Library: Open Educational Resources Guide: History & Social Science

History

From the Mountains to the Sea: early Hawaiian life (Julie Stewart Williams)
Full text available at Ulukau, The Hawaiian Electronic Library.
The Hawaiian Kingdom - vol. 1, 1778-1854: foundation and transformation (Ralph Kuykendall)
Full text available at Ulukau, The Hawaiian Electronic Library.
The Hawaiian Kingdom - vol. 2, 1854-1874: twenty critical years (Ralph Kuykendall)
Full text available at Ulukau, The Hawaiian Electronic Library.
The Hawaiian Kingdom - vol. 3, 1874-1893: The Kalakaua dynasty (Ralph Kuykendall)
Full text available at Ulukau, The Hawaiian Electronic Library.

Ancient Civilizations (Carol Berkin, CUNY Graduate Center, et al.)
This online textbook covers major ancient civilizations including Greece, Egypt, Rome, Middle East, China, Central and South America and more.
Introductory Guide to Ancient Civilizations
- This link opens in a new window
Note from the authors: "This guide is designed to be used along with a presentation or other supportive material...The individual lecturer needs to fill in the missing parts he/she wants to focus on based on their expertise and interest."
World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive introduction to the history of humankind from prehistory to 1500. Authored by six USG faculty members with advanced degrees in History, this textbook offers an up-to-date original scholarship.
more...less...
Coverage includes cultures, states, and societies as Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Israel, Dynastic Egypt, India’s Classical Age, the Dynasties of China, Archaic Greece, the Roman Empire, Islam, Medieval Africa, the Americas, and the Khanates of Central Asia."
World History, Volume 1: to 1500 (2023)
This OpenStax text introduces students to a global perspective of history couched in an engaging narrative. Concepts and assessments help students think critically about the issues they encounter so they can broaden their perspective of global history. A special effort has been made to introduce and juxtapose people’s experiences of history for a rich and nuanced discussion.
World History, Volume 2: from 1400 (Updated 2023)
This OpenStax text is designed to meet the scope and sequence of a world history course from 1400 offered at both two-year and four-year institutions. Concepts and assessments help students think critically about the issues they encounter so they can broaden their perspective of global history.

American Environmental History (2019)
For too long the environment has been considered little more than a neutral background to history. This text surveys findings of the new field of Environmental History about how the environment of the Americas influenced the actions of people here and how people affected their environments, from prehistory to the present.
American History (Carol Berkin Ph.D., History, CUNY Graduate Center et al.)
This online resource covers American History from Pre-Columbian times to the new millennium.
American History I (University System of Georgia, 2019)
This online resource covers American History from the colonial period to the Civil War.
History in the Making: A History of the People of the United States of America to 1877
"This textbook examines U.S. History from before European Contact through Reconstruction, while focusing on the people and their history."
U.S. History (OpenStax, Updated 2023)
- This link opens in a new window
This textbook covers the history of the United States chronologically and thoroughly enough to meet the requirements of most courses. Click on "Get this book" to read it online or to download the book in PDF format.
U.S. History I (Lumen Learning)
U.S. History is a survey course beginning with the indigenous people of the New World and extending to the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.
U.S. History II (Lumen Learning)
U.S. History II is a survey course that covers the post-Civil War Reconstruction era and moves forward through historical events and context to the present day.

Social Sciences

Becoming Human: How Evolution Made Us
The book discusses traces of evolution in our bodies, basic evolutionary theory from Darwin to the genomic revolution, sexual selection and reproduction, and how human brain development affects our evolution, including into the future.
Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology
The first comprehensive, peer-reviewed open access textbook for biological anthropology courses. Produced with support from the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges (a section of the American Anthropological Association) and a grant from Minnesota State.
Gendered Lives: Global Issues (2021)
Gendered Lives takes a regional approach to examine gender issues from an anthropological perspective with a focus on globalization and intersectionality. Chapters present contributors’ ethnographic research, contextualizing their findings within four geographic regions: Latin America, the Caribbean, South Asia, and the Global North.
Introduction to Anthropology (2022)
OpenStax Introduction to Anthropology is a four-field text integrating diverse voices, engaging field activities, and meaningful themes like Indigenous experiences and social inequality to engage students and enrich learning. The text showcases the historical context of the discipline, with a strong focus on anthropology as a living and evolving field. There is significant discussion of recent efforts to make the field more diverse—in its practitioners, in the questions it asks, and in the applications of anthropological research to address contemporary challenges.
Introduction to Paleoanthropology
This resource explores the subdiscipline of physical anthropology that studies human evolution through fossil records.
Native Peoples of North America
This text is intended to be an introductory text about the Native peoples of North America (primarily the United States and Canada) presented from an anthropological perspective.
Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology
The first peer-reviewed open access textbook for cultural anthropology courses. Produced by the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges and available free of charge for use in any setting.

