Browse Website Reviews

Discover quality websites on a range of topics and time periods. If a website link is no longer active, consult this guide to website URL paths for tips on locating the original resource.

Image of Francis de Sales whose works are included in the online library

Christian Classics Ethereal Library

This is still quite easily the best single location of source materials in English for the Reformation period online.
National Security Archive logo

National Security Archive: Sources on Latin America

The documents on the website provide students the opportunity to construct their own historical interpretations.
Detail of The Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, 1770  depicted in a 1930s travel poster

Documenting a Democracy: Australia's Story

This site has particular strengths in presenting legal and constitutional materials on the emergence of a democratic nation in a colonial context.
Image of one of the handwritten letters from the collection

Liberian Letters

Liberian Letters will fascinate teachers and students interested in the late history of slavery, manumission, and repatriation of people of African descent to Sub-Saharan coasts.

Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Immerse your students in the language of one the best poets and playwrights writing in English, using this graceful site.
National Security Archive logo

National Security Archive: Sources on Europe

These materials help students discover that history does not follow a predetermined course, but is the result of decisions, any one of which could drastically alter history’s outcome.
Photograph of St. Michael's Cathedral, Novorkhangelsk circa 1895

Russian Church and Native Alaskan Cultures

Supplementing each chapter are as many as 31 digitized images or manuscripts. The exhibit is both informative and thought-provoking.
State Department logo

Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume XVII: Near East, 1961-1962

These documents provide crucial historical evidence of the attitudes American diplomats and officials held toward the countries of the Middle East, as well as uncovering aspects of foreign relations from an American perspective at the height of the Cold War.
Gertrude Bell standing in a mosque's decorated arch

Gertrude Bell Project

In the teaching of world history, this site lends itself to exploring both the themes of women travelers and their writing, as well as the timely topic of European intervention in the Middle East, in particular Iraq.
The ruins of Great Zimbabwe's elliptical building

Internet African History Sourcebook

The site provides broad chronological and geographic coverage, with a particularly impressive list of sources for ancient Egypt and Greek and Roman Africa. It is a gateway to an abundance of information.
Map of Tiananmen Square from the site's virtual tour

The Gate of Heavenly Peace

In general, this website is strongest in fulfilling its original purpose—providing supplementary materials and information for an excellent documentary.
Map of Florence detail showing the river passing through the city

Florence Catasto of 1427

It provides a unique opportunity for students to explore the urban landscape and family life of Renaissance Florence in incredible detail, rare for a city in this period.
A close up of the ships outside the port Santo Domingo during a pirate attack

Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820

Students could speculate on who made the objects, who used them, and how they were used. This would give them a sense of the kind of interpretive work done by historians.
Hand-drawn map with mountains, rivers, and Japanese characters

Japanese Historical Maps

This collection contains high quality digital reproductions of roughly 100 historical maps produced in Japan from the 17th century to the 20th century.
Painting of men on a stoop reading a newspaper with shocked expressions surrounded by

Mexican-American War and the Media

The contrast between coverage of the war in the United States and in England is particularly striking.
Two men sitting, one has a stringed instrument and one has a drum.

Uysal-Walker Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative

By collecting and translating these folktales, the three interviewers preserved many oral traditions that may have otherwise been lost in the dynamism of a changing, 21st-century Turkey.
Painting of a man weighing coins on a scale and a woman sitting next to him.

Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank

The Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank provides straightforward database access to five sets of data on European currency exchange and commodities prices from the 13th through the 18th centuries.
Virtual scene of a long walkway over a river leading to a palace.

Virtual Angkor

The curated videos alone would be an engaging resource for teaching the history of Angkor, but the site goes further by providing three well designed teaching modules that make use of the sites' resources to explore scholarly themes.
Sketch of map with notes in Dutch

Sejarah Nusantara

The Sejarah Nusantara represents an invaluable digital archive for international researchers studying the history of Indonesia and maritime Southeast Asia.
Drawing of several buildings surrounded by a wall

Florilegium Urbanum

Inspired by the medieval concept of a textual anthology illuminating specific topics, Florilegium Urbanum allows the user to explore more than 200 short sources and excerpts from longer texts dealing with medieval English towns.