Cambridge Histories Online
Online. Many useful essays and chapters, including the one below:
Online. Tarling, Nicholas. "The Establishment of the Colonial Régimes." The nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ed. Nicholas Tarling. Cambridge University Press, 1992. Cambridge Histories Online. Cambridge University Press. 14 January 2013 DOI:10.1017/CHOL9780521355063.002
Colonialism : an international, social, cultural, and political encyclopedia
Print. Especially useful for timelines is the Chronologies section at the end of Volume 2, divided by Empires. Volumes 1 and 2 have alphabetic entries of topics related to colonialism, including articles on particular empires, e.g. British Empire, British West Indies, Dutch East India Company, Dutch East Indies, Dutch Empire, Dutch West Indies, French Empire, French Equatorial Africa, French Indochina, Spanish American War, Spanish Empire. Volume 3 has historical documents relevant to particular empires (including all four above).
Encyclopedia of Western colonialism since 1450
Online. Longer, more specific articles related to empires and their particular territories. E.g. Britain’s African colonies, British American Tobacco Company, British Colonialism Middle East, British India and the Middle East, Dutch Indonesian Wars, Dutch United East India Company, Dutch West India Company, Indonesia Independence, struggle for, France’s African Colonies, French Colonialism Middle East, French East India Company, French Indochina, French Polynesia, Empire of the Americas, Spanish, Spanish American Independence, etc. At the end of Volume 3 you will find a glossary as well as a selected list of primary documents.
Post-colonial studies : the key concepts
Print. Very useful for glossary.
The Routledge encyclopedia of social and cultural anthropology
Online. Articles on topics of colonialism as they relate to the discipline of anthropology, e.g. colonialism, Enlightenment anthropology, essentialism, Orientalism, British anthropology, Dutch anthropology, French anthropology. There is a glossary at the end of the book.