Western Civilization Websites

 

Exploring Ancient World Cultures Links to an external site.: http://eawc.evansville.edu/. Created by the University of Evansville in 1997, this site doesn't seem to have grown much since then, and now contains lots of broken or changed links. But it is still useful for it clearly organized pages and subpages of links to chronologies, essays, images, primary document texts and websites about various ancient and medieval cultures. Subsaharan Africa, the Americas and other major culture areas are omitted, but the site focus does include most of the Mediterranean and Asia greats: the Near East (the lands between the east Mediterranean shore and India), India, Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, Early Islam and Medieval Europe.

MERLOT Links to an external site. - Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching: http://www.merlot.org/Home.po . A huge site, once requiring an expensive subscription, but now available free. It's self description says it well: "Links to online learning materials are collected here along with annotations such as peer reviews and assignments." Teachers can find very useful websites containing a huge amount of multimedia resources.

Edsitement Links to an external site.: http://edsitement.neh.gov/websites_all.asp. Subtitled "The Best of the Humanities on the Web," this NEH page contains annotated links to what it has identified as top humanities sites.Subdivided in a variety of ways to make searching easier.  Focus is on sites suitable for pre-college students, but sites identified as 9-12 usually contain materials of value at least to introductory level college students. Site can be set to look only for younger or older student levels.

The Best of History Web Sites Links to an external site.: http://www.besthistorysites.net/. Like Edsitement, this site provides descriptions, ratings and links to history-related sites judged especially worthy for educators. The topics in which sites are listed include chronological and area ones, plus those best for K-12 lesson plans/activities, multimedia and research.

The WWW Virtual Library Links to an external site.: http://www.vlib.org/Overview.html. Go especially to subpages for the Humanities (Note that History is listed under it), Regional Studies and Society.

PBS History Links to an external site.: http://www.pbs.org/neighborhoods/history/. This site contains hotlinks to the very large number of individual PBS sites developed to accompany history-related PBS serieses. This is a very rich resource for sites that might be assigned as supplemental "virtual field trips" for students to visit or review, and also used by teachers as background resources for themselves.

Teacher Oz's Kingdom of History Table of Contents Links to an external site.: http://www.teacheroz.com/toc.htm . Offers a great array of links to other pages, many of which can be useful from which to harvest media and other teaching resources. 

Photographic Image Databases (not restricted to one place or time)

Cities/Buildings Database Links to an external site.: http://www.washington.edu/ark2/

Art Images for College Teaching Links to an external site.: http://arthist.cla.umn.edu/aict/html/index.html  To quote the site, "AICT is a free-use image resource for the educational community." Its images are almost entirely Western, with just a few non-Western (a few Pacific Northwest Native American and Mayan), but a number of very useful images for the Ancient through Modern Mediterranean cultures.

Digital Imaging Project -- Art historical images of sculpture and architecture from pre-historic to post-modern Links to an external site.: http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/index/index3.html. Large collection of slides collected by Mary Anne Sullivan of Bluffton College. Almost all are early and classical Mediterranean and then European from early Christian through 20th century eras. "Prehistoric" slides do include some of North American pueblos. Also images of work by women architects.Indexed 3 ways: chronologically, by sites and by artists & architects. ll are available for unrestricted educational use.

Jacques-Edouard Berger Foundation World Art Treasures Links to an external site.: http://www.bergerfoundation.ch/. This site reflects the 100,000+ slide Berger collection for North African, East and South Asian and Classical and Medieval European art. Its links lead to many very useful but almost completely uncaptioned slides. A very useful resource for the instructor who already knows what s/he is doing, and only needs links to existing online images.

Wadsworth/Thompson Learning World History Image Bank Links to an external site.: http://www.wadsworth.com/history_d/special_features/image_bank/index.html. Site consists of links to (as of early 2002) 14 subpages each containing 20-30 very useful teaching images.All non-US areas represented.  Most were donated by William Duiker. Copyright-free Images: The site specifically gives permission for their use "in the classroom or for non-commercial education purposes".

Asian Historical Architecture Links to an external site.: In its own words, it is "a photographic survey of Asia's architectural heritage.  Here you can view over 6500 photos of 461 sites in seventeen countries, with background information and virtual tours. This website is a collection of photos from many different contributors." Unfortunately, the website does not spell out what uses viewers make legitimately make of its photographic collection.

