Research Guides: HIST 490C: American Revolution (Fall 2023): Secondary Sources

Using Synonyms

Just like with primary sources, the key to finding secondary sources is deciding which keywords work best.

Use the worksheet to work out keywords for your topic.

Articles

America: History & Life with Full Text This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides full text coverage of the history and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes nearly 200 journals and 100 books, selective indexing for over 1,700 journals, and abstracts in English of foreign language articles.

We have a number of excellent databases listed in our history resources library page, but for this class America: History and Life is the best starting point.

Books

Library Catalog

Search Techniques (AND OR NOT)

Be sure to use Caps for AND, OR, NOT when searching.

AND - searches for books and articles containing both terms. Example: Women AND Education

OR - searches for one of the words. Example: British OR English

NOT - exclude a term. Example: Scotland NOT England

Parenthetical notes () - excellent for OR or NOT searches. Like a math equation, the database will do this part first.
Example: (British OR English) AND Laws = search for British or English Laws.
Example: (England NOT London) AND Crime = search for crime in England, excluding London.

Quotation Marks ""- Links words together in the search. Works best for phrases or proper names.
Example: "Queen Anne"
Example: "Virginia Company"
Warning: You might exclude results. A search for "Captain Smith" will exclude all results for "Captaine Smith," which was the original spelling

Asterisk * - Allows you to search several word endings at once, without using OR.
Example: Virginia* will give you results for Virginia, Virginian, Virginians.
Example: Danc* will give you results for Dance, Dancing, Dancers.
Example: Brit* will give you British, