Finding books
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 knowledgeable 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 Catalog.
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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.
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Use the word "history" as part of a keyword search.
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To find material about a person, an government agency, or an organization, search for it as a subject
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To limit your search results to English-language materials, "Set Limits" before searching.
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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?
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Who is the author? Is he/she associated with an academic institution?
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Who is the publisher? Most good history books are published by academic presses, e.g. Princeton University Press or Oxford University Press.
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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.
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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.
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Catalog (Princeton) This link opens in a new windowSearch tool covering the collections of Princeton University Library.
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WorldCat This link opens in a new windowComprehensive online catalog of library holdings. Lists books, journals, maps, recordings, films, scores, and other materials located in public, academic, corporate, school and specialized libraries all over the world. Check Worldcat for holdings of material that are not available at Princeton. Available items may be requested through Interlibrary Loan.
Finding journal articles
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Historical Abstracts with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Indexes books and journal articles on the history of the world (excluding the U.S. and Canada) from 1450 to the present. Index 1954+
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America: History and Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Indexes books and journal articles on the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. 1954+
Consider also
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Oxford Bibliographies This link opens in a new windowDetailed guides to a wide variety of disciplines.
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East View Universal Databases This link opens in a new windowFull-text indexing of contemporary journalism and humanities and social science academic periodicals for Russia and parts of the near abroad. Retrospective coverage varies by individual title, with some going back to the 1980s and most to the 1990s. Full-page images are available for approximately 25 Moscow newspapers. Near-comprehensive full-page image archives for a number of periodicals, including newspapers and illustrated magazines and journals, many dating to the early years of the twentieth century. Collections of print ephemera related to elections and other high-impact events. Provides access in Russian or English. Searches submitted in English will yield results in English. Searches in Russian may be conducted in Cyrillic or in Roman script following the Library of Congress Romanization Table for Russian. 1980+
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Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI) This link opens in a new windowProvides bibliographic citations to the contents of 700+ social science and humanities journals published around the world on Latin America and the Caribbean since the late 1960s. Citations often include links to the full text articles.
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Oxford research encyclopedias. African history This link opens in a new windowSubstantive, peer-reviewed, and regularly updated, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History combines the speed & flexibility of digital with the rigorous standards of academic publishing.
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Oxford research encyclopedias. Asian history This link opens in a new windowSubstantive, peer-reviewed, and regularly updated, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History combines the speed & flexibility of digital with the rigorous standards of academic publishing.
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Oxford research encyclopedias. Latin American history This link opens in a new window
Substantive, peer-reviewed, and regularly updated, the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History combines the speed & flexibility of digital with the rigorous standards of academic publishing.
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Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS) This link opens in a new windowExtensive annotated bibliography and index to books, articles and a variety of other materials. The HLAS Web version, which covers resources published from the 1960s to the present, offers multiple search options and limits, and easy options for citing, saving, and emailing search results. The HLAS Online version is a legacy system that links researchers to descriptions of materials published from the 1930s to the present and also provides online access to full-text bibliographic essays written by scholars.
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L'Année Philologique This link opens in a new windowMain index to the scholarship of classical studies published in all languages in both books and journals. 1924+
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International Medieval Bibliography This link opens in a new windowInterdisciplinary bibliography of the European Middle Ages, covering Europe, the Middle East and North Africa in the period 400-1500.
Companions and Handbooks
The following links show books and other resources related to subaltern studies that are available at Princeton.
Handbooks
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Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories
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ISBN: 0429840594Publication Date: 2020-02-17Taking a global and interdisciplinary approach, the Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories provides a comprehensive overview of conspiracy theories as an important social, cultural and political phenomenon in contemporary life. This handbook provides the most complete analysis of the phenomenon to date. It analyses conspiracy theories from a variety of perspectives, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. It maps out the key debates, and includes chapters on the historical origins of conspiracy theories, as well as their political significance in a broad range of countries and regions. Other chapters consider the psychology and the sociology of conspiracy beliefs, in addition to their changing cultural forms, functions and modes of transmission. This handbook examines where conspiracy theories come from, who believes in them and what their consequences are. This book presents an important resource for students and scholars from a range of disciplines interested in the societal and political impact of conspiracy theories, including Area Studies, Anthropology, History, Media and Cultural Studies, Political Science, Psychology and Sociology. -
Conspiracy Theories
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ISBN: 9781440877704Publication Date: 2024-05-02Provides a comprehensive guide to the history and current shape of conspiracy theories in American life, including the findings of research seeking to understand their origins, type, function, and widespread appeal. This all-in-one resource provides an accessible overview of conspiracy theories past and present in all their many forms. Taking an even-handed, scholarly approach, the book outlines the longer history of conspiracy theories, starting with Ancient Greece and Rome and continuing the story up to the present day, including analysis of 9/11, anti-vaccine, COVID, and QAnon theories. It surveys an array of current books and articles to try to understand why people believe in and act on outlandish and evidence-free conspiracy theories. Notably, this resource also outlines the problems created by untrue conspiracy theories in terms of their negative impact on public debate, trust in others, and efforts to nurture an informed and educated citizenry. Instead, many conspiracy claims have become sources of misinformation, cynicism, and polarization. This book will benefit anyone who seeks a pathway through our current "epistemic crisis" in which the lines between fact and fiction--and between truth and falsehood--have become blurred. -
