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Internet History Sourcebooks Project
Editor: Paul Halsall
[2023]
Welcome to The Internet History Sourcebooks Project, a collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented cleanly
(without advertising or excessive layout) for educational use. Primary sources are available here mainly for use in high-school and university/college courses. From the outset the site took a very broad view of the sources that should be available to students and as well as documents long associated with a "western civilization" approach to history also provides much information on Byzantine, Islamic, Jewish, Indian, East Asian, and African history. You will also find many documents especially relevant to women's history and LGBT studies.
Search engines such as Google now deliver many users directly to relevant documents, but the various Index pages are the key to the best use of this site. You can access the major divisions of the site from the subject indexes at the top of each page. Within each major division the left panel on each page directs you to more focused indexes. Any given document may be listed in several indexes.
The IHSP is both very large and fairly old
in Internet terms. At the time it was begun (1996), it was not clear
that web sites and the documents made available there would often turn out to be
ephemeral. The index pages therefore contained links to the thousands of documents available at this Fordham University website alongside links to documents at other websites. As a result of a process called "link rot" (where a broken link results from someone having taken down a web page) this means some links no longer worked. An effort has been made to repair or remove bad
links. If you come across one, though, you will often be able to find archived versions of such documents by using the Wayback Machine [www.archive.org].
This site at Fordham can now be searched via the Search box at the top of each page.
I am always happy to hear from people who wish to submit copy
permitted texts to the various sites below.
The Internet History Sourcebooks
- Internet
Ancient History Sourcebook
A "classroom usable" sourcebook of copy-permitted material for Ancient history
and civilization courses.
- Internet
Medieval Sourcebook
This is an online sourcebook of copy-permitted, although not necessarily copyright-free,
source material for Medieval Studies. It is the largest online resource of medieval and
Byzantine textual sources.
- Internet
Modern History Sourcebook
Now with almost as many online texts as the Medieval Sourcebook, this also constitutes a
"classroom usable" sourcebook of copy-permitted material for Modern European
history and Modern Civilization courses. North American and Latin American documents are
located within its structure.
SUBSIDIARY SOURCEBOOKS
The following consist of thematically based subsets of
texts, with some additional documents and links, of the three main Source-books
listed above.
SOURCEBOOK THEMES
The following consist of thematically based subsets of
texts entirely taken from the three main Sourcebooks listed above, along
with documents from the subsidiary source-books
- Travelers' Accounts
Traveler's accounts of their journeys and the lands they visit are
important sources in understanding the past. As outsiders, travelers often note
aspects of a culture that are too commonplace for local commentators to mention. More than
this, travelers often provide some insight into how their own society understood itself in
relation to other cultures.
- Slavery in World Cultures
Slavery has been a cross-cultural social and legal insititution in many human societies. Throughout the Internet History Sourcebooks Project, there
are a number of primary source documents related to slavery and this page brings them
together.
- Legal History:
Laws and formal prescriptions or codes of behavior are some of the commonest types of
primary source documents.
- Historical Movies
Course Web Sites by Paul Halsall
Various course websites which reflect the use of IHSP documents.
The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is located at the History Department of Fordham University, New York. The Internet
Medieval Sourcebook, and other medieval components of the project, are located at
the Fordham University Center
for Medieval Studies.The IHSP recognizes the contribution of Fordham University, the
Fordham University History Department, and the Fordham Center for Medieval Studies in
providing web space and server support for the project. The IHSP is a project independent of Fordham University. Although the IHSP seeks to follow all applicable copyright law, Fordham University is not
the institutional owner, and is not liable as the result of any legal action.
© Site Concept and Design: Paul Halsall created 26 Jan 1996: latest revision 20 Oct 2025 [CV]
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