Teaching Interests
I was originally hired to handle Western Europe—namely France and all things pertaining to Britain. My responsibilities also included the Modern European survey, the first semester of Western Civ, and a strange assortment of classes in the catalog that needed teaching (e.g., a course on nationalsm and another entitled "War and Revolution.") Due to some turnover within the department during my early years, changes in the curriculum, and other factors, I was allowed to drop some classes and offer different ones. Now, during the school year, I teach almost everything having to do with Britain, some military history, and Modern Europe. During summer school, I usually teach Western Civ and the American Civil War.
If you teach at a small, liberal arts college in a department of nine people that insists on offering courses that cover just about all times and places, you will end up knowing a little bit about everything. Everyone here is something of a polymath.
Books
So what do polymaths like to read? In no particular order, these are the last six books I've read for fun. If you're a student, I encourage you to read. Whether it's good fiction or good history, you will learn something about the world, yourself, and the people around you. And you might actually enjoy yourself. As an English coach used to say to me about rowing (and just about everything else), "It's good fun."
Links
I've always relied a great deal on primary sources in my class, something that was encouraged in undergraduate teaching at UCSB. Believe it or not, among all the dross, the slag, and the chaff (to mix metaphors), there are some outstanding web sites from which I've culled useful material. And then there are the sites I use for research. The list below does not pretend to include the best of everything, but merely represents a number of sites that I've found useful over the years. In other words, these are my favorites.
Research
The VRW: Victorian Research Web: This is a great place to start any research trip if you are interested in Victorian British history.
A2A: Access to Archives: Here is one of the places to go if you are looking for manuscript sources in Britain.
The National Archives: One of THE places to do research in Britain. If you want to know where the archives for a business or a person are, you have to go to the National Register of Archives which has now been merged with the National Archives.
The British Library: The OTHER place to do research in Britain. I often use the Manuscript Catalog and British Library Newspapers where you can search for newspapers.
Reviews
H-Net Reviews provide the best, free, on-line access to book reviews on a wide variety of historical topics. From this page, select the list you want and proceed to the book review section. I pay closest attention to H-CivWar (where I am a book review editor), H-War, and H-Albion (British history).
The Institute of Historical Research also provides excellent reviews of historical works published mainly by British authors.
Scholarly Organizations
American Historical Association is the great, big ponderous national organization for all professional historians living in the United States.
North American Conference on British Studies is the national organization for scholars studying British history.
British Scholar is an alternative organization that focuses on the history of Britain's interactions with the rest of the world.
Blogs
Blog Them out of the Stone Age is run by Mark Grimsley at THE Ohio State University (although he is now a visiting professor at the U.S. Army War College). For all current and past web controversies concerning military history go here; this site also has links to a large number of other interesting blogs in military history.
The History News Network (HNN) has articles on contemporary news written by historians, opinion pieces by historians, reviews of historians' works, information about historians in the news, and so on and so forth.
Ancient and Medieval England
The British Museum: If you can't go to the British Museum in London, the next best thing is visiting it online. Go to "Explore" and then move on to "Galleries." There is something for everyone here. The BBC asked the curators of the British Museum to name the top ten British treasures. This is what the curators came up with: Our Top Ten British Treasures.
Past Perfect: The Virtual Archeology of Durham and Northumberland: Covering the most significant archeological sites in Durham and Northumberland, this site stretches from a Bronze Age burial ground to a 20th-century coal mine. Be sure to check out the virtual reconstructions. The best part of all, however, is the Lord's Prayer recited in Old English.
The Bayeux Tapestry: This site has great atmosphere and posts useful additional information.
Early Modern and Modern Britain
British Printed Images to 1700: This site posts a wide variety of prints and book illustrations.
Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London 1674-1834: Trial records from the famous London court—an invaluable resource.
Charles Booth Online Archive: Supported by the London School of Economics, this site has all things Charles Booth, including the famous poverty map of London.
Robert Boyle (1627-1691): Birkbeck College, University of London, has posted many pages from Robert Boyle's notebooks—he of Boyle's Law fame.
The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online: As the homepage says, "This website is the largest collection of writings by and about Darwin ever published."
The Liberty Library of Constitutional Classics: This site has a huge collection of documents, including the full text of Gardiner's Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution 1625-1660.
English Reformation Sources: Back and forth, back and forth went the English Reformation. Keep track of the key documents on this site.
