Browse Website Reviews
A curated guide to the best online content, large and small, in world history through website reviews from the perspective of a world history teacher.
Detail: Map of Taiwan

Taiwan Documents Project

This site seems most valuable not as an unbiased repository of information, but rather as part of the movement for Taiwanese independence and more generally as a historical case study in the politics of national identity.
A 1909 map of India

Digital South Asia Library

The information and source materials presented on this site are extremely wide ranging, rare, and occasionally quite specific. Given the amount of content, this specificity should be seen as an asset rather than a drawback.
Horse drawn carts going down a cleared forest path taken from the view of a railway

Around the World in the 1890s: Photographs from the World's Transportation Commission, 1894-1896

Although these photographs are immediately useful to any discussion of 19th-century travel, they also provide an important look at the nature of colonialism and industrialization in many of the regions to which Jackson traveled.
The gate to the second courtyard at Xihuang Si (Xihuang Temple) 西黃寺. The tip of the stupa is slightly visible over the top of the gate.

East Asian Collection

Students could be encouraged to probe the social, religious, cultural, and geographic diversity of China in the early 1900s as well as the impact of momentous events upon different regions and social groups.
Photograph of nave flyers on the north side of the cathedral

Amiens Cathedral

The site’s rich image collections still recommend it for classroom and research use.
Detail: Scan of pages 46 and 47 of George Percival Scriven's diary

George Percival Scriven: An American in Bohol, The Philippines, 1899-1901

The diary could be used by teachers in a variety of ways. Its representation of the inhabitants of Bohol and of the island itself illuminate turn-of-the-century thinking on race and landscape.
A three masted ship

Excerpts from Slave Narratives

This website is unique in the growing number of Internet sources that explore African experiences and slavery. Teachers will find Mintz’s documents invaluable in promoting classroom discussion.
Abiriba tripod drum

G. I. Jones, Photographic Archive of Southeastern Nigerian Art and Culture

The site describes itself as a “research resource” for those personally or professionally interested in the art, history, and ethnography of southeastern Nigeria. It is also a valuable resource for those interested in the history of photography in Africa.
Photograph of a Goudiry Woman and Children

Africa Online Digital Library

The site’s stated goal is the implementation of emerging best practices in the “American digital library community” in an African context, and it does not disappoint. Indeed, the site demonstrates a rare combination of scholarly sophistication, ease of use, and broad appeal.
Image of a compass taken on the Burke and Wills expedition

Burke and Wills – Terra Incognita

Supplementary material is easy to follow and fairly extensive... Information is included on the background to the expedition, its historical context, biographies of those involved, the preparation for and events of the expedition, and its aftermath.

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