Images From History Links to an external site.: http://www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/index.html. This site, created by Haines Brown, was one of the very early ones up on the web. It contains lots of thumbnail images divided first into his distinctive three eras of Archaic, Ancient, and Feudal (the fourth, Capitalist, is no longer available). Useful for traditional closed classroom settings, but note that Professor Brown says that he originally used all images under the theory of educational fairuse, so he has, and can provide, no copyright permission.

WebMuseum Links to an external site.: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/. One of the really early image-rich sites put up on the web, with pages still dated 1995 and 1996, it neverthe less is a rich trove of very good images of mostly European art. Its curator, Nicholas Pioch, makes clear that he considers the images copyright-free, since they are all of art over 50 years old, with the photographic images donated freely for educational use.

Art Institute of Chicago Links to an external site.:  http://www.artic.edu/aic/. Has some very nice online images for each of its permanent collections, which are mostly Western (including Ancient Mediterranean), but also some African, Amerindian and Asian. Of particular value is Cleopatria: A Multimedia Guide to Ancient Art Links to an external site., meaning Egyptian, Greek and Italian. (See full description below, in Egyptian, Roman & Greek sections.)

State Hermitage Museum Links to an external site.: http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/index.html. A very up-to-date, well organized, searchable website for Russia's great museum. Offers a limited number of useful images, plus some nice interpretive essays giving context for various eras. All images copyright protected.

Boston Museum of Fine Arts Links to an external site.: http://www.mfa.org. Go especially to the Guide to the Collection Links to an external site.. Site is useful on many levels. Its online collections offer more than 500 images of art works from a broad variety of world culture areas, plus some very nice "Explorations" essays for each area. Do note MFA's very restrictive use policy: NO image reuse allowed without specific permission.

Christus Rex (Vatican) Links to an external site.: http://www.christusrex.org/www1/icons/index.html

Internet History Sourcebooks Links to an external site.: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/. All of these seem to be the work primarily of Paul Halsall, and together represent an immense resource primarily for online texts, but also often a good amount of multimedia nd many useful links to related websites.

• Ancient History Sourcebook Links to an external site.: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/asbook.html. Covers Mediterranean world topics: Human origins, Ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece & Hellenistic world, Rome, and Late Antiquity

• Medieval History Sourcebook Links to an external site.: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html. Again focused on Mediterranean world topics mostly Europe, Byzantium and Islam. His sections of selected sources, full text and saints' lives. Good map and image links plus guides to films and music.
• Modern History Sourcebook Links to an external site.: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html. Western-focused starting with the Protestant Reformation, but also includes many century non-western world topics through colonial topics. More world topics starting with the breakup of colonial empires
• African History Sourcebook Links to an external site.: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/africa/africasbook.html. Earliest to modern eras
• East Asian History Sourcebook Links to an external site.: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/eastasia/eastasiasbook.html. Earliest to modern era. Very dominantly China and Japan, but some limited resources for Korea and other area countries. Excellent on Buddhism
• Indian History Sourcebook Links to an external site.: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/india/indiasbook.html.  Earliest era to present; includes 20th century sources for all subcontinent countries
• Islamic History Sourcebook Links to an external site.: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/islam/islamsbook.html.  Pre-Islamic Arabia to present; 20th century texts are mostly Middle Eastern countries. Some very useful maps.
• Jewish History Sourcebook Links to an external site.: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/jewish/jewishsbook.html  People of Canaan to present. Some very nice soundfiles.
• History of Science Sourcebook Links to an external site.: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/science/sciencesbook.html Compiles specifically-scientific topics from areas covered in all other Sourcebooks.
• Women's History Sourcebook Links to an external site.: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/women/womensbook.html  Very helpful compilation of sources included in all the other Sourcebooks

The Avalon Project at the Yale Law School Links to an external site.:  http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm. Large and growing collection of "documents on law, history and diplomacy." Organized by century (pre-18th, 18th, 19th & 20th) and alphabetically by author/title, subject, and/or event. Also searchable. Site gives permission to use all documents "on your website or in your classroom for any educational or non-commercial purpose." 

