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UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

Resources:

An excellent resource for research and writing history is the UI History Writing Center.  On the website you will find a variety of resources.  You can also seek writing assistance from highly skilled graduate students who are there to help you with all aspects of historical research and writing, from the development of a topic to the format of bibliographies.  Call 335-2584, email history-writing@uiowa.edu, or stop by SH 303 for an appointment.  Plan ahead, as their schedule can fill up quickly.

 

Reference librarians are another outstanding campus resource.  You should feel free to stop by the reference desk in the Main Library to consult with them.  I recommend you bring  a copy of the syllabus and some sense of what topic might be of interest to you.  They will set you off in the right direction with enthusiasm.

 

And, of course, the instructor is available to you during office hours, via email, or by phone for consultation.

 

The internet provides access to a wide array of sources, but be careful about evaluating sites.  You need to learn how to distinguish between serious scholarly sites, and those that are less reliable.  If you need guidance with this, please talk to the instructor.

 

Some recommended sources available on the web include:

General Reference

Ericka Raber’s Resource Page for 16E:051

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (free access to the Concise Columbia Encyclopedia; this is the instructor’s most highly recommended encyclopedic source, as it is laden with hyperlinks embedded in the text that allow you to quickly move to related topics).

Encarta (free access to Microsoft's reference site)

Encyclopedia Brittanica (free UI access to the Encyclopedia Brittanica; for a fee from remote access)

Oxford Reference (also free UI access, but remote access for a fee)

Google and similar search engines often yield very useful information.

Library of Congress Country Studies

Maps, both political and geographic, including:

The United Nation's Map Site

The World In 1945

Historical Maps of the World, both ancient and modern

Europe, 1951-1997

Europe 2000 (this is clearer than most maps available on the Web)

Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century

Gateways to Primary Sources

Internet Modern History Sourcebook: covers history in all periods and places

The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy

Documents relating to the Cold War

History and Politics Out Loud: audio archive of major speeches

US National Archives and Records Administration

US State Dept's Office of the Historian's Foreign Relations Document Collection

Newspapers from around the nation and around the globe

Historical Text Archive

Marxist Internet History Archive, which includes pages on:

Soviet History

Soviet Photography

Soviet Archives Exhibit

Revelations from Soviet Archives (Library of Congress)

History Wiz on Russia and the Soviet Union

Specialized Sites of Interest

Photographer Antanas Sutkus’s photo gallery of Soviet daily life

Soviet Poster Art

Illustrated History of Russia and the USSR

Communist Writings, from Marx to Mao

Khrushchev's "Secret Speech," 1956 (annotated)

The Soviet-Afghanistan War, from a military history perspective

Whatever happened to the Soviet dissidents? (includes audio)

Nobel Foundation's Andrei Sakharov Page, 1975 Peace Prize winner

Andrei Sakharov Foundation

On Andrei Sakharov at the American Physics Institute

International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights

Human Rights Watch

The Failed Coup of August 1991

The Causes and Consequences of the Collapse of the Soviet Union: a links page from Rutgers Univ.

"Chernobyl and the Collapse of Soviet Society," Jay Gould (March 1993, The Nation)

"Reform, Coup, and Collapse: The End of Soviet Communism and the Soviet State," Archie Brown

"Explaining the Soviet Collapse," Peter Rutland

"Ten Years after the Soviet Collapse," Alexander Motyl (August 2001)

"Trashcanistan: A Tour through the Wreckage of the Soviet Empire," Stephen Kotkin (April 2002, The New Republic): a review essay

 

 

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