Basic Profiles and History
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Basic Profiles


Most countries

CIA World Fact Book   https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/   Best source for very brief descriptions of every country of the world.  Info on location, geography, climate, demography, economy, infrastructure.
 

BBC has a country profiles page   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/country_profiles/default.stm   

 

Global Edge   http://globaledge.msu.edu/Global-Insights   Michigan State University


 

Regions or specific countries


Asian Development Bank   http://www.adb.org/    See their Asian Development Outlook books:   http://beta.adb.org/publications/series/asian-development-outlook    Also see the current Key Indicators at  http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Key_Indicators/default.asp
 

Middle East Directory  http://www.middleeastdirectory.com/index.php   has brief descriptions of countries, including government, geography, etc. The descriptions are near the bottom of the page.
 

African people and culture    http://www.africaguide.com/culture/index.htm   Brief cultural overview of several African countries.
 

Telling Our Story   http://transition.usaid.gov/stories/   "is our effort to let everyone see the impact of USAID’s work and meet the people whose lives it changed"  Each 'story' is a brief story about a single local thing, with a picture.



History

General History sites

Economic History Service   http://eh.net/    has many book reviews at    http://eh.net/bookreviews/    Some books reviewed include Business History and Business Culture  by Godley, Andrew and Oliver M. Westall    The Evolution of International Business: An Introduction  by Jones, Geoffrey     Economic Growth and Change: National and Regional Patterns of Convergence and Divergence  by Adams, John and Francesco Pigliaru, editors and Taking the Risk out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda Versus Freedom and Liberty   by Carey, Alex
 

Library of Congress list of resources for teachers for world history   http://www.loc.gov/teachers/additionalresources/relatedresources/world/primary.html   links to bunches of sites, like on line texts, links to links, etc.


The Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University       http://chnm.gmu.edu/about/   links to a bunch of resources about history

Emayzine    http://www.emayzine.com/    some brief lectures on world history.  Click on the lectures pages.  From Eric Meyer at Victory Valley College. See http://www.vvc.edu/academic/history/faculty.htm. for the history faculty page.

 

World History  http://www.fsmitha.com/index.html   on line history ebook notes from frank smitha, ancient to modern.
    fsmitha.com is listed here, among many other places.
     http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00maplinks/early/ashoka/ashoka.html    
     http://www2.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/tips/t5prod/djanpp3_files/frame.html   see resources
     http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~chulu20c/classweb/World%20Politics/Page%207.html  


World History for Us All   http://worldhistoryforusall.sdsu.edu/   nice brief overview of world history, divided into 'eras'.
 

The library of congress country studies also have history summaries. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html


Internet History sourcebook   http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/   links to links. Divided into sections such as Ancient History, Medieval, Modern, and also regional history sourcebooks.


Avalon Project   http://avalon.law.yale.edu/default.asp   documents in history, law, politics


 
Specific areas or countries:

The History Guide   http://www.historyguide.org   contains lectures on european history, for example, Lectures on Twentieth Century Europe at   http://www.historyguide.org/europe/europe.html    Also has very nice guide to studying history, some interesting quotes on why study history, and links to resources for historians. The Historyguide site is by Steven Kreis, professor of history at American Public University System    http://www.apus.edu/news-events/news/2008/051208_Kreis.htm   
 

Twenty-five lectures on modern Balkan history   http://staff.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/   Lectures by Steven W. Sowards on recent history of the Balkans.  A lot of the topics are about political change in the 19th and 20th century, and recent events.  Includes a section on Economic and social changes in Balkan life.


Asia for Educators   http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/   teaching units on China and Japan.

 

Condensed China   http://condensedchina.com/   According to the author, this is "an introduction to Chinese history. It exists to inform, enlighten, and attract netizens interested in China."  The author also notes "It is not a complete history of China."  Prepared by Paul Frankenstein.  This site also includes a bibliography of books to read.
 

Collapse    http://www.learner.org/interactives/collapse/index.html    a site by Annenberg/CPB, briefly describing the collapse of four civilizations, Maya, Mesopotamia, Chaco Canyon and Mali and Songhai, and giving indications of why they collapsed.
 

Japan guide's history page  http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e641.html   This site gives very brief overview of Japanese history.  The home site is   http://www.japan-guide.com/
 

History of cambodia   http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/    brief overviews, see especially the Banyan tree. By Bruce Sharp and others.

 
history of Taiwan   http://www.taiwan.gov.tw/   from the Taiwan government, click on About Taiwan, then click on history, or people, or other topics.
 

Taiwan's 400 years of history    http://www.taiwandc.org/history.htm    overview of history.


Elaborations, Revisions, Dissents: Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.'s The Visible Hand after Twenty Years    http://www.thebhc.org/publications/rjbhr.html


Digital history has guided readings on US history at  http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/


brief history of the internet    http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml    from the internet society.


Story of Africa   http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1624_story_of_africa/   from BBC



Israel   http://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/israel/history/   mostly recent history.

Formation of Israel   http://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel   and the next section  http://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/arab-israeli-war  

History of Hamas   http://www.cfr.org/israel/hamas/p8968   updated 2012, from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

Crisis Guide: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict   http://www.cfr.org/israel/crisis-guide-israeli-palestinian-conflict/p13850  Also from the CFR, up to 2009

A couple of documents about the conflicts in Israel and the middle east include these:
    British White Paper of 1939   http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/brwh1939.asp   about British's promise of a "Jewish home" but not a Jewish state.
    Hamas covenant   http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp     which says, in the second paragraph, "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it"


A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust   http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/Holocaust/    includes a timeline at   http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/Holocaust/timeline/timeline.htm    which gives a brief history of the Holocaust.  This site is from the Florida Institute of Technology.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum   http://www.ushmm.org/   has a history of the holocaust, as well as links to info about genocide throughout the world, among various groups.

Holocaust Remembrance Day   http://www.un.org/en/holocaustremembrance/emainpage.shtml   from the UN. Some history, educational material, etc.


 

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last verified 7/20/14
last updated 8/17/14
 

eh.net is supposed to have a listing of reviews of significant work in twentieth-century economic history, at   http://eh.net/project2000/  This includes reviews of  Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic, Origins of Our Time,  Fernand Braudel's Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century Time and Joseph A. Schumpeter'sCapitalism, Socialism and Democracy.  I'm checking to see whether it's still there