About.com Geography: Free Blank Outline Maps of the Countries and Continents of the World Links to an external site.: http://geography.miningco.com/library/blank/blxindex.htm. About.com used to be The Mining Company. It has hundreds of different sites, each focused on one topic, with a Guide who creats annotated lists of links to that topic. Copyright-free Images: Its Geography site includes this subsite of about 200 - as it says - free (fairuse) blank outline maps. The outlines are just of coastline and political borders; no rivers, dots for cities, etc.

National Geographic Maps & Geography Links to an external site.: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/maps/. See especially the Xpeditions Atlas Links to an external site., which offers a dozen outline maps (the world, the continents, and a few others), each of which can be viewed in either .gif or .pdf format, with or without political boundaries, and with or without location names visible. Copyright-free Images: all are available for unrestricted non-commerical use, either in the classroom or online.

Florida Geographic Alliance Links to an external site.: http://fga.freac.fsu.edu/maps.html. Copyright-free Images: A useful assortment of outline maps of all major world regions, presented with the statement "Feel free to use them in any lesson or classroom." Note they Require Adobe Acrobat 4.

Education Place Outline Maps Links to an external site. (Houghton Mifflin): http://www.eduplace.com/ss/maps/index.html/ Significantly upgraded from its earlier version, now uses Adobe Acrobat (free download Reader 4.0 or better required) and all files are in .pdf format. Copyright-free Images: site says "These maps may be printed and copied for personal or classroom use."

Ancient World Mapping Center Maps for Students Links to an external site.: http://www.unc.edu/depts/awmc/content/html4/mapsforstudents.html. Contains free digital maps intended for high school and college level courses on the Classical Mediterranean world.  Wheelock Links to an external site. maps are provided in both .pdf and .jpg as well as labeled and unlabeled versions. Copyright-free Images, somewhat restricted in use: The site gives permission for classroom and online educational use that does not change map images; in additional correspondence site master Tom Elliott also gave permission for instructors to use map images as a base, with additional geographic marks added. In all cases credit to the site should be given with each use.

Hyper History Links to an external site.: http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/History_n2/a.html  Not university-level in coverage, but useful for its simple, effective colored world and regional maps for many different eras. Students often like its timelines as a review resource.

Historical Atlas of the 20th Century Links to an external site.: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/20centry.htm. Fairly large, interesting variety of interpretive maps, mostly concerning Great Powers (including China). 

Graphic Maps Free Clip Art Outline Maps Links to an external site.: http://www.graphicmaps.com/webimage/testmaps/maps.htm. Very simple black and white outline maps of the world, all continents and regions. Most with modern political boundaries but a few without. Copyright-free Images: All available for almost unrestricted use, with a link back to the site.

Shock-ing Geography Links to an external site.: http://www.depauw.edu/learn/shock_maps/. INTERACTIVE outline map site created by Daniel J. Pfeifer of Wake Forest University. Using it students can first learn and then quiz themselves on physical, current political and some historical map information. Historical maps are so far only for Europe 1763-1914, but physical and current political maps cover most world areas. Instructors can have results of student self-quizzes emailed to them. Requires Shockwave software.

International Museum of the Horse Online History Exhibits Links to an external site.: http://www.imh.org/museum/ From prehistory to the present, divided chronologically and covering many world areas.(The horse is central to an amazing number of historic developments.) This site's narrative offers both analysis and fascinating tid-bits, plus many excellent images.

Engines of Our Ingenuity Links to an external site.: http://www.uh.edu/engines/engines.htm. Hundreds of very brief essays which are really the scripts for short radio pieces done by John Lienhard, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and History at the University of Houston. A great source of both memorable tidbits and the many roles of technology & invention in history.  Mostly post-Medieval and Western). Unfortunately there seems to be no page listing and organizing all episode titles by category, but you can either do keyword searches or just read down the whole list of titles on the Keywords Links to an external site. page: http://www.uh.edu/engines/keywords.htm.

Silk Road Seattle Links to an external site.: http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/index.shtml. To quote the site's own introduction, it was developed as part of the Silk Road Seattle project,  a "collaborative public education project exploring cultural interaction across Eurasia from the first century BCE to the sixteenth century CE." Its resources include images of both artwork and travellers' photos of cities and architecture, translations of documents, maps including interactive self-quizzes, interpretive essays, curriculum guides, and lists of other print and online resources.

