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Spartacus Educational

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Spartacus Educationalis a freeonline encyclopediawith essays and other educational material on a wide variety of historical subjects principallyBritish historyfrom 1700 and thehistory of the United States.

Based in the United Kingdom, Spartacus Educational was established as a book publisher in 1984 by former history teacher John Simkin and Judith Harris.[1]It became an online publisher in September 1997.[2]It grew into a large database of primary and secondary sources on a wide variety of subjects:World War I,World War II,theRussian Revolution,thecampaign against slavery,Chartism,women's suffrage(biographies of 230 women),Nazi Germany,theSpanish Civil Warand theCold War.Wherever possible, the history is told, Simkin explained, via the words of the people involved in the struggle for equality and democracy.

For World War II, Simkin describes the focus of this encyclopedia as "providing background information on major political leaders from each of the countries involved in the war..., including individuals from a miscellaneous category such as: Chaing Kai-Shek and Josip Tito... The site has the ability to provide more of a well-rounded learning experience by illustrating how the war affected people and places all over the world.”[3]TheNew York Public Libraryrecommended the articles about the history of Germany and Russia as educational resources.[4]

According to Marilyn Elias of theSouthern Poverty Law Center,speaking about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, "the site simply reproduces a host of conspiracy theories that first appeared elsewhere".[5]This author also describes the site as "very shoddy, not well-sourced", citing Arthur Goldwag, author ofCults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies.[5]

Monica Burns is an EdTech consultant forEdutopia,free online resources in history for teaching students how to comprehend informational text. Of Spartacus Educational, Burns wrote in 2013: "a great resource for global history. It contains free encyclopedia entries that directly connect to primary source documents, making it a perfect tool for educators looking to give students a starting point in their research."[6]

References

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  1. ^"John Simkin - Toulouse June 2003".Vimeo.
  2. ^"Interview with John Simkin, 4 June 2009 | History in Education".www.history.ac.uk.Archived fromthe originalon 6 January 2014.Retrieved5 January2014.
  3. ^OCLC Global Library Organisation (2022)."World Cat Identities".Archived fromthe originalon 3 July 2022.Retrieved3 July2022.
  4. ^New York Public Library."Best of the Web".
  5. ^abElias, Marilyn (20 November 2013)."Conspiracy Act".Intelligence Report(2013 Winter Issue). Southern Poverty Law Center.Retrieved26 August2020.
  6. ^Burns, Monica (6 September 2013)."6 Free Online Resources for Primary Source Documents".
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