Encyclopedia of European Peoples
"More than 600 alphabetical entries describe the origins, language, history, and culture of European ethnology. Entries range from Hominids and Vikings to modern nationalities such as Ukrainians and Spanish. Article length varies; a small Celtic tribe such as the Insubrians has an accessible one-paragraph summary, whereas there is a 25-page entry for the Irish. Lengthier articles are generally accompanied by maps showing invasions, migrations, tribal groupings, or dialect distribution; charts; black-and-white photos; sidebar information; and biographies of relevant figures..." - School Library Journal
Encyclopedia of the Age of Imperialism, 1800-1914
"This set provides a comprehensive overview of the rise and decline of imperialist powers, the accompanying wars and treaties. the influential leaders, the cultural and philosophical rationales, and the peoples and places most affected. Recommended..." - Doug's Student Reference Room
Encyclopedia of the Age of Political Revolutions and New Ideologies, 1760-1815
“In a broad sense, the 'age of revolutions' began with the early tensions between America and Britain in the 1760s, and concluded with the conservative reactions to the revolutions of 1848. Revolutionaries, influenced by Enlightenment philosophies, attempted to overthrow or reform monarchies in favor of more liberal regimes and greater freedom, equality, and democracy. This work is a basic guide that emphasizes the revolutionary periods in America and France, the locations of the two most important and influential revolutions of the period..." - Choice
The Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850
"A superb set one of the most important topics in Western thought and art. The encyclopedia gives students...an excellent introduction to the movement while allowing them to see it in its full scope. Highly recommended..." - Booklist
Enlightenment, Reawakening, and Revolution, 1660-1815
"...inspires awe....enormous diversity of of excellent scholars....stands out from rivals by its sheer scale....provide an effective structure....identification and development of themes is thoroughly successful....deeply impressive..." - Phillip Jenkins.
The Hutchinson Encyclopedia of the Renaissance
"This book views culture as part of the broader history of the Renaissance. Thus, the major political figures and events are included and their links to the period's culture made clear, ensuring that artistic activity is seen in its true context."
Key Figures in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia
"The 587 entries were selected from the eight region-based volumes in the Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages series to provide a source for quick information about primary figures in Europe as a whole between about 500 and 1500. They consider people who influenced artistic, economic, intellectual, literary, political, religious, and social history. The signed articles include cross-references to other articles and primary and secondary bibliographies." - Reference & Research Book News
Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.
Austrian Newspapers Online – the virtual newspaper reading room of the Austrian National Library where national, regional, and local history Austrian newspapers and magazines can be browsed, read, and searched for online. Coverage is from the 19th century to the first third of the 20th century.
Biblioteca Virtual de Prensa Historica – a digitized collection of about 2,400 historical newspapers published in Spain between 1777-2005 from the collections of ninety-seven institutions. There is also published material from the former Spanish colonies in America, Africa and the Philippines.
British Library Newspapers 1600-1950 -- provides access to the most significant digital collection of British historic newspapers. The cross-searchable platform provides access to specially commissioned essays and contextual materials intended to help non-specialist users with perspective and analysis.
Compact Memory – this resource is a digitization initiative of the Goethe University Frankfurt, which provides free, online access to important German-Jewish periodicals. It provides online access to 172 important newspapers and journals published by the German-Jewish community on a variety of subjects, including academic texts, religion, politics, literature, and social life, published during the years 1768-1938.
Eighteenth Century Journals: A Portal for Newspapers and Periodicals – the primary aim of this research portal is to promote the broad representation of the culture of print journalism in the eighteenth century, illuminating all aspects of eighteenth-century social, political and literary life. Many are ephemeral, lasting only for a handful of issues, others run for several years. Topics covered are extremely wide-ranging and include: colonial life; provincial and rural affairs; the French and American revolutions; reviews of literature and fashion throughout Europe; political debates; and London coffee house gossip and discussion. Coverage is from 1685 to 1835.
Emeroteca Digitale [copy and paste this link: http://emeroteca.braidense.it/] – a collection of digitized historic Italian newspapers with the ability to retrieve using the browse button icon to review, print, save and export your search results. Titles without an index are organized according to a chronological path structured as follows: title index, catalogue, year index, month index, day index, file.
