Department of History

Canadian Studies

Canadian History: Pre-Confederation, 2nd Edition

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 Indigenous 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.

Includes: Summaries, key terms, short answer exercises, glossary

Licence: CC BY 4.0

Canadian History: Pre-Confederation, 1st Edition

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.

Includes: Summaries, key terms, short answer exercises, glossary, suggested readings

Licence: CC BY 4.0

Canadian History: Post-Confederation – 2nd Edition

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.

Includes: Summaries, key points, key terms, short answer exercises, glossary

Licence: CC BY 4.0

Confronting Canadian Migration History

This open collection of essays 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.

Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0

The Refugee: or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada by Benjamin Drew [New]

The Refugee: or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada (1856)—full title A North-Side View of Slavery. The Refugee: or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada. Related by Themselves, with an Account of the History and Condition of the Colored Population of Upper Canada—is a collection of over 100 testimonies of escaped slaves by white American abolitionist Benjamin Drew [Description from resource].

Licence: CC 0 (Public Domain)

Central and East European Studies

Archives of Historical and Ethnographic Yiddish Memories

The Archives of Historical and Ethnographic Yiddish Memories includes approximately 800 hours of Yiddish-language interviews with 350 individuals, most of whom were born between 1900 and 1930. The interviews were conducted in Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Hungary, and Slovakia.

Licence: Note the copyrighted content on the website is available to use for free, however they are not openly licence.

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

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

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

Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0

Reviews: Available through the Open Textbook Library

“The Death of Ivan Ilich”: An Electronic Study Edition of the Russian Text

The Russian text of “The Death of Ivan Ilich” is presented for study in various formats: accompanied by an English translation; fully glossed, with explanatory and interpretive annotations; and supplemented by introductory remarks.

Includes: Extensive bibliography

Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0

A Foundation Course in Reading German

This textbook guides a learner who has no previous German experience to accurately understand formal written German prose.

Includes: Unit review practice

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Reviews: Available through the Open Textbook Library

Great Power Policies Towards Central Europe 1914–1945

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.

Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0

Lifestyle in Siberia and the Russian North

This essay collection explores the concept of lifestyle from a distinctly anthropological perspective. Showcasing the collective work of ten experienced scholars in the field, the book goes beyond concepts of tradition that have often been the focus of previous research, to explain how political, economic and technological changes in Russia have created a wide range of new possibilities and constraints in the pursuit of different ways of life.

Licence: CC BY 4.0

Memory Politics in Contemporary Russia: Television, Cinema and the State

This book critically examines the role of cinema and television in shaping and spreading narratives of memory politics in contemporary Russia to provide a better understanding both of the various ways the Russian government practices memory politics, and the existence of alternative and critical voices and criticism.

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Note: This is an open access text which restricts remixing and adapting).

Migration and the Ukraine Crisis: A Two Country Perspective

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.

Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0

 Modernisation in Russia since 1900

This essay collection examines the broad theme of modernisation in late imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia both through general overviews of particular topics, and specific case studies of modernisation projects and their impact.

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Note: This is an open access text which restricts remixing and adapting).

Modernism and the Spiritual in Russian Art: New Perspectives

This essay collection introduces new and stimulating approaches to the ongoing debate as to how Russian artistic modernism engaged with questions of spirituality in the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries.

Licence: CC BY 4.0

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

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.

Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0

The Other Russia: Local experience and societal change

Most recent research seeks to explain contemporary changes in Russia by analysing the decisions of Russian leaders, oligarchs and politicians based in Moscow. This book examines another Russia, one of ordinary people changing their environment and taking opportunities to provoke societal changes in small towns and the countryside.

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Note: This is an open access text which restricts remixing and adapting).

The Palgrave Handbook of Digital Russia Studies

This open access handbook presents a multidisciplinary and multifaceted perspective on how the ‘digital’ is simultaneously changing Russia and the research methods scholars use to study Russia. It provides a critical update on how Russian society, politics, economy, and culture are reconfigured in the context of ubiquitous connectivity and accounts for the political and societal responses to digitalization.

Licence: CC BY 4.0

Ukraine in Conflict: An Analytical Chronicle

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.

Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0

Women in Nineteenth-Century Russia: Lives and Culture

This collection of essays examines the lives of women across Russia – from wealthy noblewomen in St Petersburg to desperately poor peasants in Siberia – discussing their interaction with the church and the law, and their rich contribution to music, art, literature and theatre.

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 (Note: This is an open access text which restricts remixing and adapting).

Indigenous Histories

Healing and Reconciliation Through Education

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.

Includes: Interactive map

Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0

Historical and Contemporary Realities: Movement Towards Reconciliation

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.