The National Archives Learning Curve: Ok, this is mainly for kids, but the exhibitions include many primary sources (not just documents but material artifacts as well) and help students ask the right questions when confronted by such sources. And there are interesting and sexy topics like "Crime and Punishment," "The British Empire," and "The Great War.
The Opening of the Great Exhibition: This is a neat little site about Henry Courtney Selous' painting of the opening ceremony of the Great Exhibition (1851).
The Victorian Web: For all things Victorian and British, this is an excellent start.
The William Blake Archive: Isn't it romantic?
British Empire and Commonwealth
RTE Libraries and Archives: This site, to which more will be added soon, has photographs as well as audio and video clips for much of 20th-century Irish history.
The Jinnah Society: For everything having to do with Mohammad Ali Jinnah, take a look at this site.
Speeches by Mohammad Ali Jinnah: This site of unknown provenance has an even larger collection of Jinnah's speeches.
The African National Congress: The ANC has a good archive with many speeches by its various leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo.
The Carlyle-Mill "Negro Question" Debate: This site has an excellent collection of documents and constitutes part of The History of Economic Thought Website.
The Alfred Russel Wallace Page: Wallace was a pioneering naturalist who was the first to really apply Darwin's ideas to people. Find his writings here.
Empire and Us: The British Empire & Commonwealth Museum: This has an interesting online exhibit, but my favorite part is the "Images of Empire" which has some terrific photographs.
Act of Union Virtual Library: This site provides a large number of primary sources associated with the Act of Union that united Great Britain with Ireland (1800).
British Empire: This site includes maps, photographs, articles, and biographies.
New Zealand History Online: My favorite parts are the The Treaty of Waitangi and the War and Society sections.
Australian War Memorial: This site has photographs, artwork, audio, and video from World Wars I and II.
Israel and Palestine: Middle East Historical and Peace Process Source Documents: This collection, hosted by MidEast Web, is pretty extensive and dates back to the 19th century.
Battlefield Singapore: The National Archives of Singapore has a great site about the Japanese capture and occupation of Singapore in 1942.
Modern Europe
Fine Arts in Hungary from the Beginning to the mid-20th Century: My favorite section of this site is Historical Painting in the 19th Century which gives much food for thought for anyone interested in nationalism and art.
Nazi and East German Propaganda: Randall Bytwerk at Calvin College has a great site full of posters, speeches, and pamphlets.
Slobodan Milosevic's Speeches and Interviews: Someone has taken the time to collect Milosevic's most important speeches and translate them.
EuroDocs: Online Sources for European History: BYU maintains this site which hosts a great mass of primary source documents concerning modern European history.
The National Security Archive: The George Washington University: The part I'm most interested in is under "Documents" and includes the "Electronic Briefing Books" for Europe. It has lots of neat Cold War stuff.
Prague Spring 1968: A multi-media site concerning Czechoslovakia and the events of 1968.
L'OURS: L'Office Universitaire de Recherche Socialiste: This site has a number of interesting documents having to do with the history of French socialism, including the famous debate between Jaurès and Guesde in Lille (1900).
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes: For all of your Goya needs, go here.
L'Histoire par L'Image: 1789-1939: French history through art. Incroyable!
European NAvigator (ENA) provides a spectacular site on the history of the EEC and EU with speeches, newspaper articles, photographs, audio clips, and video. This site is absolutely, positively indispensable for anyone interested in the topic.
Civil War/American History
Documenting the American South: The University of North Carolina's Library maintains this extensive site which has a large collection of primary sources dealing with Southen history, literature, and culture.
The Civil War in America from the Illustrated London News: This site, posted by the Beck Center at Emory University, has image files of all the illustrations and text from the Illustrated London News having to do with the American Civil War.
Civil War Richmond: This site posts written accounts, photographs, maps, and other information associated with Richmond during the Civil War.
Secession Era Editorials Project Furman University Department of History: This site posts newspaper editorials from across the United States that covered the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the beating of Charles Sumner, the Dred Scott decision, and John Brown's raid.
Historical Census Browser (US): Punch in a big set of variables and you can dig up all sorts of information about the United States. There is a function that even lets you map the data.
World Wars
Art of the First World War: A multi-national effort put on by a number of museums, this is an outstanding collection.
The Imperial War Museum: The Battle of the Somme: This is an extensive virtual museum tour hosted by the Imperial War Museum. While you're at it, check out the Online Exhibitions of the Imperial War Museum and the Imperial War Museum's site itself.