Europeana Research: Newspapers – an open access initiative of the European Union to preserve the digital cultural heritage of the continent, this portal links to digitized, full-text collections of historic newspapers from various European galleries, archives, museums, and national libraries from 1618 to the 1980s.
Financial Times Historical Archive -- provides the complete searchable facsimile run of the daily business newspaper. Includes every article and advertisement ever printed in the paper can be searched and browsed individually and page by page of the last 120 years.
Guardian (1821-2003) and Observer (1791-2003) – offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection provides access to every page from every available issue of these two British newspapers.
Hemeroteca Digital – part of the national digital library of Spain, the Digital Periodical and Newspaper Library features digitized newspapers and journals covering the period of 1772 to 1933. The application that manages the collection allows searches for both a specific title and a group of publications published in one place or on a specific date. You can access the digital texts from the results page. The format of the digital publications is PDF with OCR, which allows you to search for any term in the text of the publication.
Historic German Newspapers and Journals Online – provides access to historic periodical collections, regional newspapers, Jewish newspapers, local German newspapers, and magazines.
Times Digital Archive -- provides the complete digital edition of The Times (London), using keyword searching and hit-term highlighting to retrieve full facsimile images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to facilitate searching. Coverage is from 1785-2008.
Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.
Europeana Research: Maps – an open access initiative of the European Union to preserve the digital cultural heritage of the continent, this portal links to digitized, full-text collections of maps from various European galleries, archives, museums, and national libraries from 1618 to the 1980s.
Historical Maps: Europe – collection of digitized maps from the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division of the New York Public Library and includes maps of regions, countries, and cities, showing basic topographical features and/or, in some cases, topical themes. Maps date from the 17th century through the present day. Sectional maps from contiguous-area map series, plates from atlases, bird's-eye views; and guides, indexes, and other texts that accompany maps or are part of atlases may also be found here.
Historical Maps of Europe – maps from the University of Texas, Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) Map Collection. Note that the website is archived as of 2021 and no longer being updated. Links to external sites may no longer work as expected. Visit the Texas GeoData portal and Collections portal for all map files and the UTL Map Collections LibGuide for additional information. Use the search engine to locate” to search by country or region in Europe.
Library of Congress Geography and Map Division – search page to the “National Map Library” of the United States. Although only representing a fraction of the Division’s collections, searching with the term “Europe” reveals more than 700 digital maps, many of which are centuries old. Includes access to specific map collections as well as other collections of archival materials maps that include maps.
Old Maps of Europe – portion of the OldMapsOnline project began as a collaboration between Klokan Technologies GmbH, Switzerland and The University of Portsmouth, UK and devoted to providing open access to high resolution historical maps of Europe and other regions that combines the information about digital map images from a number of different libraries and other host institutions into a single search interface. Site facilitates viewing high-resolution scans of maps in order to study the evolution of a place in different time periods by visually comparing different maps.
Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.
Adam Matthew Primary Source Collections -- primary source collections from archives around the world. Collection themes include: area studies, cultural studies, empire and globalism, ethnic studies, gender and sexuality, history, politics, and war and conflict. Relevant collections related to the history of Western Europe include Medieval Family Life, Medieval Travel Writing, Migration to New Worlds, Service Newspapers of World War Two; and Global Commodities. Collections are arranged alphabetically.
Age of Exploration – this digital archive provides access to key events in the history of European maritime exploration from 1420-1920 featuring rare manuscript and early printed material, highly illustrated maps and documents, diaries and ships' logs from some of the most well-known voyages in history.
Bavarian State Library Online – the central cultural-scientific information portal for Bavaria. Here you will find digitized collections dealing with Bavaria including medieval manuscripts, newspapers, and more that document the history and culture of the Free State. The individual modules and focal points can each be searched individually, but some can also be searched with the help of central search access points (places, people). The site is supported by six Bavarian libraries, with the Bavarian State Library taking the lead.