Includes: Learning activities, resources for more learning, maps

Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0

Histories of Indigenous Peoples and Canada

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.

Includes: Glossary

Licence: CC BY 4.0

Reviews: Available through the BCcampus Open Textbook Collection

Shingwauk Narratives: Sharing Residential School History

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.

Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0

United States History

Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave: Written by himself by Henry Bibb [New]

Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave (1849) is the autobiography of ex-slave and Abolitionist Henry Bibb. Born on a Kentucky plantation in 1815, Bibb first attempted to escape from bondage at the age of ten. He was recaptured and escaped several more times before he eventually settled in Detroit, Michigan, and joined the antislavery movement as a lecturer [Description from resource].

Includes: audiobook

Licence: CC 0 (Public Domain)

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass [New]

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) is a memoir and treatise on abolition by American orator and ex-slave Frederick Douglass. Considered to be the most famous narrative written by a former slave, the text describes—in factual detail—the events of Douglass’s life. It was also one of the most influential works of literature to lend fuel to the American abolitionist movement in the the early 19th century [Description from resource].

Includes: audiobook

Licence: CC 0 (Public Domain)

The Underground Railroad by William Still [New]

The Underground Railroad (1872) is a book by African-American abolitionist and Father of the Underground Railroad, William Still. The book is a collection of testimonies from nearly 650 slaves who escaped to freedom via the Underground Railroad [Description from resource].

Includes: audiobook

Licence: CC 0 (Public Domain)

U.S. History (OpenStax)

Licence: CC BY 4.0

World History

History of International Relations: A Non-European Perspective

This textbook pioneers a new approach to the study of international relations by historicizing the material traditionally taught in international relations courses and by explicitly focusing on non-European cases, debates, and issues.

Includes: Timelines, short dictionaries, ‘think about’ reflection questions

Licence: CC BY 4.0

Reviews: Available through the Open Textbook Library

Keys to Understanding the Middle East

This introductory textbook covers the languages, cultural, religious and sectarian communities of the Middle East, and selected turning points and influential people in history are starting points for gaining an understanding of the diverse contexts of the region.

Includes: Glossary, classroom resources

Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0

Reviews: Available through the Open Textbook Library

Modern World History [New]

This is the textbook for an undergraduate survey course taught at all the universities and most of the colleges in the Minnesota State system. Similar courses are taught at institutions around the United States and the world, so the authors have made the text available as an open educational resource that teachers and learners can read, adapt, and reuse to meet their needs.

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA

Reviews: Available through Open Textbook Library

Western Civilization: A Concise History – Volume 1

Western Civilization: A Concise History​ is available in three volumes. 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.

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Reviews: Available through the Open Textbook Library

Western Civilization: A Concise History – Volume 2

Volume 2 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.

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Reviews: Available through the Open Textbook Library

Western Civilization: A Concise History – Volume 3

Volume 3 surveys the Napoleonic era to the recent past. Topics include 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.

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Reviews: Available through the Open Textbook Library

World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500

This text offers a comprehensive introduction to the history of humankind from prehistory to 1500, covering 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.

Includes: Summary, key terms

Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0

Reviews: Available through the Open Textbook Library

World History, Volume 1: to 1500 (OpenStax) [New]

World History, Volume 1: to 1500 is designed to meet the scope and sequence of a world history course to 1500 offered at both two-year and four-year institutions. Suitable for both majors and non majors World History, Volume 1: to 1500 introduces students to a global perspective of history couched in an engaging narrative. Concepts and assessments help students think critically about the issues they encounter so they can broaden their perspective of global history. A special effort has been made to introduce and juxtapose people’s experiences of history for a rich and nuanced discussion. Primary source material represents the cultures being discussed from a firsthand perspective whenever possible. World History, Volume 1: to 1500 also includes the work of diverse and underrepresented scholars to ensure a full range of perspectives [Description from resource].

Includes: Lecture slides and test bank.

Licence: CC BY

World History, Volume 2: from 1400 (OpenStax)[New]

World History, Volume 2: from 1400 is designed to meet the scope and sequence of a world history course from 1400 offered at both two-year and four-year institutions. Suitable for both majors and non majors World History, Volume 2: from 1400 introduces students to a global perspective of history couched in an engaging narrative. Concepts and assessments help students think critically about the issues they encounter so they can broaden their perspective of global history. A special effort has been made to introduce and juxtapose people’s experiences of history for a rich and nuanced discussion. Primary source material represents the cultures being discussed from a firsthand perspective whenever possible. World History, Volume 2: from 1400 also includes the work of diverse and underrepresented scholars to ensure a full range of perspectives. [Description from resource].

Includes: Lecture slides and test bank.

Licence: CC BY

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