may wish to fill gaps in their knowledge of the region from other disciplines. Whether for establishing or deepening one’s knowledge of the region, these fundamentals are important to know. The languages, cultural, religious and sectarian communities of the region, and selected turning points and influential people in history are starting points for gaining an understanding of the diverse contexts of the region.

Formats: Online and PDF

Migration and the Ukraine Crisis: A Two Country Perspective

Tania Bulakh, Mikhail Denisenko, Joanna Fomina, Michael Gentile, Kateryna Ivashchenko-Stadnik, Marina A. Kingsbury, Irina Kuznetsova, Viacheslav Morozov, Vladimir Mukomel, Olga Oleinikova and Caress Schenk

2017

Licence: CC BY-NC

This book focuses on the 2014 Ukraine crisis and the war for Crimea, covering introductory concepts in migration studies, from geopolitical fault-lines to labour migration.

Formats: PDF

Modern World History

Dan Allosso (Bemidji State University) and Tom Williford (Southwest Minnesota State University)

2021

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA

This is the textbook for an undergraduate survey course taught at all the universities and most of the colleges in the Minnesota State system. Readers of this text may have varying levels of familiarity with the events of World History before the modern period it covers. Occasionally understanding the text may require a bit of background that will help contextualize the material we are covering. See the book’s introduction for details. 

Formats: Online, EPUB, PDF, and MOBI

Suggested for: HIST 209/210

Nexus of Patriotism and Militarism in Russia: A Quest for Internal Cohesion

Katri Pynnöniemi

2021

Licence: CC BY-NC

This edited volume explores patriotism and the growing role of militarism in today’s Russia. During the last 20-year period, there has been a consistent effort in Russia to consolidate the nation and to foster a sense of unity and common purpose. This volume provides new insights into the evolution of enemy images in Russia and the ways in which societal actors perceive official projections of patriotism and militarism in the Russian society.

Formats:

Open History Seminar: Canadian History

Sean Kheraj (York University) and Thomas Pearce (Huron University College)

2018

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA

This book is an open-access collection of primary and secondary sources for Canadian history. It is suitable for use at both the secondary and post-secondary levels. Open History Seminar: Canadian History brings together open resources for learning about Canadian history from the earliest times to the present. Chapters include both historical documents and secondary interpretations on a range of topics. With this book, students have access to digitized copies of original historical documents and high-quality secondary source research materials. They will learn how to critically analyze historical documents, deconstruct historical arguments, and engage with historical scholarship.

Format: Online

Suggested for: HIST 224/225

An Outline History of East Asia to 1200

Sarah Schneewind (University of California, San Diego)

2020

Licence: CC BY-NC

This open-access textbook arose out of a course at the University of California, San Diego, called HILD 10: East Asia: The Great Tradition.  The course covers what have become two Chinas, Japan, and two Koreas from roughly 1200 BC to about AD 1200.  As we say every Fall in HILD 10: “2400 years, three countries, ten weeks, no problem.”  The book does not stand alone: the teacher should assign primary and secondary sources, study questions, dates to be memorized, etc.  The maps mostly use the same template to enable students to compare them one to the next.

Format: PDF

Plague Diaries: Firsthand Accounts of Epidemics, 430 B.C. to A.D. 1918

Ryan Johnson, David Ulrich and Tina Ulrich (St. Clair County Community College & Northwestern Michigan College)

Licence: CC BY-SA

This project originated in response to the Covid-19 pandemic sweeping the globe and its various knock-on effects. We created a small collection of openly available primary documents discussing epidemics from the past, such as the Black Death in Europe in the mid-fourteenth century and smallpox hitting northern Michigan in the nineteenth.

Formats: Online, PDF

Politics and the Environment in Eastern Europe

Eszter Krasznai Kovacs

2021

Results of the Revolutionary Movement in Russia during a Period of 40 Years (1862-1902)

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin and Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin

1903

This book, published in Geneva in 1903, is number 24 in a series of 43 titles produced in 1902−4 by the social democratic organization Zhizn’ (Life) as “The Library of the Russian Proletariat.” The book is a compilation of documents, including programs, manifestoes, and articles, related to the Russian revolutionary movement in 1862−1902.

Licence: Public Domain

Formats: PDF

Sage American History – Era of the American Revolution

Henry Judd Sage (Northern Virginia Community College)

2011

This peer-reviewed open textbook is a comprehensive look at the American Revolution, containing links to primary source documents and other resources of this important era in U.S. history.