The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record Links to an external site.:  Links to an external site.http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/index.php. Site is by Jerome S. Handler and Michael L. Tuite Jr.. It has thousands of images, many out from under copyright. Copyright-free Images: The authors say that all of these are provided for use, including posting online, " the personal use of students, teachers, scholars, and the general public. Any commercial use or publication of them is strictly prohibited."

Ask Asia Instructional Resources Links to an external site.: http://www.askasia.org/teachers/Instructional_Resources/index.htm. Clearly aimed at the secondary level, but includes some useful "copyright cleared" photos, plus a good deal of material very useful to the beginning instructor.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts - Arts of Asia Links to an external site.: http://www.artsmia.org/arts-of-asia/asia.cfm. Beautifully designed site with subsites on China, Japan and Tibet. The China site has an excellent sub-subsite of simple but classroom-effective maps for all the eras of Chinese history.  

The Victorian Web Links to an external site.: Links to an external site. http://www.victorianweb.org/ A big site with lots of subpages on all sorts of related topics. Contains texts, essays, some images, bibliographies, links, etc.

The British Empire Links to an external site.: http://www.britishempire.co.uk/. Very definitely written to the popular level by an English teacher, but it contains a large variety of very useful images as well as a number of interpretive articles by academics. Recommended by the BBC as a valuable educational resource. 

The Perseus Project Links to an external site. :http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/   A digital library of Greek & Latin texts, some in translation, plus some other resources). Excellent resource.

Maecenas: Images of Ancient Greece and Rome Links to an external site.: http://wings.buffalo.edu/AandL/Maecenas/index.html. As of Spring 2002 the site contains about 1800 photographs taken by Professor Leo C. Curran (retired? Classics, SUNY/Buffalo). Unrestricted educational copyright-free use of images: to quote Prof. Curran "You many do anything you like with these images. The only exception: no commercial use."  

Mark Millmore's Ancient Egypt Links to an external site.: http://www.discoveringegypt.com/. Millmore, according to his own online biography, is a professional artist & designer who has studied Egypt fairly seriously, and put his artistic skills to work designing simple, effective online graphics demonstrating and explaining various aspects of Ancient Egyptian cultural achievements (pyramids & temples, mathematics and hieroglyphics). Copyright-free Images: Millmore specifically says he will permit reuse of his images "for Educational, non-profit purposes" provided he's credited with a link back to his site, and permission is asked of him via email.

Color Tour of Egypt Links to an external site.: http://www.memphis.edu/egypt/egypt.html. This page was created by the University of Memphis's Institute for Egyptian Art and Archeology in 1996. It contains a number of subpages, each with a limited but very nice assortment of images (available in different file sizes) of some of Ancient Egypt's most important sites. The largest size images load quickly and work very well as illustrations. All are copyrighted so should be used only as links online.

Cleopatra: A Multimedia Guide to the Ancient World Links to an external site.: http://www.artic.edu/cleo/. Created by the Art Institute of Chicago, this site requires QuickTime software. Although presented in a style understandable by secondary students, its many QuickTime movie presentations provide rich, fascinating detail about ancient Egyptian, Greek and Italian beliefs, practices, technologies, etc. [To see movies the "Stories" button then one of the buttons that appears.]

Hieroglyphics Translator Links to an external site.: http://www.quizland.com/hiero.mv. This one is just for fun, but is a real student favorite. Key in any name or phrase and almost instantly get it translated into the sort-of correct hieroglyph symbols. The result doesn't seem to be available for the usual "save image" command, but a screen print captures it and can be pasted into any graphic editing program.  

Amiens Cathedral Links to an external site.: http://www.learn.columbia.edu/Mcahweb/index-frame.html A wonderful small-focus website, using the power of computers to let students experience in a complex way the full glory of medieval cathedral architecture. Also a great source of images and information for instructors.  

Celtic Art & Cultures Links to an external site.: http://www.unc.edu/celtic/. Site was developed out of a University of North Carolina course in Celtic Art. Features several galleries of images and designs, as well as timelines, maps, and a glossary.

