History Textbooks

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U.S. History

Contributors: Corbett, Janssen, and Lund

Publisher: OpenStax

License: CC BY

U.S. Historycovers 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).

(41 reviews)

Placing the History of College Writing: Stories from the Incomplete Archive

Contributor: Shepley

Publisher: WAC Clearinghouse

License: CC BY-NC-ND

In Placing the History of College Writing, Nathan Shepley argues that pre-1950s composition history, if analyzed with the right conceptual tools, can pluralize and clarify our understanding of the relationship between the writing of college students and the writing's physical, social, and discursive surroundings. Even if the immediate outcome of student writing is to generate academic credit, Shepley shows, the writing does more complex rhetorical work. It gives students chances to uphold or adjust institutional codes for student behavior, allows students and their literacy sponsors to respond to sociopolitical issues in a city or state, enables faculty and administrators to create strategic representations of institutional or program identities, and connects people across disciplines, occupations, and geographic locations. Shepley argues that even if many of today's composition scholars and instructors work at institutions that lack extensive historical records of the kind usually preferred by composition historians, those scholars and teachers can mine their institutional collections for signs of the various contexts with which student writing dealt.

(1 review)

History in the Making: A History of the People of the United States of America to 1877 - 1

Contributors: Locks, Mergel, Roseman, and Spike

Publisher: The University Press of North Georgia

License: CC BY-SA

This textbook examines U.S. History from before European Contact through Reconstruction, while focusing on the people and their history.Prior to its publication, History in the Making underwent a rigorous double blind peer review, a process that involved over thirty scholars who reviewed the materially carefully, objectively, and candidly in order to ensure not only its scholarly integrity but also its high standard of quality.This book provides a strong emphasis on critical thinking about US History by providing several key features in each chapter. Learning Objectives at the beginning of each chapter help students to understand what they will learn in each chapter. Before You Move On sections at the end of each main section are designed to encourage students to reflect on important concepts and test their knowledge as they read. In addition, each chapter includes Critical Thinking Exercises that ask the student to deeply explore chapter content, Key Terms, and a Chronology of events.

(22 reviews)

World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500

Contributors: Berger, Israel, and Miller

Publisher: University of North Georgia Press

License: CC BY-SA

World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500 offers a comprehensive introduction to the history of humankind from prehistory to 1500. Authored by six USG faculty members with advance degrees in History, this textbook offers up-to-date original scholarship. 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.It includes 350 high-quality images and maps, chronologies, and learning questions to help guide student learning. Its digital nature allows students to follow links to applicable sources and videos, expanding their educational experience beyond the textbook. It provides a new and free alternative to traditional textbooks, making World History an invaluable resource in our modern age of technology and advancement.

(26 reviews)

Canadian History: Pre-Confederation

Contributor: Belshaw

Publisher: BCcampus

License: 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. Canadian History: Pre-Confederation provides, as well, a reconnaissance of historical methodology and debates in the field, exercises for students, Key Terms and a Glossary, and section-by-section Key Points. Although this text can be modified, expanded, reduced, and reorganized to suit the needs of the instructor, it is organized so as to support learning, to broaden (and sometimes provoke) debate, and to engage students in thinking like historians. Written and reviewed by subject experts drawn from colleges and universities, this is the first open textbook on the topic of Canadian history.

(1 review)

The History of Our Tribe: Hominini

Contributor: Welker

Publisher: Open SUNY

License: CC BY-NC-SA

Where did we come from? What were our ancestors like? Why do we differ from other animals? How do scientists trace and construct our evolutionary history? The History of Our Tribe: Hominini provides answers to these questions and more. The book explores the field of paleoanthropology past and present. Beginning over 65 million years ago, Welker traces the evolution of our species, the environments and selective forces that shaped our ancestors, their physical and cultural adaptations, and the people and places involved with their discovery and study. It is designed as a textbook for a course on Human Evolution but can also serve as an introductory text for relevant sections of courses in Biological or General Anthropology or general interest. It is both a comprehensive technical reference for relevant terms, theories, methods, and species and an overview of the people, places, and discoveries that have imbued paleoanthropology with such fascination, romance, and mystery.

(7 reviews)

Keys to Understanding the Middle East

Contributors: Payind and McClimans

Publisher: The Ohio State University Pressbooks

License: 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. It isbased on introductoryand graduatecourseson thecontemporaryMiddle East, which the Center's director, Dr. Alam Payind, has been teaching for the past 30 years. The book's co-author,Melinda McClimans,hastaught these and other courses with him, as well as her own,for the past 15years. The material isintendedengage with diverse – even conflicting – culturaland historicalperspectives,andways of perceivingboth Middle Easternandworld historyfrom perspectives within the region. It is not intended to reinforce a monolithic or matter-of-fact perception of the region.For this and many other reasons, images are an important aspect of the knowledge presented. Each chapter starts with links to its image galleries, along with other visual aids and key elements.

(9 reviews)

Canadian History: Post-Confederation

Contributor: Belshaw

Publisher: BCcampus

License: 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?

No ratings

(0 reviews)

Western Civilization: A Concise History Volume 1

Contributor: Brooks

Publisher: Portland Community College

License: CC BY-NC-SA

Western Civilization: A Concise History is an Open Educational Resource textbook covering the history of Western Civilization from approximately 8000 BCE to the recent past.

(7 reviews)

Western Civilization: A Concise History Volume 2

Contributor: Brooks

Publisher: Portland Community College

License: CC BY-NC-SA

Western Civilization: A Concise History is an Open Educational Resource textbook covering the history of Western Civilization from approximately 8000 BCE to the recent past.

(4 reviews)