Formats: Online

Suggested for: HIST 235

Shingwauk Narratives: Sharing Residential School History

Jenna Lemay (Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre)

Licence: CC BY-NC

The Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre (SRSC) holds 10 letter books of the first principal of the Shingwauk Residential School, Rev. Edward F. Wilson, and the fourth principal Rev. George L. King. These letters range in date from 1875-1904, and include a wealth of information about the early history of Shingwauk and Wawanosh. This resource shares stories compiled from the information in the letter books. Shingwauk Narratives discusses the in depth history of residential school, colonialism, and the establishment of the Shingwauk Residential School.

Formats: Online

Suggested for: HIST 369

Ukraine in Conflict: An Analytical Chronicle

David R. Marples

2017

Licence: CC BY-NC

Through a series of articles written between 2013 and 2017, this book examines Ukraine during its period of conflict – from the protests and uprising of Euromaidan, to the Russian annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war in Ukraine’s two eastern provinces Donetsk and Luhansk.

Formats: PDF

U.S. History

P. Scott Corbett (Ventura College), Volker Janssen (California State University-Fullerton), and James M. Lund (Keene State College) (OpenStax)

2015

Licence: CC BY

U.S. History covers the breadth of the chronological history of the United States and also provides the necessary depth to ensure the course is manageable for instructors and students alike. U.S. History is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of most courses. The authors introduce key forces and major developments that together form the American experience, with particular attention paid to considering issues of race, class, and gender. The text provides a balanced approach to U.S. history, considering the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top-down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom-up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience).

Formats: Online and PDF; online LibreTexts version

Suggested for: HIST 235

Western Civilization: A Concise History – Volume 1

Christopher Brooks (Portland Community College)

2024

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA

Volume 1 covers introductory concepts in western civilization, from the origins of civilization in Mesopotamia c. 8,000 BCE through the early Middle Ages in Europe c. 1,000 CE. Topics include  Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, the Islamic caliphates, and the early European Middle Ages.

Formats: Google doc (can be saved as a PDF)

Suggested for: HIST 209/210

Western Civilization: A Concise History – Volume 2

Christopher Brooks (Portland Community College)

2024

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA

This open textbook looks at the early Middle Ages to the French Revolution in 1789 CE. This volume covers topics including the High Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the European conquest of the Americas, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment.

Formats: PDF and Google Doc

Suggested for: HIST 209/210

Western Civilization: A Concise History – Volume 3

Christopher Brooks (Portland Community College)

2024

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA

This open textbook looks at the Napoleonic era to the recent past. Volume 3 covers topics including the Industrial Revolution, the politics of Europe in the nineteenth century, modern European imperialism, the World Wars, fascism, Nazism, and the Holocaust, the postwar era, the Cold War, and recent developments in economics and politics.

Formats: PDF and Google Doc

Suggested for: HIST 209/210

World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500

Eugene Berger, George L. Israel, Charlotte Miller, Brian Parkinson, Andrew Reeves, and Nadejda Williams (University System of Georgia)

2016

Licence: CC BY-SA

World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500 is a peer-reviewed textbook that offers a comprehensive introduction to the history of humankind from prehistory to 1500. It covers such cultures, states, and societies as Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Israel, Dynastic Egypt, India’s Classical Age, the Dynasties of China, Archaic Greece, the Roman Empire, Islam, Medieval Africa, the Americas, and the Khanates of Central Asia.

Format: PDF

Suggested for: HIST 208

World History Since 1500: An Open and Free Textbook

John Rankin and Constanze Weise (East Tennessee State University)

2023

Licence: CC BY-SA

World History Since 1500: An Open and Free Textbook is designed to cover world history from 1500 to the present in 15 chapters. The OER-supported textbook can be downloaded as a pdf or viewed online. The textbook serves to weave insights from many perspectives into stories and narratives that will help students develop a framework to organize and connect ideas, geographical locations, and timelines allowing them to think critically and broadly about the world around them. In addition to helping students master the sequence and scope of world history from 1500, the textbook helps develop empathy for people who live and lived in different parts of the world and during different historical times leading to the creation of empathic and knowledgeable global citizens who are aware of and concerned about the world around them.

Format: PDF

Suggested for: HIST 208