First, our site has 1,700 primary documents and counting—more than could ever fit inside any printed reader. But just as crucial, we pair those documents with in-depth analysis and commentary written by historians. If you wish, you can hide this commentary from your students. In short, Milestone Documents is more powerful and flexible than any traditional document reader.
The Milestone Documents textbook layer is a selection of narrative articles designed to provide the kind of contextual framework usually found in a traditional textbook. In our case, each subject’s textbook layer is organized around units, and each unit includes “examples”—articles meant to illustrate the main unit topic. As with our documents selection, you can assign whichever textbook articles you want, and you can change your list at any time. We currently have textbooks for survey courses in U.S. History, World History, and Western Civilization.
The articles included in our peer review layer are written by scholars, assessed by the Editor in Chief of the corresponding subject area, and then reviewed by our Review Board of historians in that area. When articles are approved for publication by the Review Board and Editor in Chief, they are added to our site.
You can choose any number of our documents and textbook articles for your class’s reading list, and you can change the list at any time—even during the semester.
Milestone Documents is offered in a single edition that costs $24.95 per student per semester. The price is the same for every anthology, including custom ones.
Yes. If your department would like to adopt Milestone Documents for use across several different courses, we can offer a discount to your students. Please contact us and we will arrange access for your department’s review committee.
Once you list the site on your syllabus, students come to our site and create their own account. If you prefer to work through your institution’s bookstore, contact us and we will send you the details to put on your bookstore order form.
Yes, you can hide and reveal the document analysis and commentary if you so choose.
In most cases, yes. We ask that you send us the title of the document you’d like us to add. Keep in mind that we typically need a few weeks to find and digitize the document text, make sure it is formatted properly, and secure permission to reprint it if necessary. You are not responsible for any permissions costs; we will pay those fees.
Absolutely. Contact us and we will forward your suggestion to the Editor in Chief for the appropriate subject area. If the EIC agrees, we will commission an article (possibly from you) and put it through our peer review process.
Our site is extremely well suited to U.S. and world history surveys, Western Civilization introductory courses, African American history courses, and courses related to world religions. Our coverage can also be used for courses on American government, the American presidency, woman’s history, Asian history, and Latin American history.
You can start with the standard version of each anthology, created by our Editors in Chief. Use these lists as is or customize as you desire. Your readings will be listed on your unique course page, visible only to you and your student.
Yes. Simply print from your browser bar or type Ctrl+P while viewing the desired content.
Yes! Milestone Documents looks and functions great on any tablet or smart phone.
Yes, we currently offer simple integrations for customers using Canvas and Blackboard.
Yes. Students can highlight and take notes about any text on our site. This makes it easy for them to refer to important passages throughout the semester. In addition, students can “star” their favorite items for easy access from their Profile page. At the end of the semester, students can print all their notes and highlights, if they want to keep them for future reference.
Yes. When you highlight any text on the site, you will have the option of keeping the highlight and annotation private or pushing it to your class.
Simply send us an e-mail, and we will pass along a spreadsheet containing our complete list of more approximately 1,700 documents, organized by subject area.
Our document analysis and commentary was written by a global team of nearly 300 historians from around the world. Their bylines and affiliations are on view near the top of every document page. See our contributor list.
Our site includes several hundred images of individuals, documents, and political cartoons. As yet we do not offer a repository of audio or video clips or a searchable image bank. However, we are working on developing these features and look forward to making them available in the near future.