LibGuides: OER by Discipline: History

Textbooks

Competing Visions: A History of California
This book begins with before the Spanish Settlement and ends in 2010 with Governor Jerry Brown.

Finding Primary Sources - California History
This is a page from a Research Guide created by Merced College.

Afican American History
African American History for HIST 244 is a collection of selected readings from African American History (Lumen), American Yawp, Boundless US History, and US History
Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience
Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience gives instructors, students, and general readers a comprehensive and up-to-date account of African Americans’ cultural and political history, economic development, artistic expressiveness, and religious and philosophical worldviews in a critical framework.

The American Yawp Vol 11, Since 1877
The American Yawp offers a free and online, collaboratively built, open American history textbook designed for college-level history courses.
U.S.History
U.S. History is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of most introductory courses. 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). U.S. History covers key forces that form the American experience, with particular attention to issues of race, class, and gender.
Finding Primary Documents - American History
This is a page from a Research Guide created by Merced College

American History Unbound: Asians and Pacific Islanders
This is not an OER book but it is available to you to use as a ZTC (Zero Textbook Cost) textbook. The BC Library maintains multiple seats for this book but you must have each student logon individually to use it.
Asian America: A Primary Source Reader
This is not an OER book but it is available to you to use as a ZTC (Zero Textbook Cost) textbook. The BC Library maintains multiple seats for this book but you must have each student logon individually to use it.

History of Asia Resource List
History of Asia (History 2205) Resource List. Compiled Summer-Fall 2021 by Dr. Maria Ritzema. The following materials are freely available online and are licensed as indicated in the source material.
Finding Primary Sources - Asian History
This is a page from a Research Guide created by Merced College

New Directions in Chicanx and Latinx Studies
This comprehensive, peer-reviewed introductory textbook is written by scholars from the California Community Colleges and California State University. The content, spanning ten chapters, is guided by intersectional, transnational, and relational frameworks that build on current and emergent work in Chicanx and Latinx Studies.
Latining America: Black-Brown Passages and the Coloring of Latino/a Studies
Latining America keeps company with and challenges existent models of Latinidad, demanding a distinct paradigm that puts into question what is understood as Latino and Latina today. Milian conceptually considers how underexplored "Latin" participants-the southern, the black, the dark brown, the Central American-have ushered in a new world of "Latined" signification from the 1920s to the present.
The Roots of Latino Urban Agency
These essays collectively suggest that political agency can encompass everything from voting, lobbying, networking, grassroots organizing, and mobilization, to dramatic protest. Latinos are in fact gaining access to the same political institutions that worked so hard to marginalize them.

A History of the Middle East 1.01
History of the Middle East is a survey of Middle Eastern History from the time of Muhammad in the seventh century until the eve of the War on Terror in 2001.
Keys to Understanding the Middle East
This book, developed for students at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, is an adaptation of Alam Payind's and Melissa McClimans' 2017 open text, "Keys to Understanding the Middle East," published by Ohio State University. Specifically, this version adds a more consistent approach to transliteration, and expands on languages in the Middle East, Islamic sects, and the history that preceded the modern period.

Our Lives: An Ethnic Studies Primer
The book is an introduction or primer to ethnic studies and is not a complete or comprehensive review of the literature. Content focuses on major concepts, theories, perspectives, and voices in ethnic studies with research from anthropology, history, political science, psychology, and sociology to offer an inclusive approach for critical inquiry.

The European Experience: A Multi-Perspective History of Modern Europe, 1500–2000
The European Experience brings together the expertise of nearly a hundred historians from eight European universities to internationalise and diversify the study of modern European history, exploring a grand sweep of time from 1500 to 2000.

SmartHistory of Art XIc: Latin America to 1900
Art History from Latin America
Keen's Latin American Civilization History and Society, 1492 to the Present
This is not an OER book but it is available to you to use as a ZTC (Zero Textbook Cost) textbook. The BC Library maintains multiple seats for this book but you must have each student logon individually to use it.

Native Peoples of North America
Native Peoples of North America is intended to be an introductory text about the Native peoples of North America (primarily the United States and Canada) presented from an anthropological perspective.
Survey of Native American Literature
This survey textbook overviews Native American literature from its origins in poems and creation myths of the continent's hundreds of Native cultures. Texts are organized with major sections on creation myths, fiction, poetry, and nonfiction/memoir. Standing Bear's Land of the Spotted Eagle is included, along with a scattering of non-Native writers for contrast. The text also focuses on experiencing Native literature through Western lenses, since that is the viewpoint through which students necessarily approach the topic.

Gendered Lives
Gendered Lives takes a regional approach to examine gender issues from an anthropological perspective with a focus on globalization and intersectionality. Chapters present contributors' ethnographic research, contextualizing their findings within four geographic regions: Latin America, the Caribbean, South Asia, and the Global North.
Women and the American Experience
Studying women's experience in America is an exploration through stories. Some
women we study will be trailblazers, others will be homemakers and community
builders. Understanding how women fit into, and challenge, the American society is
about meeting women of all different backgrounds. Current events will be
incorporated into this course, so that we can measure progress as well as identify
areas of concern. We are a democracy, which means we are a country run by
citizens, the only way to improve, is to learn from the past.