Belgica – collection of digitized manuscripts, maps, images and other material related to Belgian history and culture. Content focuses on works from Belgian authors, published in Belgium, and works related to the history of the districts that overlap with the territory of modern-day Belgium. The collections includes current printed matter and newspapers, but also older books, manuscripts, music collections, collections of drawings and prints, cartographical heritage, and collections of coins and medals.
Biblioteca Virtual del Patrimonio Bibliografico – provides open access to digital facsimiles of rare manuscript collections, early printed books, cartographic items (atlases and maps), graphic and photographic materials, musical scores, and other archival materials which are part of Spain's history. Important collections such as Ibero-American and Philippine collections have been also been added to the library.
Brepols Cross Database Search Tool – this database facilitates searching across three collections: the International Bibliography of Humanism and the Renaissance, which is an international reference bibliography of academic publications on the Renaissance, focusing on European history and culture that spans the 16th and 17th centuries, and the combined Bibliography of Medieval Civilization and the International Medieval Bibliography, which books, critical editions, translations, anthologies, miscellanies, and exhibition catalogues to specialized dictionaries and encyclopedias, handbooks, journal articles, and reviews concerning the period of Late Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages (300-1500).
Defining Gender, 1450-1910 – original source material from British and European libraries and archives, including a strong core of document images from the Bodleian Library, Oxford and the British Library; Cambridge University Library; Leeds University Library; Birmingham Central Library; etc. Sources include ephemera, pamphlets, commonplace books, diaries, periodicals, letters, ledgers, manuscript journals, poetry, receipt books and conduct and advice literature.
Digital Library of the Catholic Reformation – a single, full-text, fully searchable database that contains an extensive range of seminal works from the Reformation and post-Reformation eras of the Catholic Church and all levels of the Catholic hierarchy. This is a valuable resource for studying the religious and social upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries. The collection consists of theological writings, biblical commentaries, confessional documents, social and political works, sermons, letters, polemical treatises, and other key documents from this critical epoch in European history.
Early European Books – this collection provides high quality color scans, from the original texts of all material printed in Europe or in European languages from the birth of printing (c.1455) to 1700. Based on holdings of a variety of major European libraries. The three initial collections, ultimately represent 4.1 million pages, are based on library collections in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, and England.
EuroDocs: Online Sources for European History – a good place to begin your study of specific time periods of European history. Provides access to an extensive collection of European primary historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated as well as video or sound files, maps, photographs or other imagery, databases, and other documentation. Browse by broad era (prehistory/ancient, medieval/renaissance, modern) or by country. The order of documents is chronological wherever possible.
The European Library -- designed to meet the needs of the research community worldwide, the online portal offers access to the collections of the 48 National Libraries of Europe and leading European Research Libraries. Users can cross-search and reuse over 26,394,274 digital items and 168,238,832 bibliographic records. The objects come from institutions located in countries which are members of the Council of Europe and range from catalog records to full-text books, magazines, journals and audio recordings. Thirty five different languages are represented among the searchable objects.
European Views of the Americas – derived from the seminal reference work commonly known as the Alden-Landis bibliography, this is a comprehensive guide to over 32,000 citations to printed records produced in Europe before 1750 that make some mention of the discovery and emerging awareness of the Americas. Subject areas covered range from portrayals of Native American peoples to natural history to disease outbreaks to slavery.
Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index – covers journal articles, book reviews, and essays in books about women, sexuality, and gender during the Middle Ages. There are 44,224 records currently in Feminae.
French Revolution Digital Archive – a digital version of the key research sources of the French Revolution. The archive is based around two main resources, the Archives parlementaires and a vast corpus of images first brought together in 1989 and known as the Images de la Revolution française. The project is intended to provide a definitive record of parliamentary deliberations and also includes letters, reports, speeches, and other first-hand accounts from a great variety of published and archival sources.
Gale World History in Context – engaging online experience for those seeking contextual information on hundreds of the most significant people, events and topics in world history. The platform provides authoritative reference content with full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted web sites.
