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Open Educational Resources (OER) Librarian
Maria Taylor
she/her
Contact:
Office: Hutchins Library 221
CPO LIB
Hutchins Library
Berea College
Berea, KY 40404
CPO LIB
Hutchins Library
Berea College
Berea, KY 40404
859.985.3276
Website
U.S. History
- The American YawpThe American Yawp offers a free, online, collaboratively built American history textbook designed for college-level history courses. It is currently being used in ISU history courses and has been praised for its clear and concise coverage of content.
- OpenStax U.S. HistoryU.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).
- History in the Making: A History of the People of the United States of America to 1877This textbook examines U.S. History from before European Contact through Reconstruction, while focusing on the people and their history.
- Open Anthology of The American Revolution: Primary Source Readings 1623-1800This compilation brings together sources organized into four eras: Virginia Settlement, Puritans in New England, The Old Colonial Period, and The American Revolution, to chart the evolution of the American self from British citizens to revolutionaries.
- African American History and CultureIt is important to learn about the history and heritage of African Americans that extends back into antiquity because throughout slavery and afterwards, people of European descent advanced what anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits called the “Myths of the Negro Past. (Drake 1990:1–14).” These myths were advanced particularly and primarily about African Americans as rationales to justify slavery, and later discrimination and segregation.
- Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience - 2nd EditionSlavery 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.
- Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow SouthThis project from Duke University contains over 400 oral history interviews chronicling African-American life from the 1890s to the 1950s.
World History
- OpenStax World History to 1500World History, Volume 1: to 1500 is designed to meet the scope and sequence of a world history course to 1500 offered at both two-year and four-year institutions. Suitable for both majors and non majors World History, Volume 1: to 1500 introduces students to a global perspective of history couched in an engaging narrative.
- OpenStax World History, Volume 2: from 1400Suitable for both majors and non majors World History, Volume 2: from 1400 introduces students to a global perspective of history couched in an engaging narrative. Concepts and assessments help students think critically about the issues they encounter so they can broaden their perspective of global history.
- World History Since 1500: An Open and Free TextbookIn addition to helping students master the sequence and scope of world history from 1500, the textbook helps develop empathy for people who live and lived in different parts of the world and during different historical times leading to the creation of empathic and knowledgeable global citizens who are aware of and concerned about the world around them.
- World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500 offers a comprehensive introduction to the history of humankind from prehistory to 1500. It covers Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Israel, Dynastic Egypt, India’s Classical Age, the Dynasties of China, Archaic Greece, the Roman Empire, Islam, Medieval Africa, the Americas, and the Khanates of Central Asia.
Other Topics
- How History is Made: A Student’s Guide to Reading, Writing, and Thinking in the DisciplineLearn what it means to think like an historian! Units on “Thinking Historically,” “Reading Historically,” “Researching Historically,” and “Writing Historically” describe the essential skills of the discipline of history.
- Digital Meijis: Revisualizing Modern Japanese History at 150The Meiji at 150 Digital Teaching Resource and this companion volume were designed to present and widely disseminate research on the Meiji Period in a public format designed for easy adoption in the Japanese studies classroom. By pairing digitized materials and documents with historical narrative and interpretive analysis, the “visual essays” contained within encourage readers to review and rethink modern Japanese history through images.
- The European Experience: A Multi-Perspective History of Modern Europe, 1500–2000Offering a valuable corrective to the Anglocentric narratives of previous English-language textbooks, scholars from all over Europe have pooled their knowledge on comparative themes such as identities, cultural encounters, power and citizenship, and economic development to reflect the complexity and heterogeneous nature of the European experience. The international author teams offer a multifaceted and rich perspective on the history of the continent of the past 500 years.
- A History of the Middle EastThe History of the Middle East is a single volume account of the region’s development from the time of Muhammad to the eve of the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks.
- Latin American, Caribbean, Latinx, and Iberian Free Online ResourceA repository of free online resources for Latin American, Caribbean, Latinx, and Iberian studies
- American Government 3eThe content of this textbook has been developed and arranged to provide a logical progression from the fundamental principles of institutional design at the founding, to avenues of political participation, to thorough coverage of the political structures that constitute American government. The book builds upon what students have already learned and emphasizes connections between topics as well as between theory and applications.
- Attenuated Democracy: A Critical Introduction to U.S. Government and PoliticsAttenuated Democracy is an Open Educational Resource (OER) intended for introductory U.S. government and politics courses.
- An Outline History of East Asia to 1200This is the second edition of the open access textbook that arose out of a course at the University of California, San Diego, called HILD 10: East Asia: The Great Tradition. The course covers China, Japan, and Korea from roughly 1200 BC to about AD 1200.
Open Access Resources
These are collections of open access resources, although some texts might also allow for adaption. Always check the license for individual titles.
Open Access Titles
- Blood, Land and Power The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Nobility and Lineages in the Early Modern PeriodThe analysis of land management, lineage and family through the case study of early modern Spanish nobility from sixteenth to early nineteenth century is a major issue in recent historiography. It aims to shed light on how upper social classes arranged strategies to maintain their political and economic status.
- Iberian world empires and the globalization of europe 1415–1668This open access book analyses Iberian expansion by using knowledge accumulated in recent years to test some of the most important theories regarding Europe’s economic development. Adopting a comparative perspective, it considers the impact of early globalization on Iberian and Western European institutions, social development and political economies.
