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History
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Below are a few major, frequently used sources for the study of history. Interdisciplinary indexes such as Expanded Academic ASAP, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Social Sciences Index also cover history. These can be found in the research guide to General Social Sciences. Please consult with a reference librarian for help with many sources in your topic. Internet resources require a Tufts I.D. number for off-campus access (authorized user statement). |
Facts and Background Information [back to top]
Subject specific reference materials can help you to gain broad-based knowledge of your field through vocabulary, factual information, additional references, and bibliographies. Some suggested print sources:
The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature
Dictionary of Historic Documents
The New York Public Library Book of Chronologies
Oxford Islamic Studies Online
A comprehensive source of articles on religious and political aspects of Islam and the Islamic world, including the Oxford Dictionary of Islam,
the Oxford History of Islam, and a concordance and two translations of the Qur’an.
Doing a subject search in the catalog allows you to retrieve specific types of sources. Historical and other information about countries and regions may be found by combining both the geographic area or country name and the type of reference work required. Examples of such types are dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies, and atlases. For a dictionary on Africa, then, a subject search would look like this:
Africa - Biography - Dictionaries
A subject search for encyclopedias on Japan would look like this:
Bibliographies on a particular region or country can also be found with a subject search:
Latin America - Bibliographies
You may also search by time periods. A biographical dictionary on Enlightenment Europe could be found with this subject search:
Enlightenment - Europe - Biography Dictionaries
Information on countries is often divided into time periods. A search for atlases on the American Revolution could be made using the following subject search:
United States - History - Revolution, 1775-1783 - Maps
In addition, the following electronic resource provides valuable information:
American
National Biography Online
The American National Biography Online has biographical information
on over 17,000 notable Americans from colonial times to the present.
You can search for books about history in the library catalog in several ways:
Type in words that describe your topic, for example:
If you know the Library of Congress subject heading used to describe your area of research, you can search for a particular subject. If you don’t know the Library of Congress Subject Headings, speak to a librarian for help. Some examples of subject searches are:
Henry VIII, King of England, 1491-1547
United States - History - Civil War, 1861-1865
China - History - Tang dynasty, 618-907
Books on the auxiliary sciences of history (archaeology, genealogy, biography) can be found under the call number range C1-CT9999. Books on world history can be found under D1-DX301. Books on America and the United States in general can be found under Library of Congress class E11 - E904. Books on United States local history are found under F1-F975. Books on Canada are found under F1001-F1145.2. Books on Latin America are found under F1201-F3799. For help in browsing the collection, consult with one of the reference librarians.
To locate books in other Boston Library Consortium libraries and request them, use the Boston Library Consortium Catalogs. To locate books in many libraries throughout the world, use WorldCat.
For more information on searching article indexes, see our Database Searching Tips (also available in PDF).
America:
History and Life 1964- (How
to search)
Scholarly literature on the history and culture of the U.S. and
Canada.
ArchivesUSA
(How to
search)
Information about primary source materials from U.S. manuscript
repositories, with detailed indexes of manuscript and other special
collections.
Arts & Humanities
Citation Index 1974-
The online version. Provides author, subject and citation access
to journal articles and book reviews in the arts and humanities.
Coverage from 1974. Part of Web of Science.
Bibliography
of Asian Studies (How
to search)
An index of Western-language articles, monographs, and book chapters
published since 1971.
Biography
and Genealogy Master Index (How
to search)
Biography and Genealogy Master Index is a comprehensive index
to nearly 12 million biographical sketches in more than 2700 volumes
and editions of current and retrospective reference books, covering
both contemporary and historical figures throughout the world.
NEW FEATURE: A complete list of sources indexed is now available
by using the Extended Search.
Ethnic
NewsWatch (How
to search)
Ethnic NewsWatch is a full-text collection of newspapers and periodicals
from the ethnic, minority and Native American press. The database
allows both full-text and indexed searching. Search pages are
available in English and Spanish.
GenderWatch
(How to search)
GenderWatch is a full-text collection of international sources,
including journals, special reports and conference proceedings
on a wide range of women's issues. It includes archival materials dating back to the 1970s. GenderWatch allows both full-text and
indexed searching.
Historical
Abstracts 1969- (How
to search)
Scholarly literature in history from 1450 to the present. Does
not include the United States and Canada.
History
of Science, Technology and Medicine (How
to search) 1975-
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine indexes journal articles,
conference proceedings, books, book reviews, and dissertations
in the history of science, technology, and medicine and allied
historical fields. It covers 1975 to the present.
History
Universe
Index to the guides of 127 microform collections on 19th and 20th
century American history.
Index Islamicus
The Index Islamicus covers Islam, the Middle East and the Muslim world. It is produced by the Islamic Bibliography Unit of the Cambridge University Library and indexes articles back to 1906.
International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
The IBSS has more than two million references to articles and books going back to 1951 in the social sciences. It is produced by the London School of Economics and Political Science.
International
Medieval Bibliography 1967-
Print version of the index.
International
Medieval Bibliography. Brepols, 1967-
An international index to medieval topics (400-1500) in literature, language,
history, archaeology, art, music, theater, Arabic and Islamic studies, and religion
and philosophy. IMB covers 4,500 journals and over 5000 miscellany volumes in
30 languages.
Social
Sciences Citation Index 1974-
The online version. Provides author, subject and citation access
to journal articles and book reviews in the social sciences. Coverage
from 1974. Part of Web of Science.
Electronic Journals
Periodicals held by Tufts are listed in the catalog. Holdings in all formats are unified in one record, and most entries for journals held in digital format contain a hyperlink to the source; searches in the catalog enable one to follow these links directly. A supplementary list of electronic journals is on the Tisch homepage under Electronic Journals. For an example of a catalog search for a journal, set the catalog’s Type of Search to "Journal Title," and type in Journal of World History.
