For all the digital ink spilled on the latest ebook bestseller, there remains a vast amount of digital reading that goes unnoticed as far as other topics and genres. One of my favorites is history. A natural for ebooks fans like myself, the numbers of sites featuring this content is growing. While it’s always hard to compete with larger sites like Google Books, one you might not have heard about yet is the Historical Text Archive.
Located at http://historicaltextarchive.com/, the site’s founder is Donald J. Mabry, currently professor emeritus at Mississippi State University. His long involvement both with history as well as bringing the power of the Internet to historians and readers has resulted in this detailed trove of digital texts and information. Currently containing 750+ articles, 70+ books, and thousands of links, there’s a lot to like and add to your reading list.
Using the site for the first time, it’s important to know that the resources you will find are presented primarily in html format. While this isn’t necessarily a deal breaker for many, this does limit initially what you can do if your device is only for offline reading in ePub or other formats. If this is the case, then you either save the pages in html for later conversion via Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/) or print to PDF using some of the freeware PDF printer drivers available such as CutePDF (http://www.cutepdf.com/). I was able to do this with some articles I wanted to put on my Sony.
Searching the resources, you are presented first with a breakdown by types, ranging from articles to full length books and links to external sources of information. Choosing the ebooks option first, I found them broken down both by country location as well as topic. With my military history background, I naturally found some great titles to read such as Don Parks and the 94th Infantry Division, 1942 and others.
The real strengths (and depth) of the site seem to be apparent in the articles. These short pieces contain lots of history on a laundry list of topics ranging from genealogy to Latin America and World War II history.
Not to be left undone, the links section can get you going on outbound sites and reading for other topics you might be interested in as well. Both major categories and then subcategories can help you zero in on specific links on your topic of choice. Checking the section labeled “Rock ‘n Roll” as an example, I found links to Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and others.
While this site may not be structured in more of a traditional “ebook” format that we’re most familiar with, it’s definately one to not overlook because of that either. Having strengths and weaknesses is something that most of our resources contain, so drop by, take a look and let us know what you think in the comments below.
For more information on the site as well as its founder, try the following links:
History of the Historical Text Archive: http://historicaltextarchive.com/about.php