Child Growth and Development (Updated 2019)
This text is a presentation of how and why children grow, develop, and learn. We will look at how we change physically over time from conception through adolescence. We examine cognitive change, or how our ability to think and remember changes over the first 20 years or so of life.
Essentials of Abnormal Psychology
This text tackles the difficult topic of psychological disorders in 8 chapters. After the first three foundational chapters, a discussion of psychological disorders ensues to include anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive and related disorders, mood disorders, schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders, and personality disorders.
Human Development (2021)
This open textbook is designed for Human Development, a core Psychology course. This course provides a bird’s eye view of major milestones and developmental tasks during each age period, starting at conception and ending with old age.
Introduction to Community Psychology (2019)
This textbook will show you how to comprehensively analyze, investigate, and address escalating problems of economic inequality, violence, substance abuse, homelessness, poverty, and racism. It will provide you with perspectives and tools to partner with community members and organizations to promote a fair and equitable allocation of resources and opportunities.
Introduction to Psychology (Jorden A. Cummings & Lee Sanders)
This introductory text has been created from a combination of original content and materials compiled and adapted from a number of open text publications.
Introduction to Psychology: The Full NOBA Collection
This textbook represents the entire catalog of Noba topics. It contains 101 learning modules covering every area of psychology commonly taught in introductory courses.
Lifespan Development (by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French)
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
This textbook introduces the idea of lifespan development from a psychological perspective.
Principles of Social Psychology (1st International Edition)
Helping students organize their thinking about social psychology at a conceptual level.
Psychology 2e (Spielman, Jenkins, & Lovett)
This OpenStax text is designed to meet scope and sequence requirements for the single-semester introduction to psychology course. The book offers a comprehensive treatment of core concepts, grounded in both classic studies and current and emerging research.

Beyond Race: Cultural Influences on Human Social Life
This text is for introductory courses on cultural sociology providing sociological terms, concepts, theories, and research in the study of culture. The book contains five modules with sociological applications on: 1) Culture and Meaning, 2) Culture as a Social Construct, 3) Cultural Power, 4) Cultural Identity, and 5) The Multicultural World. Note: Membership to the Merlot website is needed for access to the PDF file. Membership is free.
A Career in Sociology (Updated 2023)
The book contains five modules with sociological applications on: 1) Careers in Sociology, 2) Theoretical Approaches in Practice, 3) Sociological Interventions, 4) Working with Diverse Groups, and 5) Preparing for a Career in Sociology. Note: Logging in Merlot is required to access this text.
Gender in Canada: A Companion Workbook
This Pressbooks's workbook is designed for first or second-year sociology of gender or gender studies courses. While it focuses on a Canadian context for this topic, as a workbook it offers activities to accompany a course textbook that may be adapted given its CC BY license.
more...less...
A promotional video is available to learn more about this resource: go.hawaii.edu/kfX
Immigrant and Refugee Families, 2nd ed.
This textbook uses a family systems lens to discuss challenges and strengths of immigrant and refugee families in the United States. Chapters address immigration policy, human rights issues, economic stress, mental health and traumatic stress, domestic violence, substance abuse, family resilience, and methods of integration.
Intimate Relationships and Families (Hammond and Cheney)
This College of the Canyons PDF is CC BY 4.0.
Intro to Sociology (Ron J. Hammond)
This is an online textbook created by the author who has 20+ years of experience teaching Introduction to Sociology. The online textbook is designed for accessible laptop, computer or iPad display and its navigation elements get automatically removed when printing.
Introduction to Sociology (Lumen Learning)
Introduction to Sociology is survey course focused on how people and society affect each other.
Introduction to Sociology (OpenStax)
Introduction to Sociology 2e adheres to the scope and sequence of a typical, one-semester introductory sociology course. It offers comprehensive coverage of core concepts, foundational scholars, and emerging theories. The textbook presents section reviews with rich questions, discussions that help students apply their knowledge, and features that draw learners into the discipline in meaningful ways.
Social Problems: Continuity and Change
Readers of this book will find many examples of how social problems have been improved and of strategies that hold great potential for solving them today and in the future.
Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World
This text presents a sociological understanding of society but also a sociological perspective on how to change society, while maintaining the structure and contents of the best mainstream texts.

Introduction to Human Geography
Introduction to Human Geography (by R. Adam Dastrup, MA; Pressbooks, 2019). This website also provides a lab manual with a CC BY license.
Physical Geography and Natural Disasters
The intent of this textbook is to update and build upon the body of knowledge that exists within the geographic discipline.
Open Geography Education eTextbooks
This is a non-profit website and open for everyone to use. Everything on this website is free, open, and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Developed, edited, and administered by R. Adam Dastrup.
World Regional Geography
Rather than present students with a broad, novice-level introduction to geography, emphasizing places and vocabulary terms, this text approaches geography as experts understand the discipline, focusing on connections and an in-depth understanding of core themes.
World Regional Geography: People, Places and Globalization
- This link opens in a new window
This textbook is "designed for students to experience and study as much of the world as possible within a limited amount of time. It gives students the fundamental concepts and the latest data regarding world places in a concise, easy-to-read format..." To learn more about this book and to read it online click here.

American Government
Textbook from Florida Atlantic university Department of Political Science that explores the role of government, politics, and policy in American lives.
American Government
The book provides an important opportunity for students to learn the core concepts of American government and understand how those concepts apply to their lives and the world around them. American Government includes updated information on the 2016 presidential election.
American Government
Lumen Learning open textbook (via Course Hero) on American government.
American Government and Politics in the Information Age
The text introduces the intricacies of the Constitution, the complexities of federalism, the meanings of civil liberties, and the conflicts over civil rights;explains how people are socialized to politics, acquire and express opinions, and participate in political life; describes interest groups, political parties, and elections—the intermediaries that link people to government and politics; details the branches of government and how they operate; and shows how policies are made and affect people’s lives.
Boundless Political Science
Boundless open textbook (via Course Hero) includes chapters on American Politics, The Constitution, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Public Opinion, Interest Groups, Campaigns and Elections, and Voting,
A Primer on Politics
An Introduction to Politics proposes to chart a path that is at once a little more brief, concise and in between than those textbooks currently on the market.