ebook history

Digital Book Index provides links to more than 165,000 full-text digital books from more than 1800 commercial and non-commercial publishers, universities, and various private sites. More than 140,000 of these books, texts, and documents are available for free.

About one tenth of the Index are History volumes, with an emphasis on North American history, but including English & Irish history, European, (ancient, medieval, & Renaissance texts through World War I & II), Latin American, Middle-Eastern, Asian, & African history, as well as military history and the history of science, medicine, & technology. Local & regional history are organised by states & regions. There are more than 1000 historical documents arranged in chronological order.

For Australia, search History & Area Studies - Australia where you'll find a mix of early explorers journals (Cook, Banks, Eyre, Kennedy, Sturt etc), a number on politics (Constitution, Federation etc), and some historic gems such as CEW Bean's "On the wool track", Rolf Bolderwood's "Shearing in the Riverina, and "Handbook to Victoria (Australia), a short description of the colony, its productions, manufactures, & capabilities, especially with regard to its new agricultural industries and settlement on the land" from the Paris Exhibition in 1877. What is also interesting about this item is its provenance, coming from the collection of the University of California.

With History Week next week, it may be just the time to use modern resources like ebook readers to check out some ancient history.