Site Reviews

History Departments around the World

http://chnm.gmu.edu/history/depts/

This site believes in truth in advertising. It presents history department web pages from all around the world. Close to nine hundred departments in all are listed. A good search feature exists in that one can type in the name of the department desired, or simply a search string, and it will pull up all departments matching your criteria. A great resource.

Russian Universities on the Internet

http://www.hist.msu.ru/Links/dephisrus_e.htm

This site lists about twenty universities in Russia which have home pages. This page is also available in Russian. Many of the departments' home pages are in Russian, but several are bilingual or in English.

Blackhawk Down: An American War Story

http://www3.phillynews.com/packages/somalia

This site contains one Philadelphia Inquirer's reporter's stories about the tragedy in Somalia. It gives a brief background of the conflict and relates how the U.S. came to be involved in that country. The site also contains an analysis of why the raid failed. This site utilizes a good deal of video and audio clips as well as photographs. The site also includes many comments and questions from readers all over the country reacting to the on-line series and the author's answers. An interesting use of the Internet.

American Memory Project

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/amhome.html

This web site is an attempt to present a "virtual library" to the American people. It takes advantage of all of the advantages of the Internet, linking sound and pictures into interesting discussions of our past. One of the more interesting things about this site is its "Today in History" segment, where it shows what occurred today in American History, and in that discussion it provides links to all other on-line related materials in the Library of Congress. Congress and a variety of private individuals and foundations sponsor this interesting site. This site is well organized and has a useful search function. Most of the different divisions of the Library of Congress have representative exhibits ranging from Jackie Robinson to the Records of the First Congress to vaudeville. A first rate site.

Center for History and New Media

http://chnm.gmu.edu/chnm/

This site contains a wide variety of resources concerning the use of computers in History. It contains reprints of essays, original essays, reviews of CD-ROMs, on-line syllabi and courses, and general information about how teaching is being changed by the Web. An interesting collection of materials attempting to shed light on how the Web is changing history.

Valley of the Shadow

http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2/

This site attempts to show how two communities, August County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania were changed by the Civil War. The archive contains thousands of sources, including diaries, census records, maps and photographs. This site is continually being updated, but the site's webmasters have allowed you the option of using an older site that is not being updated. This option is convenient for those who wish to use the site to teach, but do not want to have to rework all their exercises every time they access the site. A CD-ROM version is also forthcoming.

National Archives

http://www.nara.gov/

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an excellent site that all American (at least) historians should bookmark. It has an electronic information locator, called NAIL (National Archives Information Locator) which will search all of the records (some 400,000 currently) which are on-line. The general site also contains information about the four billion records that NARA currently manages. There also are some on-line exhibits, including a very good one about the posters of World War II. One can also begin planning a trip to the national headquarters of NARA or a regional branch, as the hours and other information are on-line. A valuable site for all historians and those interested in history to examine.

The JAHC is eager to review new sites related to history and computing. Please suggest sites to be reviewed or proposals for review articles which you may wish to submit to Scott Merriman (Electronic Resource Review Editor), samerr0@pop.uky.edu