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Western Civilization Research Guide
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Reference Desk (413) 774-1509 |
Selected Reference Sources
Use reference sources to choose a topic, understand terminology, locate background information, and identify good search terms.
- Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History R 909 B513
- Global History: Cultural Encounters from Antiquity to the Present R 909 G562
- Oxford Atlas of World History Atlas Stand R 909 O98
- The Harper Atlas of World History R 912 H293
- National Geographic Atlas of World History R 912 G883n
- Dictionary of the Middle Ages R 909.07 D554
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages, 350-1520 R 940.1 C178
- Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages R 909.07 T763
- Encyclopedia of the Ancient World R 930 E56an
- Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece and Rome R 938 C582
- The History of the Ancient & Medieval World R 930 H673
- World Eras: Classical Greek Civilization, 800-323 B.C.E. R 938 C614
- Europe, 1450-1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World R 940.2 E90
- World Eras: European Renaissance and Reformation R 940.21 E90
- Encyclopedia of the Renaissance R 940.2103 E56
- Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment R 940.25 E56
- Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment R 940.25 E56k
Modern Europe
- Europe Since 1945: an Encyclopedia R 940.55 E90
- The Encyclopedia of Ireland R 941.5 E56
- The Columbia Companion to British History R 942 C726
- The Encyclopedia of Britain R 942.03 E56
- Encyclopedia of Contemporary German Culture R 943 E56
- Modern Germany R 943.08 M689
- History of France R 944 B543hi
- Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture R 944.08 E56
- Encyclopedia of Contemporary Spanish Culture R 946.082 E56
- Historical Dictionary of Portugal R 946.9 W562h
- The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the former Soviet Union R 947 C178
E-Books
- Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations and Footwear through the Ages, 2003
- Renaissance: an Encyclopedia for Students
Finding Books (and more) in the Online Catalog
History is located in the 900's in the Dewey Decimal Classification System and the history of the western world is found from 900 through the 940's (see Reference sources above). Search the catalog by subject to identify specific titles and their location in the collection.
- Consider whether your topic is likely to be a subject heading and, if so, search by subject
- Subject searching is very powerful because only the words in subject headings are searched
- The subject search results in an alphabetical list of all of the subject headings that include the word or phrase searched
- If the subject search is unsuccessful or the topic includes more than one concept, construct a keyword search using Boolean logic
- The advantage is the ability to search all of the words in the records for items in the catalog
- The disadvantage is the possibility of false hits
Finding Articles in Research Databases
- Encyclopaedia Britannica Online (full text)
Includes the complete encyclopedia, including the yearbooks, plus links to websites evaluated by the editors at Britannica - History Reference Center (full text)
Contains the full text of over 750 historical encyclopedias and other non-fiction books and at least 60 leading history periodicals--includes over 55,000 historical documents; over 40,000 biographies of historical figures; over 10,000 historical photos and maps; and over 80 hours of historical film and video - History Study Center (full text)
Consists of digitized primary and secondary sources, reference sources, historical images, video clips, and links to reliable web sites--Topic Search provides Study Units that include sources organized and edited by historians and History Guides on various topics - Historic Events of the 20th Century (full text)
Provides resources on the following major topics: The Civil Rights Movement, The Collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union, The Holocaust, Islamic Fundamentalism, World War I, and World War II--each section includes narrative histories and analyses, primary documents, biographies, chronologies, glossaries, photos, maps, multimedia resources, and lesson plans - Academic Search Premier (1990's to present)(full text plus citations and abstracts only)
A general academic database that indexes over 8,000 leading publications in all subject areas, including history, and provides full text for over 4,000 of those titles - InfoTrac Web (1980's to present)(search several databases at once)(full text plus citations and abstracts only)
Cross searchable databases: General OneFile, Academic OneFile, Expanded Academic, General Reference, or search the more academic databases individually below:
Academic OneFile (full text plus citations and abstracts only)
A general academic database that indexes leading journals and reference sources in all disciplines
Expanded Academic (full text plus citations and abstracts only)
Indexing, abstracting, full text, and images for scholarly or refereed articles in all academic disciplines - JSTOR (full text)
An archive of core scholarly journals back to the 1800's
Due to agreements with journal publishers, does not include current issues from the last 3-5 years
Arts & Sciences Collection consists of over six hundred journals in economics; history; political science; sociology; archaeology; history and study of art and architecture; cultural studies; and more - Grove Art Online (full text)
Online access to the full text of The Dictionary of Art (1996) and The Oxford Companion to Western Art (2001) --includes images, drawings, links to image databases (Art Resource, Bridgeman Art Library), and selected links to thousands of images on museum and gallery websites around the world
Additional Databases for Contemporary Europe
- CountryWatch (full text)
Provides information on each of the 192 recognized countries of the world including:
CountryReviews--demographic, political, economic, business, cultural and environmental information;
CountryWire--daily news coverage and a news archive;
CountryWatch Forecast--a five-year macroeconomic forecast;
CountryWatch Energy Forecast--a 20-year forecast of energy demand, supply, and pricing;
Also features CountryWatch Data (statistics), the CountryWatch Map Gallery, CountryWatch@School (curriculum based resources), and the weekly Global News Update. - CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Online)(full text)(1991-present)
A comprehensive source for theory and research in international affairs--includes "working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, proceedings from conferences, books, journals and policy briefs"--also includes teaching materials and course packs of background readings for history and political science classes - See Current Issues databases for major issues of the day relating to countries such as terrorism, Iraq War, etc.-- CQ Researcher Plus Archive database goes back to 1923
News Databases
- Lexis-Nexis provides current news about countries--under General News, browse the source list for the titles of foreign newspapers indexed by this database--or try:
- Newspaper Source --full text for major national and international newspapers
- Historical Newspapers (and American Periodicals Series) (full text)
Provides digitized images of newspaper articles--search all or search each paper individually
Hartford Courant (1764-1984)
Chicago Tribune (1849-1986)
The New York Times (1851-2005)
The Washington Post (1877-1992)
Los Angeles Times (1881-1986)
The Wall Street Journal (1889-1991)
The Christian Science Monitor (1908-1995) - Use a news directory on the Internet to search other foreign newspapers online: ABYZ News Links , Online Newspapers from Around the World , or World Newspaper.com
Selected Internet Resources
(Websites should always be evaluated for authorship, accuracy, relevance, and currency)
Encyclopedias
Gateways/Directories
- Best of History
Contains links to over 1200 history-related web sites that have been reviewed for quality, accuracy, and usefulness. - WWW Virtual Library: History: Central Catalogue
Search this directory by countries and regions of the world or eras and epochs. - e-History (from Ohio State U. )
Consists of over 130,000 pages of historical content (timeline events, battle outlines, biographies, images & maps), including primary documents. - World History Matters (George Mason U.)
A portal to world history on the Web. Includes two databases: World History Sources and Women in World History - Voice of the Shuttle: History
- EuroDocs: Online Sources for European History
Middle Ages
Modern History
- Internet Modern History Sourcebook (Fordham U.)
Europe
- Europa: Gateway to the European Union
"Up-to-date coverage of European Union affairs and essential information on European integration"--includes activities by subject, documents, statistics, opinion polls, etc. - Euronews (in 7 languages)
- European Countries (from Europa)
- European Digital Library Treasures (from the European Library)
- European Integration History Index (from the Historical Archives of the European Union)
"Provides Internet resources on the History of Europe after WWII in all languages" - North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
"An alliance of 26 countries from North America and Europe committed to fulfilling the goals of the North Atlantic Treaty signed on 4 April 1949" - WWW Virtual Library: Russian and East European Studies
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