The Open Educational Resource Primary Source Reader for World Civilizations I draws excerpts from both copyrighted and out-of-copyright editions and translations of a number of historical sources. These excerpts have been selected, and in many cases annotated and modernized as well, in order to present a variety of documentary sources for pre-modern world history from the beginning of state-level civilizations through the fifteenth century CE. 

You can find sources for particular chronological periods using the links at the top of this page and for particular places and topics using the links on the left. Each source in the Reader has an introduction page with a link to the source document. When you click to access the source document, you may be prompted to log in with your full @ndsu.edu email address—that is, your Minot State email address but with @ndus.edu instead of @minotstateu.edu—and to use the Duo verification.

Each source document has its own page with information about the original source and the printed or online version used for this reader. Most of these documents will open as a PDF file that you can print but not copy. You will need Acrobat Reader X or later to read these documents, which is available for free at https://acrobat.adobe.com/us/en/acrobat/pdf-reader.html.

This is version 2.0.2 of the OER Primary Source Reader for World Civilizations I, edited by Mark Singer, Associate Professor of History, Minot State University – mark.singer@minotstateu.edu. If you have difficulty accessing anything in this reader, please let me know!