For any paper on Google Scholar, you can click "Cited by ..." to see a list of subsequent papers that cite the original paper.
However, is it possible to see a list of papers that the original paper cites? I realize that one can simply view the paper itself for the list of references, but I would like a way to see it as a list of links in Google Scholar, similar to the "Cited by ..." list.
As you mentioned, unfortunately, Google Scholar only provides the list of publications that cite a given reference.
However, if you have access to Web of Science, to look up a list of references cited in a given publication, you can use the Cited References tool.
Note that some journals are not indexed by Web of Science, so having several tools to do the job may be the best way to approach this; e.g., in addition to Web of Science, you could also use Research Gate as mentioned in the other answer. For those journals that are indexed by Web of Science, I find the Cited References tool to be very useful.
No, Google Scholar does not do this. If you want the content of the paper you are going to need to access the paper. I would suggest you find the paper on Research Gate, where many of the references are active links.
UPDATE: Microsoft is no longer providing the Microsoft Academic (Ended in December of 2021).
Google Scholar might not give you this option but your problem might be solved by Microsoft Academic. In Microsoft Academic, there is a tab that shows the references in a very simple manner.