Many history journals held in digital format are parts of Project Muse or JSTOR. Others can be found in Science Direct, or Blackwell-Synergy. Although these databases include search engines for the journals they contain, the indexes listed above are the most comprehensive and authoritative sources for the literature of the discipline, and frequently link directly to the journal article itself.
Access
to African American Studies
This subset of History Universe allows access to full-text resources
in the field of African American history.
American
Periodicals Series Online (APS Online)
The American Periodical Series contains the full text of a wide
variety of early American periodicals such as The American Apollo
(1792-1792), The Boston Weekly - Magazine (1743-1743), and The
Philadelphia Minerva (1795-1798). The date range of the entire
series is 1740 to 1900.
Early
American Imprints 1639-1819
An online collection reproducing every extant book, pamphlet, and
broadside published in America from 1639 to 1819 - the complete printed,
non-serial source materials of American culture for the 17th and 18th centuries.
Covers titles in the Evans and Shaw-Shoemaker bibliographies. Available
also in microform: TISCH MICROFORMS F700.
Early
American Newspapers 1690-1876
Contains hundreds of historic newspapers listed in Clarence Brigham's authoritative bibliography and
in additional subsequent bibliographies with an emphasis on newspapers that began publication
before 1820.
Early
Encounters in North America
An expanding source of letters, diaries and other accounts of
early encounters between Europeans and Native Americans from the
mid-1600s through the mid 1800s. This resource is fully indexed
and can be searched in a wide variety of ways, and should be of
interest to historians, anthropologists and environmental scientists.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
ECCO aims to deliver every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in Great Britain during the Enghteenth Century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas: books, directories, Bibles, scientific treatises, almanacs, laws, court cases, sheet music, sermons, advertisements, speeches, handbills, parish registers, pool books, cookbooks, etc.
Landmark
Documents in American History
The CD-ROM contains nearly 1,300 full-text documents from American
history from 1492 to 1995 with biographies of major figures associated
with many of the documents. Includes court decisions, laws, treaties,
speeches, and letters, each with an introductory essay placing
it in historical context.
Making of the Modern World Digital Archive
Full-text searching of digital facsimile images of literature on economy and business,
published from 1450 through 1850.
Oxford African American Studies Center
The Oxford African American Studies Center is a comprehensive collection of
scholarship available online to focus on the lives and events which have shaped
African American and African history and culture.
Presidential
Studies
A primary source database containing the following: thousands
of presidential manuscripts providing detailed coverage from 1789;
hundreds of speeches, including every inaugural address and State
of the Union message; thousands of government documents, including
all numbered Executive Orders from 1862 through 1921; hundreds
of photographs and images of the presidents, first ladies, and
U.S. and foreign political leaders; scholarly articles and over
500 biographical reference articles.
Pennsylvania
Gazette 1728-1800
One of the most important American newspapers of the eighteenth
century. Fully searchable.
New
York Times Historical Archive 1851-three years before current
date
Includes full-text and full-image articles dating back to the
first issue of the NYT in 1851; the collection includes digital
reproductions of every page from every issue--cover to cover--in
downloadable PDF(r) files.
Women
and Social Movements
Primary sources in the study of women's social movements from colonial
times to the present. This database contains books, pamphlets and proceedings
from national conventions on women's rights, abolition, and the Women's Christian
Temperance Union.
Microforms
Tisch Library has an extensive collection of primary documents on microform, including Confidential U.S. State Department central files, the Princeton University Libraries Latin American microfilm collection, the papers of Queen Victoria on foreign affairs, and the Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Tufts University Department of History
General History
American Historical Association
Avalon
Project at the Yale Law School
A digital library of pre-18th to 20th century documents relevant
to the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy
and government, with annotations, indexes, and links to supporting
materials.
The Encyclopedia of World History Ancient, Medieval, and Modern
History Resources
WWW Virtual Library; University of Kansas.
Repositories of Primary Sources
Research Institute for the Humanities - History
Voice of the Shuttle: History Page
History of Medicine
Cesarean Section -- A Brief History
African History
Africa Action
Incorporating American Committee on Africa, The Africa Fund, and
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC).
Africa Recovery Online, United Nations
The African National Congress of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
African Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania
Africana
Bulletin
Boston University, African Studies Center
History
and Cultures of Africa
Columbia University - Area Studies - African Studies.
Economic Commission for Africa, United Nations
The Middle East
Middle Eastern WWW Virtual Library
World Wide Web Virtual Library: Africa
The United States
American and British History Resources on the Internet
American Memory from the Library of Congress
Making of America
A thematically related digital library of primary sources documenting
American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction.
Making of America - University of Michigan
Making of America - Cornell University
Historical
Maps of the United States
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection (University of
Texas).
The American Civil War Homepage
United States Civil War Center
American Women's History: A Research Guide
University of Colorado Department of History - African American History
Kingwood College Library American Cultural History: The Twentieth Century
Latin America
Handbook of Latin American Studies
Latin American World Wide Web Virtual Library
Asia
Asian Studies WWW Virtual Library
East Asian History at the University of Erfurt
Institute of Chinese Studies, Heidelberg University
Korean History: A Bibliography
Europe
Medieval and Renaissance
Labyrinth: A World Wide Web Server for Medieval Studies
The On-Line Reference Book for Medieval Studies
Enlightenment
Contact a Librarian [back to top]
Christopher Barbour.
Contact for questions about library collections.
Connie Reik.
Contact for reference questions and instruction requests.
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Eighteenth-Century Collections Online
ECCO aims to deliver every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in Great Britain during the Eighteenth Century...
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