Gallica – the research portal to the digitized collections from the French National Library that includes full-text, images, and sound resources and content of interest across the disciplines. Online since 1997, it is enriched every week with thousands of new items and today offers access to several million documents.
German History in Documents and Images – a comprehensive collection of primary source materials documenting Germany's political, social, and cultural history from 1500 to the present. It comprises original German texts, all of which are accompanied by new English translations, and a wide range of visual imagery. The materials are presented in ten sections, which have been compiled by leading scholars.
Gerritsen Women's History Collection – contains more than 4,700 publications from continental Europe, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand, dating from 1543-1945. The collection presents both the anti-feminist case as well as the pro-feminist. The broad scope of the collection allows researchers to trace the evolution of feminism within a single country, as well as the impact of one country's movement on those of the others.
Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrums – digital archive consisting of thousands of volumes of printed works and manuscripts with over 15 million digitized pages covering an array of subject areas beyond Germany. The digital collections of the GDZ contain autobiographies, travel writings (Itineraria), maps, Mathematica, North Americana, Sibirica, history of science, zoologica, miscellaneous as well as unique holdings from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Grand Tour – this resource explores the relationship between Britain and Europe between 1550 and 1850, exploring the British response to travel on the Continent for pleasure, business, and diplomacy. Includes manuscripts, visual materials and printed works.
HathiTrust Digital Library – a partnership of approximately 140 research institutions with Google, the Library includes all the book images from these libraries that have been digitized. Only out-of-copyright images (generally pre-1923) can be displayed, or others where the permission of the copyright holder has been obtained, though both in-copyright and out-of-copyright materials can be searched. To enable downloads of out-of copyright books, please click the “Log In” button and select “University of Southern California” from the drop down list. You will then be prompted for your USC NetID and password and validated via Shibboleth.
History of Parliament – a research project creating a comprehensive account of parliamentary politics in England, then Britain, from their origins in the thirteenth century. It consists of detailed studies of elections and electoral politics in each constituency, and of closely researched accounts of the lives of everyone who was elected to Parliament in the period, together with surveys drawing out the themes and discoveries of the research and adding information on the operation of Parliament as an institution.
Interactive Historical Atlas of the Disciplines – launched in 2018 at the University of Geneva, this collaborative website provides several tools to explore the various 'classifications of the sciences' put forward by numerous scholars over the centuries, and to visualize the evolution of disciplinary borders from Antiquity to our days. The overarching goal is to reconstruct the genealogical tree of the sciences, namely, the "table of contents" of the history of human knowledge. As such, the present atlas should be of interest not only to historians, but also to philosophers, sociologists, and anyone interested in the history of their discipline and its relations to others disciplines.
International Medieval Bibliography – founded in 1967 with the support of the Medieval Academy of America, this database provides a comprehensive, current bibliography of the European middle ages circa 400-1500 from articles in journals and miscellany volumes (conference proceedings, essay collections or Festschriften) published worldwide.
ITER Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance – a bibliography of more than 1.45 million citations for secondary source material about the Middle Ages and Renaissance, 400-1700. Citations for books and journal material (articles, reviews, review articles, bibliographies, catalogues, abstracts and discographies) are included, as are citations for dissertation abstracts and essays in books (including entries in conference proceedings, festschriften, encyclopedias and exhibition catalogues).
The Making of Modern Law: Foreign Primary Sources, 1600–1970 -- provides through monograph publications an interpretive analysis of various legal codes, the "primary sources" of law covering national jurisdictions of Great Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, as well as other countries in Northern and Eastern Europe. Contents are available in two parts: Part I: 1600-1970 comprises over 650 titles spread across nearly 2,000 volumes of regulations, session laws, journals, and codes and commentaries covering laws and legal histories of France, German, and Great Britain (and Ireland); Part II: 1600–1970 contains approximately 1.4 million pages from nearly 1,500 titles spread across almost 2,700 volumes covering canon law codes and commentaries; materials on civil law and procedure, commercial law, criminal law and procedure; and Roman law codes and commentaries.