The Palgrave Handbook of Media Misinformation
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Call Number: HM851 .P35 2023ISBN: 9783031119750Publication Date: 2022-12-13The Palgrave Handbook of Media Misinformation provides a comprehensive and cutting-edge resource on the critical debates surrounding fake news and misinformation online. Spanning all continents and linking academic, journalistic, and educational communities, this collection offers authoritative coverage of conspiracy theories, the post-Trump and Brexit landscape, and the role of big tech in threats to democracy and free speech. The collection moves through a diagnosis of misinformation and its impacts on democracy and civic societies, the 'mainstreaming' of conspiracy theory, the impacts of misinformation on health and science, and the increasing significance of data visualization. Following these diagnoses, the handbook moves to responses from two communities of practice - the world of journalism and the field of media literacy. -
The Handbook of Reparations
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ISBN: 0191537659Publication Date: 2006-03-01This Handbook is provides a broad range of essential information about past experiences with massive reparations programs as well as normative guidance for future practice. It examines in detail reparations programs in different parts of the world; includes thematic papers on topics that frequently come about in the design and implementation of reparations programs; and, finally, reproduces key documents on reparations, including national legislation. In addition to providing a wealth of factual information about a wide range of reparations programs (some of them previously unexamined), the thematic papers break new ground, tackling issues that have not been sufficiently addressed (if at all) in the literature, including the very notion of justice in reparations for the massive cases, the relationship between material compensation and other symbolic measures of reparations, and the complicated set of questions around how to provide reparations to victims of sexual violence. Finally, the book makes available fundamental documents on reparations, including national legislation. These documents - which are either difficult to find or have never been translated into English before - are both directly relevant to the case studies and the thematic papers, and illuminating to those thinking prospectively about the design and implementation of reparations programs. -
Handbook of Research on Deception, Fake News, and Misinformation Online
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ISBN: 9781522585374Publication Date: 2019-06-28The growing amount of false and misleading information on the internet has generated new concerns and quests for research regarding the study of deception and deception detection. Innovative methods that involve catching these fraudulent scams are constantly being perfected, but more material addressing these concerns is needed. The Handbook of Research on Deception, Fake News, and Misinformation Online provides broad perspectives, practices, and case studies on online deception. It also offers deception-detection methods on how to address the challenges of the various aspects of deceptive online communication and cyber fraud. While highlighting topics such as behavior analysis, cyber terrorism, and network security, this publication explores various aspects of deceptive behavior and deceptive communication on social media, as well as new methods examining the concepts of fake news and misinformation, character assassination, and political deception. This book is ideally designed for academicians, students, researchers, media specialists, and professionals involved in media and communications, cyber security, psychology, forensic linguistics, and information technology. -
Routledge Handbook of Character Assassination and Reputation Management
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ISBN: 9781138556584Publication Date: 2019-12-23In modern politics as well as in historical times, character attacks abound. Words and images, like symbolic and psychological weapons, have sullied or destroyed numerous reputations. People mobilize significant material and psychological resources to defend themselves against such attacks. How does character assassination "work," and when does it not? Why do many targets fall so easily when they are under character attack? How can one prevent attacks and defend against them? The Routledge Handbook of Character Assassination and Reputation Management offers the first comprehensive examination of character assassination. Moving beyond studying corporate reputation management and how public figures enact and maintain their reputation, this lively volume offers a framework and cases to help understand, critically analyze, and effectively defend against such attacks. Written by an international and interdisciplinary team of experts, the book begins with a theoretical introduction and extensive description of the "five pillars" of character assassination: (1) the attacker, (2) the target, (3) the media, (4) the public, and (5) the context. The remaining chapters present engaging case studies suitable for class discussion. These include: Roman emperors; Reformation propaganda; the Founding Fathers; defamation in US politics; women politicians; autocratic regimes; European leaders; celebrities; nations; Internet campaigns. This handbook will prove invaluable to undergraduate and postgraduate students in communication, political science, history, sociology, and psychology departments. It will also help researchers become independent, critical, and informed thinkers capable of avoiding the pressure and manipulations of the media. -
Routledge Handbook of Disinformation and National Security
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ISBN: 9781000908176Publication Date: 2023-11-17This interdisciplinary Handbook provides an in-depth analysis of the complex security phenomenon of disinformation and offers a toolkit to counter such tactics. Disinformation used to propagate false, inexact or out of context information is today a frequently used tool of political manipulation and information warfare, both online and offline. This Handbook evidences a historical thread of continuing practices and modus operandi in overt state propaganda and covert information operations. Further, it attempts to unveil current methods used by propaganda actors, the inherent vulnerabilities they exploit in the fabric of democratic societies and, last but not least, to highlight current practices in countering disinformation and building resilient audiences. The Handbook is divided into six thematic sections. The first part provides a set of theoretical approaches to hostile influencing, disinformation and covert information operations. The second part looks at disinformation and propaganda in historical perspective offering case study analysis of disinformation, and the third focuses on providing understanding of the contemporary challenges posed by disinformation and hostile influencing. The fourth part examines information and communication practices used for countering disinformation and building resilience. The fifth part analyses specific regional experiences in countering and deterring disinformation, as well as international policy responses from transnational institutions and security practitioners. Finally, the sixth part offers a practical toolkit for practitioners to counter disinformation and hostile influencing. This handbook will be of much interest to students of national security, propaganda studies, media and communications studies, intelligence studies and International Relations in general.
Companions
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Information: a historical companion
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ISBN: 9780691209746Publication Date: 2021-01-26A landmark history that traces the creation, management, and sharing of information through six centuries.How did information become so central to our everyday lives, and how did its processing and storage make our data-driven era possible? This volume is the first to consider these questions in comprehensive detail, tracing the global emergence of information practices, technologies, and more, from the premodern era to the present. With entries spanning archivists to algorithms and scribes to surveilling, this is the ultimate reference on how information has shaped and been shaped by societies.
