Subject Guide
Use Your Secondary Literature
- Historians carefully document their sources in footnotes and bibliographies. You can get a good sense of not only specific primary sources that may allow you to explore a topic, but you can also get a general sense of the kinds of sources historians have used to research a topic.
- From the secondary literature, you can identify individuals, places, institutions, and organizations important to your topic. This information will assist you in searching for primary sources in online catalogs.
Catalyst and specialized databases
Databases and journal archives allow you to search the contents of journals (articles, book reviews). As such, they provide a good avenue for searching the most recent scholarship in a field.
TIP: Add the keywords "historiography" or "review article" to your searches to find articles whose primary focus is historiography. These articles can be good starting points.
- Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and abstracts)
The primary place to find scholarship on world history. (For U.S. and Canadian History, use America: History and Life). Covers publications from 1955 - present. - America: History & Life This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and abstracts)
Contains information about scholarly articles on the history and culture of the U. S. and Canada. (For World History, use Historical Abstracts) - BAS: Bibliography of Asian Studies This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and abstracts)
Includes scholarship (especially in the humanities and the social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide. 1971-current. The reference section of the library also has BAS from 1960-1990 in physical form (ref DS 501 B49 1960) - HAPI: Hispanic American Periodicals Online This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations and subject indexing)
Includes journal articles about Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil, and Latinos in the United States. Covers 1970 - current. - Africa Bibliography This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations and subject indexing)
An indexing database that contains citations to books and journal articles published since 1984. They are searchable by keyword, subject, geographic area, country, and other bibliographic information.
Book Reviews
Book reviews often talk about the reviewed work in the context of the larger field in which the book is situated. As such, you can use them to get clues about the state of a field on a given topic.
Many of the databases above allow you to limit your search just to reviews. If you don't see this option, add the key words "review" or "review article" to your search.