Edo Tour Links to an external site.: http://www.us-japan.org/EdoMatsu/. An extremely rich, interactive site taking visitors on many sub-"tours" of late 18th-century Tokugawa Japan. written for about a secondary school audience, but filled with detail likely to be of value to at least introductory college level study. Especially rich on details of all levels of daily life. 

Arab Net Links to an external site.: http://www.arab.net/  Covers all Arab states, so more than just the Middle East. Click on any country's flag, and its subpage comes up, with subpages for Geography (modern maps) and History (brief, introductory level, but sometimes useful).  

VRoma Links to an external site.: http://www.vroma.org/images/image_search.html. Copyright-free Images: The site clearly says that "images in the VRoma Archive are freely available for all non-commercial use on the web. Users may link to the images on the VRoma server or download them for use on their own server."

PBS's The Roman Empire in the First Century Links to an external site.: http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/index.html. Developed as a public school resource to accompany the TV program on this subject. While aimed at pre-college level students, it also offers detailed surveys useful for at least introductory-level college students. Has timeline, extensive essays on Roman Empire, Ancient Voices (good excerpt texts), Social Order and Life in Roman Times. It contains no maps of its own, but does offer a Web Resources Links to an external site. page (http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/about/resources.html) with many useful links including those to maps.  

Maecenas: Images of Ancient Greece and Rome Links to an external site.: http://wings.buffalo.edu/AandL/Maecenas/index.html. As of Spring 2002 the site contains about 1800 photographs taken by Professor Leo C. Curran (retired? Classics, SUNY/Buffalo). Unrestricted educational copyright-free use of images: to quote Prof. Curran "You many do anything you like with these images. The only exception: no commercial use."  

Russia   

Soviet Archives Exhibit Links to an external site.:  http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/entrance.html. Supporting website for the LC exhibit of internal Soviet government documents. Basic exhibit is divided into two "floors":  Internal Workings of the Soviet System and The Soviet Union and the United States. Includes essays, small and large images of documents, and often English translations of them.  

Library of Congress pages Links to an external site.: http://www.loc.gov/. Look especially at two subsites:  Exhibitions: An Online Gallery Links to an external site.: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/ for permanent online versions of past and present LC exhibits and American Memory - American History in Word, Sound and Pictures Links to an external site.: http://memory.loc.gov/. According to the website as of Spring 2002, American Memory offers links to "more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections." 

Gilder Lehrman History Online Links to an external site.  : http://www.hfac.uh.edu/gl/gl7.htm.  Annotated Links:  As of February 2002 entitled "Pathways to the Past: The  Best U.S. History Teaching Resources on the World Wide Web."  In appearance this seems to be a work in progress, but already this clearly annotated, chronologically arranged list is a very valuable source for many very useful websites. See also the Gilder Lehrman homepage Links to an external site. (http://www.hfac.uh.edu/gl/) for other useful 

History Matters Links to an external site.: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/. A very rich website created by George Mason University, designed for US history teachers at both the high school and college level.

WebCorp Multimedia Links to an external site.: http://www.webcorp.com/civilrights/index.htm. The URL given is actually somewhat misleading, but works better than the WebCorp top page. The page that will come up is actually to WebCorp's Historic Audio Archives page, but it comes accompanied by a side frame with an additional "MultiMedia" button that leads to some very short Nixon video clips.

History and Politics Out Loud Links to an external site.: http://www.hpol.org. Politically significant sound files from people like JFK, FDR, LBJ, Nixon, Churchill, and Martin Luther King.

Specific Topics

The Great Chicago Fire & the Web of Memory Links to an external site.: http://www.chicagohs.org/fire/intro/. Created by the Chicago Historical Society with the technological help of Northwestern University. Contains a rich assortment of documents, images, sound files, essays, etc.

New Deal Network Links to an external site.: http://newdeal.feri.org/.  The site contains lots of 1930s era document texts and photographs plus both lesson plans and interpretive essays. 

The Triangle Factory Fire Links to an external site.: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/ . 
A rich site recently made richer by the addition of 2 volumes of full text transcripts from the trial of the factory's owners. 

Ancient Mediterranean World Women

 European Women

American Women: (links assembled as choices for website review assignment)