Welcome to the History Subject Guide! This page contains quick access to popular databases, new books from the Libraries' collection, and important resources. Please use the tabs at the top of the page to navigate this guide for a variety of information related to History.
The Archival Films & Newsreels Collection contains over 700 hours of historical films and newsreels covering a range of different types and eras of history.
A History of the Muslim World from Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity by
A panoramic history of the Muslim world from the age of the Prophet Muḥammad to the birth of the modern era This book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world. The body of the book takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the nineteenth century, and an epilogue continues the story to the present day. Michael Cook thus provides a broad history of a civilization remarkable for both its unity and diversity. After setting the scene in the Middle East of late antiquity, the book depicts the rise of Islam as one of the great black swan events of history. It continues with the spectacular rise of the Caliphate, an empire that by the time it broke up had nurtured the formation of a new civilization. It then goes on to cover the diverse histories of all the major regions of the Muslim world, providing a wide-ranging account of the key military, political, and cultural developments that accompanied the eastward and westward spread of Islam from the Middle East to the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific. At the same time, A History of the Muslim World contains numerous primary-source quotations that expose the reader to a variety of acutely insightful voices from the Muslim past.
Imperial Island: An Alternative History of the British Empire by
This riveting new history tells the story of Britain's journey from imperial power to a nation divided--one that alternately welcomes and excludes former imperial subjects and has been utterly transformed by them. In the turbulent years since the outbreak of World War II, Britain has gone from an imperial power whose dominion extended over a quarter of the world's population to an island nation divorced from Europe. After the war, as independence movements gained momentum, former imperial subjects started making their way to her soggy shores. Would these men and women of different races, cultures, and faiths be accepted as British, or would they forever be seen as outsiders? In this deeply intimate retelling of the United Kingdom's transformation from empire to island nation, Charlotte Lydia Riley shows that empire haunts every aspect of life in modern Britain. From race riots to the Notting Hill Carnival, from the Suez Crisis to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, from the Monday Club and Enoch Powell's defiant calls to protect England's racial purity to Band Aid, the Spice Girls, and Brick Lane, the imperial mindset has dominated Britain's relationship with itself and the world. The ghosts of empire are to be found, too, in anti-immigrant rhetoric and royal memorabilia, in the pitched battles over how history should be taught in schools--and, of course, in Brexit. Drawing on a mass of original research to capture the thoughts and feelings of ordinary British citizens, Imperial Island tells a story of people on the move and of people trapped in the past, of the end of empire and the birth of multiculturalism, a chronicle of violence and exclusion but also a testament to community. It is the story that best explains Britain today.
AI & I: An Intellectual History of Artificial Intelligence by
A concise and illuminating history of the field of artificial intelligence from one of its earliest and most respected pioneers. AI & I is an intellectual history of the field of artificial intelligence from the perspective of one of its first practitioners, Eugene Charniak. Charniak entered the field in 1967, roughly 12 years after AI's founding, and was involved in many of AI's formative milestones. In this book, he traces the trajectory of breakthroughs and disappointments of the discipline up to the current day, clearly and engagingly demystifying this oft revered and misunderstood technology. His argument is controversial but well supported- that classical AI has been almost uniformly unsuccessful and that the modern deep learning approach should be viewed as the foundation for all the exciting developments that are to come. Written for the scientifically educated layperson, this book chronicles the history of the field of AI, starting with its origin in 1956, as a topic for a small academic workshop held at Dartmouth University. From there, the author covers reasoning and knowledge representation, reasoning under uncertainty, chess, computer vision, speech recognition, language acquisition, deep learning, and learning writ large. Ultimately, Charniak takes issue with the controversy of AI-the fear that its invention means the end of jobs, creativity, and potentially even humans as a species-and explains why such concerns are unfounded. Instead, he believes that we should embrace the technology and all its potential to benefit society.
Interlibrary Loan expands the range of available research materials. Materials not owned by FDU Libraries may be obtained from other libraries through Interlibrary Loan. Please see Requesting Interlibrary Loans for information on how to request materials to be sent to FDU Libraries.
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