Steampunk wrote:Wikipedia features on the front page today on article on
Cambridge Modern History.
. . .a comprehensive modern history of the world, beginning with the 15th century age of Discovery, published by the Cambridge University Press in the United Kingdom and also in the United States.
The first series, planned by Lord Acton and edited by him with Stanley Leathes, Sir Adolphus William Ward and G. W. Prothero, was launched in 1902 and totalled fourteen volumes, the last of them being an historical atlas which appeared in 1912. The period covered was from 1450 to 1910.
My first thought was "Really? "totalled?" Is that a typo, or another of those weird Brit spellings?"
Soon after, I thought: "What a cool project that would be!"
12 volumes, discounting the
Tables and General Index and
Atlas editions. And pretty hefty tomes, too. Volume One, which can be found at Archive.org is 800 + pages.
Fun!
http://www.archive.org/details/cambridgemodernh01actouoft
Jim
Very cool! I would like to investigate this series further. I like it because it deals with more modern history.
Here are a couple of other historical series that Librivox might also find interesting:
Henry Smith Williams was the main editor for a massive 25 volume set,
Historians History of the World. From the front page: "A comprehensive narrative of the rise and development of nations ans recorded by over two thousand of the great writers of all ages: edited with the assistance of a distinguished board of advisers and contributors". I have downloaded all volumes except the 24th, which I could not find. The last volume is an index. It primarily focuses on Europe, although the 1st volume covers Egypt and Mesopotamia. They are big, thick books with tiny font. I have thought about sticking volume 1 of this series up for Librivox, but have not had the nerve to do so yet.
Volume 1:
http://www.archive.org/details/historianshisto01willgoog
Another historical series that is on archive.org, and that I cannot believe is in the public domain, is Will and Ariel Currant's
Story of Civilization, published between 1935 and 1975. The series is very popular, and I see it in nearly every library I visit, although I have never read them. It would seem pointless for Librivox to tackle this one, since somebody has already uploaded a complete and professionally done audio-recording of the entire series onto archive.org!! (How this wound up on archive.org is beyond me!)
Complete wikipedia write-up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Civilization
First volume:
http://www.archive.org/details/StoryOfCiv01_OurOrientalHeritage
First volume on audio:
http://www.archive.org/details/01_Our_Oriental_Heritage_Audiobook
[EDIT] I just looked up
Historians History of the World on wikipedia, and sure enough, there is an article on the series there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historians_History_of_the_World