A Guide To Sources In Early Modern European Military History In Midwestern Research Libraries

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw many ambitious European rulers develop permanent armies and navies. Jan Glete examines this military change as a central part of the political, social and economic transformation of early modern Europe

Sources for Studying the Holocaust provides a pathway for readers to engage with questions about what sources can be used to study the Holocaust. For many historians, the challenge has been how to rescue the story from oblivion when oft-used sources for other periods of history introduce even more issues around authenticity and reliability. What can be learned of what transpired in villages and towns numbering several thousand people, when all its Jewish inhabitants were totally obliterated through Nazi action? Who can furnish eyewitness testimony, if all the eyewitnesses were killed? How does one examine written records preserving knowledge of facts or events, where none were kept or survived the onslaught? And what weight do we put upon such resources which did manage to endure the destruction wrought by the Holocaust? Each chapter looks at one of a diverse range of source materials from which scholars have rescued the history, including survivor testimony, diaries, letters, newspaper accounts, photographs, trial documents, artefacts, digital resources, memorials, films, literature, and art. Each chapter shows how different types of records can be utilised as accurate sources for the writing of Holocaust history. Collectively, they highlight the ways in which all material, even the most fragmentary, can be employed to recreate a reliable record of what happened during the Holocaust and show how all sources considered can be employed to find meaning and understanding by exploring a range of sources deeply. This book is a unique analysis of the types of sources that can be used to access the history of Holocaust. It will be of invaluable interest to readers, students, and researchers of the Holocaust.

Graduate students have traditionally learned a good part of what they know about sources and research aids on modern China through hearsay and serendipity, in unsystematic and unreliable bits and pieces. The field has now developed to the point where this need not and ought not to be so. It is now possible for beginning researchers to start with some shared basic knowledge of research aids and documentary resources. This research guide is meant to provide that knowledge. The user of this guide is envisaged as an American graduate student in history or the social sciences who is already familiar with the major English-language secondary literature on modern China and is about to begin original research, either for a seminar paper or for a dissertation.

Designed to fill an overlooked gap, this book, originally published in 1972, provides a single unified introduction to bibliographical sources of British military history. Moreover it includes guidance in a number of fields in which no similar source is available at all, giving information on how to obtain acess to special collections and private archives, and links military history, especially during peacetime, with the development of science and technology.

Military history is the subject of great popular interest and has been populated by non-academic historians and writers whose work often borders on what might be characterised as military pornography. Indeed, in the media, 'military historian' is a much abused, and all too easily applied term. Popular military history is characterised by often being narrative in structure rather than analytical, and invariably follows a simply explanatory path, is often enamoured of equipment and technology, and tends to place combat centre stage. Such writing is not referenced in this volume. By contrast, academically rigorous military history is characterised by being firmly based on archival/primary source research, on having a firm line of argument or overarching interpretation, on having a wide perspective, and having some comparison with other works in the field. What follows in this volume, therefore, is the integration of the military narrative within the wider political, socio-economic and cultural context. Like any other form of academic history, there can be significant divergence of interpretations between historians, and this will also become apparent, be it the nature of the 'military revolution' in Europe in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the 'learning curve' on the Western Front during the First World War, or the nature of 'total war'.The guide seeks to introduce prospective research students to the debates, issues and resources within the field of military history. While the wider European and global perspectives are not neglected, as will be apparent from the discussion of contexts in Part I, there is an emphasis upon the British experience of war in the early modern, modern and contemporary periods in Part II, the periodisation corresponding approximately to the existence of a standing army in Britain from the seventeenth century onwards, and its origins in the sixteenth century. Nonetheless, an effort has been made to relate the debates on the nature of British military history since 1500 to wider issues connected to other armies. Indeed, one increasing area for study is comparison between the British and other experiences of war. Part III is concerned with sources for the study of British military history, though not just in Britain.