What's the difference between websites/web searches and library databases?
1. Generally, websites and library databases both can contain:
NOTE: Researchers should take the time to verify research results by checking several other reliable sources before using it or acting on it. (See more about how to determine what types of sources are credible at Empire State University’s Research Skills Tutorial here.)
2. Library databases do not generally use natural language to search, but use specialized wording and symbols. One of the benefits of using library databases is that they give more precise results than websites or web searches, which may include duplicate or irrelevant results.
3. In addition, library databases contain content that is sometimes only available by paying for it. The library pays for access to that information on behalf of the community it serves.
4. Online web searches often do use natural language, but the results may not be exactly what a researcher is looking for.
5. The order of an online result list is also often based on the priorities of the companies who offer the search (usually at no out-of-pocket cost), rather than the priorities of the researcher.
In eight immersive episodes, decode cultural messages hidden in ancient Maya sites; explore the legacy of Spanish interactions with the Maya as they are reflected in modern towns; chat with archaeologists, artisans, and other local experts; and witness the Maya legacy in food, music, fashion, and art.
A lively and engaging narrative history showing the common threads in the cultures that gave birth to our own.
This is the first volume in a bold series that tells the stories of all peoples, connecting historical events from Europe to the Middle East to the far coast of China, while still giving weight to the characteristics of each country. Susan Wise Bauer provides both sweeping scope and vivid attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abstract assertions about human history.
Dozens of maps provide a clear geography of great events, while timelines give the reader an ongoing sense of the passage of years and cultural interconnection. This old-fashioned narrative history employs the methods of "history from beneath"—literature, epic traditions, private letters and accounts—to connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled. The result is an engrossing tapestry of human behavior from which we may draw conclusions about the direction of world events and the causes behind them.
Often, when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had an issue that profoundly affected him, he wrote a piece on the subject. Such is the case with his nonfiction work titled The Great Boer War." Conan Doyle served as a volunteer doctor at a field hospital during the Second Boer War in South Africa. When the world criticized the British actions, he released the pamphlet, “The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct.” Later that year, he published his full-length history of the war. Conan Doyle considered his work on the subject to be the reason he was knighted by the English crown. The Great Boer War is a detailed account of a lesser-known conflict in world history and is a fantastic representation of the Victorian attitude at the turn of the century.
The encyclopedia once shaped our understanding of the world. Created by thousands of scholars and the most obsessive of editors, a good set conveyed a sense of absolute wisdom on its reader. Contributions from Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Orville Wright, Alfred Hitchcock, Marie Curie, and Indira Gandhi helped millions of children with their homework. Adults cleared their shelves in the belief that everything that was explainable was now effortlessly accessible in their living rooms. Now these huge books gather dust and sell for almost nothing on eBay. Instead, we get our information from our phones and computers, apparently for free. What have we lost in this transition? And how did we tell the progress of our lives in the past? All the Knowledge in the World is a history and celebration of those who created the most ground-breaking and remarkable publishing phenomenon of any age. Simon Garfield, who "has a genius for being sparked to life by esoteric enthusiasm and charming readers with his delight" (The Times), guides us on an utterly delightful journey, from Ancient Greece to Wikipedia, from modest single-volumes to the 11,000-volume Chinese manuscript that was too big to print. He looks at how Encyclopedia Britannica came to dominate the industry, how it spawned hundreds of competitors, and how an army of ingenious door-to-door salesmen sold their wares to guilt-ridden parents. He reveals how encyclopedias have reflected our changing attitudes towards sexuality, race, and technology, and exposes how these ultimate bastions of trust were often riddled with errors and prejudice. With his characteristic ability to tackle the broadest of subjects in an illuminating and highly entertaining way, Simon Garfield uncovers a fascinating and important part of our shared past and wonders whether the promise of complete knowledge--that most human of ambitions--will forever be beyond our grasp.
An invaluable primer from Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, that will help anyone, expert and non-expert alike, navigate a time in which many of our biggest challenges come from the world beyond our borders. Like it or not, we live in a global era, in which what happens thousands of miles away has the ability to affect our lives. The World is designed to provide readers of any age and experience with the essential background and building blocks they need to make sense of this complicated and interconnected world. It will empower them to manage the flood of daily news. Readers will become more informed, discerning citizens, better able to arrive at sound, independent judgments. While it is impossible to predict what the next crisis will be or where it will originate, those who read The World will have what they need to understand its basics and the principal choices for how to respond. In short, this book will make readers more globally literate and put them in a position to make sense of this era.
The first of five volumes collecting 20 years of research by the California State University Fullerton Oral History Program. Part one comprises in-depth interviews with persons of Japanese ancestry, both resident aliens (Issei) and U.S. citizens (Nisei), interned in centers operated by the Army, the Department of Justice, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Wartime Civil Control Administration, and the War Relocation Authority.
