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 primarily 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 may 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 of each page directs you to more focused indexes. Any given document may me listed in several indexes.
The IHSP is both very large and fairly old
in Internet terms. At the time it was instigated (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" - which means that a "broken link" is a result of someone having taken down a web page - this means some links no longer worked. Since 2000, very
few links to external sites have been made and we make efforts is under way to remove bad
links. Very often you will 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.
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.
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.
These pages have largely been removed. I leave a few, however, for historical interest.
Modern History Course
A page created for my Fall 1997, and after, Modern History survey course at Fordham
University, The West: From the Enlightenment to the Present.
Medieval Studies Course or low graphics version
A page created for my Fall 1996, and after, Medieval survey course at Fordham University, The
Shaping of the Medieval World.
How to Cite Documents at the Internet
History Sourcebooks Project
The author and maintainer of this site
is Paul Halsall [picture]. He can be contacted by email at Please do not hesitate to mail comments or suggestions.
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 Internet History Sourcebooks Project [IHSP] is
a world wide web project designed to provide easy access to primary sources and other
teaching materials in a non-commercial environment. It was developed and is edited
by Paul Halsall with the aid of numerous other contributors. 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.