World War I: Trenches on the Web: Another multi-media site on World War I.
First World War.com: This is a massive multi-media site with maps, posters, videos, music, primary sources, and photographs.
1941-1945: Our Victory: This Russian website has an English version with lots of photographs, eye-witness accounts, and newspaper excerpts.
Panzerkeil: I can't read Magyar, but there are some great photographs on this site having to do with the Wehrmacht.
Constructing a Post-War World: The GI Roundtable Series in Context: An interesting little experiment performed by the American Historical Association, this site provides access to government pamphlets that were supposed to ease WWII veterans' transition into civilian life (along with background material).
The Pacific War from HistoryAnimated.com: This site presents some very interesting animated maps of various battles in the Pacific and Asia during World War II.
Unknown World War II in Color: This YouTube channel has a number of fascinating clips in color.
General Military
De Re Militari: The Society for Medieval Military History: This site includes primary sources, reviews, discussion boards, bibliographies, syllabuses, and links.
Clausewitz Homepage: If you are intereted in Clausewitz and his work, this is a good site.
Russian General and Naval Commanders of the Napoleonic Epoch: This quirky site has a great set of galleries from the Napoleonic wars and some fun photos of recent Napoleonic re-enactments. Civil War re-enactors have nothing on these Russian guys.
The RMA Debate: As we speak, there is a very important debate taking place within the defense community about the "revolution in military affairs." Follow it here.
Bastioned Fortification Resource: Interested in bastioned fortifications? This has a nice collection of illustrations.
David Hart's "War and Art": Check out the study guides for both artists and movies.
MIT: Visualizing Cultures: Throwing Off Asia II & III: There is no better word to describe this site than "awesome." It includes dozens of large, high-quality Japanese wood-block prints of the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War.
Naval History
"A Concise History of the Development of the Square-Rigged Ship: From the Carrack to the Full-Rigger": Presents a series of excellent illustrations and a good bibliography.
NavSource Naval History: This site has an impressive archive of photographs of US naval vessels.
Naval Historical Center: This is a tremendous site that covers the history of the US Navy. My favorite parts are the "Online Resources" and "Publications" sections.
Ideas
Marxists.org Internet Archive: This site has an absolutely massive collection of Marxist writings from all over the world.
The Library of Economics and Liberty: The Liberty Fund manages this site which has posted a very large number of speeches and works by famous economists.
The Nationalism Project: This is a good place to start if you are interested in reading about nationalism.
General Art
Mark Harden's Artchive: The Artchive is about the best one-stop shop for art.
Australian National University's ArtServe: This site has images of art, architectural, and archeological treasures from around the globe.
General
Internet History Sourcebooks Project: Paul Halsall at Fordham maintains an enormous site of primary sources associated with the history of all areas of the world. Anybody who has ever taught history at the college level knows about this site.
Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy: The Avalon Project at Yale has an extensive site with historic political documents.
The Liberty Library of Constitutional Documents contains a number of great collections, including Gardiner's Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution: 1625-1660 for those of you who can't get enough of that English Civil War/War of the Three Kingdoms action.
Professor Vincent Ferraro at Mount Holyoke College: Professor Ferraro maintains a site with an extensive collection of documents dealing, among other things, with American foreign policy.
Famous Trials: Douglas Linder at the University of Missouri-Kansas City keeps a great site on famous trials—from that of Socrates to the Moussaoui trial.
Maps
WHKMLA Historical Atlas: This site maintains a very good, very clear collection of maps.
Historical Maps: These old maps, posted on 1UpTravel.com, are in the public domain.
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas: A great collection of historic maps from all over the world.
Miscellaneous
Where would you be without your Roman Numeral and Date Coversion Tables?
Calendar Converter: If you come across a date in the old Julian calendar, what would it be according to today's, Gregorian calendar? What about the Mayan, Persian, Hebrew, or Islamic calendars? This is your place.
The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert: Collaborative Translation Project: As the name suggests, this is a collaborative effort to translate the great Encyclopédie.
Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry: This site has all the illuminated folios of the Duc de Berry's Book of Hours.
MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive: Posted at the University of St. Andrews, this site has biographies of mathematicians and provides the history of various topics in mathematics.
Musée McCord Museum: Games: The Victorian Period: How well do you know your Victorian manners? This is the place to find out.