Malta Study Center of Hill Museum and Manuscript Library – the Center’s primary mission is to preserve and make accessible the written culture of Malta and the Order of Malta. Covering the period of the 12th to the 20th century, the collections includes the Archives of the Order of Malta, the Cathedral Museum in Mdina, the Archives of the Inquisition, the ecclesiastical records of the dioceses of Malta and Gozo, and over 1500 digitized manuscripts from the National Archives of Malta, the Notarial Archives of Malta, the Magistral Library and Archives, and the Palazzo Falson Museum and Library.
Mapping Manuscript Migrations – this is an open access portal that enables large-scale exploration of data relating to the history and provenance of more than 216,000 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts by origin, owner, author, and title. It combines data from three manuscript databases: the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Bibale at the French Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes, and Medieval Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Medieval and Early Modern Sources Online (MEMSO) – An essential resource for the study of Britain and its place in the world during the medieval and early modern period (c. 1100-1800). Combines the key printed sources for English, Irish, Scottish, and Colonial history with original manuscripts. The printed sources contain a large repository of state papers, chronicles, accounts and correspondence from the archives of Britain, Ireland and continental Europe. Original manuscript images are taken from the English State Papers held at the National Archives in London, United Kingdom.
Medieval Family Life – digital version of five family letter collections from late medieval England. Each letter has been fully digitized, and some letters also have searchable transcriptions. The period covered (1400-1490) includes the Wars of the Roses, and regions covered include East Anglia, Oxfordshire, Yorkshire, and Warwickshire. In addition to the letters, the database contains family trees, an interactive map, chronology, and visual resources (images from historic manuscripts illustrating everyday life and political developments in the late medieval period).
Monumenta Germaniae Historica – a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published primary sources, both chronicle and archival, for the study of German history (broadly conceived) from the end of the Roman Empire to 1500. The collection consists of six main divisions, Antiquitates, Diplomata, Epistolae, Leges, Scriptores, and Alia as well as numerous subseries. It currently represents an almost complete library of source materials for medieval German history, and contains texts relevant to France, Italy, the Low Countries, and Great Britain, as well as to Germany and Central Europe.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online – a multi-year global digitization and publishing program focusing on archival collections of primary sources providing full-text, fully searchable content. The collection includes books, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, statistics, and more in both Western and non-Western languages. Currently available are over ten million pages of combined content in the following modules: Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange; British Politics and Society; British Theater, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture//European Literature, 1790-1840.
Parliament Rolls of Medieval England – contains the official records of the meetings of the English parliament from the reign of Edward I (1272-1307) until the reign of Henry VII (1485 - 1509), after which they were superseded by the journals of the lords and, somewhat later, of the commons. This digital archive reproduces the rolls in their entirety, plus a substantial amount of material never previously published, together with a full translation of all the texts from the three languages used by the medieval clerks It also includes an introduction to every parliament known to have been held by an English king (or in his name) between 1275 and 1504.
Records of the Parliaments of Scotland -- a fully searchable database containing the proceedings of the Scottish parliament from the first surviving act of 1235 to the union of 1707.
State Papers Online – this collection of English State Papers covers the reigns of the Tudors, the Stuarts, and the Hannovers (1509 up to George III's rule in 1782). The database contains the official records of the Secretaries of State serving the ruling monarch of the day; they contain correspondence, reports, memoranda, parliamentary drafts and depositions from ambassadors, civil servants and provincial administrators on almost every subject. It gathers in one place the Domestic, Foreign, Borders, Scotland, and Ireland State Papers of Britain with the Registers of the Privy Council and other State Papers, making it easier to research 16th-18th century British history.
Using Primary Source and Archival Materials
AM Research Methods – this platform provides practical advice on how to work with primary source materials and integrate them into a research study. Contents include approximately 200 hundred essays, instructive videos, practical "How to" guides, and case studies created by scholars and archivists. The videos and "How to" guides introduce the key concepts of conducting research and analyzing primary source materials. Case studies describe examples of the ways in which historians have used diaries, government records, and posters, or popular culture, gender, and science materials in their research. A discrete collection of cases focusing on historical datasets is also included.
Descriptions of resources are adapted or quoted from vendor websites.