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Finding scholarly literature on a topic in history
Whatever your topic, you will want to begin by finding out what other historians have had to say about it. This web page presents some strategies for finding the scholarly literature on a topic in history, and some other tools that can help you decide what to read.
Table of Contents
Most historians publish their work in books. So, for many topics in history, your best starting point is a good recent scholarly book. The easiest way to find that book is to ask someone else who is knowledgable about your topic -- for example, your junior seminar instructor or spring JP advisor. But a thorough search of the library catalog is also essential. Here are some tips on finding books about historical topics in the Princeton University Library Main Catalog.
- Identify the Library of Congress Subject Heading for your topic, and use it in a subject search. You can look up LC Subject Headings in the big red books in the Trustee Reading Room (and elsewhere in the library). You can also look up a known book on your topic and check the long view for the subject headings assigned to that book.
- Use the word "history" as part of a keyword search.
- To find material about a person, an government agency, or an organization, search for it as a subject
- To limit your search results to English-language materials, "Set Limits" before searching.
- Didn't find enough? Expand your search in Worldcat to identify items not held by Princeton, then use Borrow Direct or Interlibrary loan to get the books you discover there.
Assessing what you find -- is this book worth your time?
- Who is the author? Is he/she associated with an academic institution?
- Who is the publisher? Most good history books are published by academic presses, e.g. Princeton University Press or Oxford University Press.
- When was the book published? Your first choice will probably be a book published in the last ten years or so, because a recent book will refer to all the previous work on your topic. But some older books are still very valuable, so do not worry if the most recent book you can find on your topic was published long ago.
- Does the book include the scholarly apparatus that will enable you to verify the author's work? Look for footnotes or endnotes plus a bibliography. A book with no notes or bibliography will not be helpful to you at this stage of your research.
Once you have a book in hand, read it. Alas, there are no shortcuts to this part of the research process.
While books are very important, historians also publish their work in articles in academic journals. The easiest way to find journal articles is to search a bibliographic database the covers your topic. The best starting places are:
A few pitfalls to watch out for:
- Resist the temptation to limit your search to JSTOR. JSTOR covers many important journals in history, but by no means all of them. And JSTOR does not include the most recent issues of most journals. AHL and HA link to JSTOR, so you can find links from articles indexed in AHL and HA to the full text in JSTOR.
- Don't begin with the big general article databases like Omnifile, Proquest Research Library, or EBSCO Academic Search Premier. The coverage of historical journals in all of them is limited. Start with AHL or HA, then try the more general databases if you still don't have enough information.
- Neither AHL nor HA covers ancient and medieval history. Please ask for help if you are working on a topic in those fields.
- Besides databases for history, you may also need to consult databases for art, African-American Studies, law, literature, politics, or many other disciplines. Go to the Articles & Databases list on the library web page, and then use the "Subject" drop-down menu to select the databases for a particular field. The history lists are at http://libweb.princeton.edu/catalogs/articles.php?subjectID=21 but it is well worth exploring other databases, especially if you do not find what you need in AHL or HA.
Caution: Most of these indexes are linked to full-text databases where possible, but keep in mind that many journals published before circa 1990 have not yet been digitized, so you will need to look for print editions of those journals in the Firestone stacks. Use the "Findit@PUL" button to check for availability of full text or the call number of the print edition of the journal.
If you are working on a topic that is of interest to many other historians, you may find that someone has already compiled a bibliography for you. To find book-length bibliographies on a topic in the Main Catalog, do a Guided Search for "bibliography" as subject and your topic as a keyword.
For shorter bibliographies and for topics for which you can't find a book-length bibliography, consult a reference book. First, here are three guides with essays that describe the major work by historians on a topic. All are particularly useful to the student trying to decide what to read first:
- Reader’s guide to American history. Editor, Peter J. Parish. London; Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.
History Graduate Study Room (SH)
Call number: Z1236 .R43 1997
- Reader’s guide to British history. David Loades, editor. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2003.
General and Humanities Reference (DR)
Call number: DA34 .R43 2003
- Reader’s guide to the history of science. Edited by Arne Hessenbruch. London; Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000.
General and Humanities Reference (DR)
Call number: Q125 .R335 2000
If your topic is the history of American foreign relations, the best starting point is: -
American foreign relations since 1600: a guide to the literature. Robert L. Beisner, editor. 2nd ed. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, c2003.
General and Humanities Reference (DR)
Call number: Z6465.U5 G84 2003
If your topic is a (famous dead) American or British person, the best starting point is:
Finally, you may find it helpful to consult: -
The American Historical Association's guide to historical literature. General editor, Mary Beth Norton; associate editor, Pamela Gerardi. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
General and Humanities Ref. (DR): Ready Reference
Call Number: Z6201 .A55 1995
This is a list of recommended reading, arranged geographically and chronologically. Caution: the AHA Guide was compiled in 1995, so you will need to supplement it by searching the Main Catalog for more recent items.
For topics that are of wide interest, you may be able to find an essay that reviews the literature on that topic, and that sets it in context by discussing how other historians have approached that topic. This kind of essay is invaluable
when you are starting a research project. There are two easy ways to find them:
History Compass is an online journal that publishes historiographic essays. If there is an essay on your topic, it can be an excellent place to start. Caution: if you do not find what you need with your first search, you will need to scroll to the bottom of the search results page and click on Modify Search to start a new search within History Compass. Otherwise, you will need to specify that you want to search only this journal and not the entire list of Blackwell online journals
The "Blackwell Companions" are a series published both in print and online in Blackwell Reference Online. If there is one on your topic, it can be an exceptionally useful place to start reading.
For more approaches, see the web guide to Historiography.
Reading book reviews can help you decide whether or not a particular book is worth your time, and also can help you put the author's work in context and suggest other places to look. The easiest place to find reviews of scholarly books on American history is America: History and Life, which indexes the book reviews published in scholarly journals on American history. (Unfortunately, Historical Abstracts does not include book reviews.) If you are looking for a review of a book published after 1995, you should also search H-Net.
For more approaches, see the web guide to Finding book reviews in history.
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