The Indian Mutiny, as it was called, may better be considered the Indian Rebellion or India's First War of Independence. Colonel Malleson presents his account of the uprising, which stemmed from a toxic blend of politics and private enterprise becoming entwined with private military. Hundreds of thousands of Indians were enlisted in the three East India Company armies, where there was serious caste discrimination. The General Service Enlistment Act of 1856 changed the nature of the service, causing further resentment. Inevitably, though, it was the manipulation of the local cultures by the British that led to resentment. The infamous greased cartridges were just a sparking point and an example of how inconsiderate the company was of its people.
In the Land of a Thousand Gods is truly panoramic in scope. Blending rich narrative with in-depth analyses of political, social, and economic history, the book traces Asia Minor's shifting orientation between East and West and examines its role as both a melting pot of nations and a bridge for cultural transmission. Marek takes readers from the earliest known Stone Age settlements to the end of antiquity. He covers the emergence of early Greek poetry and science, the invention of coinage, Persian domination, the prosperity of cities under the Hellenistic kings, and the establishment of Roman provinces. Marek draws on the latest research--in fields ranging from demography and economics to architecture and religion--to describe how Asia Minor became a center of culture and wealth in the Roman Empire. He shows how the advancement of Hellenic culture and civic autonomy was the irreversible legacy of the Pax Romana.
A breathtaking work of scholarship, In the Land of a Thousand Gods will become the standard reference book on the subject in English.
World War II endures in the popular imagination as a heroic struggle between good and evil, with villainous Hitler driving its events. But Hitler was not in power when the conflict erupted in Asia--and he was certainly dead before it ended. His armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit any of the spoils of war. That central role belonged to Joseph Stalin. The Second World War was not Hitler's war; it was Stalin's war.
Drawing on ambitious new research in Soviet, European, and U.S. archives, Stalin's War revolutionizes our understanding of this global conflict by moving its epicenter to the east. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have helped unleash Armageddon, but as McMeekin shows, the war which emerged in Europe in September 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler. So, too, did the Pacific war of 1941-1945 fulfill Stalin's goal of unleashing a devastating war of attrition between Japan and the "Anglo-Saxon" capitalist powers he viewed as his ultimate adversary.
A groundbreaking reassessment of the Second World War, Stalin's War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the current world order.
From the acclaimed author of The Romanovs--a magisterial history of humanity viewed through the lens of its most powerful dynasties In this sprawling and eye-opening book, best-selling historian Simon Sebag Montefiore chronicles the world's great dynasties across human history through engrossing tales of palace intrigue, glorious battle, and the real lives of people who held unfathomable power. He trains his eye on founders of humble origin, like Sargon, the Mesopotamian cupbearer sent to help defeat a rival who returned with an army to dethrone his own king, and Liu Bang, a peasant who became a rebel leader and founded the Han dynasty. Montefiore illuminates the achievements of fearsome emperors, including Yax Ehb Xook, whose Mayan city-state Tikal boasts some of the most monumental ancient architecture that exists today; Jayavarman II, who proclaimed himself "universal king" and whose Khmer empire in South Asia heralded a thousand years of Indic ascendancy; and Ewuare, the African emperor who built a capital city that rivaled any in Europe. He writes, too, about remarkable women rulers, like Hatshepsut, the first female pharaoh, and Maria Theresa, the only woman to rule the Habsburg empire. These families represent the breadth of human endeavor, with bloody civil wars, treacherous conspiracies, and shocking megalomania alongside flourishing culture, moving romances, and enlightened benevolence. A dazzling epic history as spellbinding as fiction.
The First World War, now a century ago, still shapes the world in which we live, and its legacy lives on, in poetry, in prose, in collective memory and political culture. By the time the war ended in 1918, millions lay dead. Three major empires lay shattered by defeat, those of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottomans. A fourth, Russia, was in the throes of a revolution that helped define the rest of the twentieth century. The Oxford History of the First World War brings together in one volume many of the most distinguished historians of the conflict, in an account that matches the scale of the events. From its causes to its consequences, from the Western Front to the Eastern, from the strategy of the politicians to the tactics of the generals, they chart the course of the war and assess its profound political and human consequences. Chapters on economic mobilization, the impact on women, the role of propaganda, and the rise of socialism establish the wider context of the fighting at sea and in the air, and which ranged on land from the trenches of Flanders to the mountains of the Balkans and the deserts of the Middle East.
This extraordinary reference provides a comprehensive summary of world history from the earliest recorded evens to the start of the third millennium. Arranged in an accessible year by year form that invites browsing, it answers research questions, and illuminates similarities and contrasts between different nations and different ages. With narrative essays preceding every section, spotlight essays on key historical themes, and detailed profiles of 101 of history's most influential thinkers, it offers a depth of insight that goes far beyond a mere listing of important dates. Here is the whole vast panorama of history in every region of the globe-wars, migrations, disasters, discoveries, inventions, the birth of new religions, the rise and fall of nations-complete with authoritative commentary that pulls it all together in a broad and informative perspective.
PPLD Databases
For general history databases, see PPLD's General History Research tab (click here or on the blue General History Research tab at the top of the screen on mobile devices or at the left of the screen on computers).
Recommended Websites
For general history websites, see PPLD's General History Research (click here or on the blue General History Research tab at the top of the screen on mobile devices or at the left of the screen on computers).