Research Guides: History: Free Books and Monographs

Free Books and Monographs

More and more books--both old and new--are available free to read on the internet. Some are in the public domain (i.e., no copyright restrictions) while others are open access (copyrighted, but allow you to read, and sometimes share and modify, files for free).

These can be a valuable supplement to books you get through the library.
The sites below are ordered roughly by how many books they have available. Some books are available on more than one site.

Cambridge University Press OA
Cambridge University Press has begun offering some titles as OA, but the process is in its infancy for history.
De Gruyter - Free and Open Access History Titles
De Gruyter, a major German academic publisher, offers more than 500 history titles as freely-available ebooks.

HathiTrust Digital Library
HathiTrust is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries. Includes content digitized as part of the Google Books project and Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized by member libraries. Materials are available to the extent permitted by copyright law.

OAPEN Library
OAPEN is a European initiative to encourage and disseminate Open Access monographs in many subjects, including history.
The Online Books Page
More than two million free books, arranged like a library. Books can be browsed or searched.
Open Textbook Library: History
A selection of open access textbooks, written by academics and suitable to be used as textbooks in college courses.
Oxford University Press OA Titles
Oxford University Press is beginning to offer more of its titles under OA rights. Many of these monographs are in history or the humanities.
Sciendo - History
Sciendo is a publisher of OA journals and monographs in a wide variety of subjects, including history.