He Huaka’i Honua: Journeys in World History I, to 1500 CE
In this text, we address the first phase of human history, beginning with the epic changes resulting from the Agricultural Revolution between 12,000 and 8,000 BCE, and tracing developments in different parts of the globe until the 1400-1500s CE.
Western Civilization: A Concise History Volume 1
Volume 1: from the origins of civilization in Mesopotamia c. 8,000 BCE through the early Middle Ages in Europe c. 1,000 CE. Volume 1 covers topics including Mesopotamia,Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, the Islamic caliphates, and the early European Middle Ages.
Western Civilization: A Concise History Volume 2
Volume 2: from the early Middle Ages to the French Revolution in 1789 CE. Volume 2covers topics including the High Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the European conquest of the Americas, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment.
Western Civilization: A Concise History Volume 3
Volume 3: from the Napoleonic era to the recent past. Volume 3 covers topics including 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.
World History
World history examines history from a global perspective and looks for common patterns that emerge across all cultures. World historians use a thematic approach, with two major focal points: integration (how processes of world history have drawn people of the world together) and difference (how patterns of world history reveal the diversity of the human experiences).

Webinars

OER and History (ASCCC OERI)

American Yawp
The American Yawp constructs a coherent and accessible narrative from all the best of recent historical scholarship. Without losing sight of politics and power, it incorporates transnational perspectives, integrates diverse voices, recovers narratives of resistance, and explores the complex process of cultural creation.
Western Civilization: A Concise History Volume 1
Volume 1: from the origins of civilization in Mesopotamia c. 8,000 BCE through the early Middle Ages in Europe c. 1,000 CE. Volume 1 covers topics including Mesopotamia,Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, the Islamic caliphates, and the early European Middle Ages.

Images

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
The University of Texas Libraries collects and preserves the finest achievements of human knowledge in support of not only research and instruction needs, but also the exploration of ideas and intellectual innovation. We are proud to provide access to digitized and born-digital items from our collections for researchers, scholars, educators, and the general public.
World Maps - Openverse
Openverse does not currently index the sources listed above, but through this interface is offering convenient access to search services provided by other independent organizations. Openverse has no control over the results that are returned. Do not assume that the results displayed in this search portal are under a CC license. Always verify that the work is actually under a CC license by following the link. You may search using the filters for license.

Websites

UNESCO Library
There are a number of materials available on this site. They include documents, art, data portals, photos and more.

Courses and Modules

The Great Depression Curriculum Unit
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has some economics-related lesson plans and resources about the Great Depression.
History 18 : History of California
This course examines the social, economic, and political development of California from its pre-European past to its post-industrial present. In addition, we will exlpore the historical uniqueness of Calfornia's environment, population, institutions, and economy. Emphasis is placed on the influence of American political thought and institutions in the historical evolution of California's state and local governments.
Institutions of Urban Life & the Latinx Experience, 1848-2018
This is an inter and trans-disciplinary course which has two main objectives. The first is to critically examine the multi-faceted evolution of the Latinx population as an urbanized segment of United States society. Specifically, the course seeks to provide a cross-cultural understanding of the diversity among Spanish-speaking people within the urban context. Different processes and roles over space and time will be problematized included but not limited to the role of urban institutions in the conflicts between assimilation and cultural preservation; the dynamics of migration, immigration, and settlement; and institutionalized participation in the social processes of United States urban life.
The Modern World, Part Two: Global History since 1910
This is a survey of modern history from a global perspective. Part Two begins early in the twentieth century,
UNESCO
These courses and webinars are free to use.
World History Crash Course
In 42 episodes, John Green will begin teaching you the history of the world! This course is based on the 2012 AP World History curriculum, from growing the first crops in the First Agricultural Revolution to global textile production in the 2010s. By the end of the course, you will be able to.
World History in the Early Modern and Modern Eras (1600–Present)
This course will present a comparative overview of world history from the 17th century to the present era. You will examine the origins of major economic, political, social, cultural, and technological trends of the past 400 years and explore the impact of these trends on world societies.

Other Resources

21 Public Domain Site for US/World Maps
"Some sites have a mix of public domain and copyrighted items. Not only that, but sometimes owners of public domain materials place use restrictions on copies. Not that they should ... or even that they can, legally speaking. But it helps if you know what you’re dealing with. Most often, though, all that’s asked of you is that you credit the source of the map" So the aggregator made sure to include any requested credits. (Crediting is the right thing to do. But you knew that already.)"
Boundless World History
This is not a textbook but a series of lectures, slides, worksheets, key concepts and other materials freely usable. For any copyright questions, see licenses at the bottom of each resource.
California Historical Society
Teaching California is a dynamic hub for open educational resources (OER) developed by the California Historical Society in partnership with Navigation North. Users can find and use materials for lessons on history, science, and critical thinking.
Calisphere
This is a collection of images, texts, primary sources, artwork, oral history, films and sound recordings available through the University of California.
EDSITEment!
EDSITEment is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Trust for the Humanities. EDSITEment offers free resources for teachers and students.
Office of the Historian
The Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity.

OER by Discipline: History

Places to Start Your Search

Textbooks

Webinars

OER and History (ASCCC OERI)

Watch the OER and History Webinar Recording

Images

Websites

Courses and Modules

Other Resources

Additional Places to Search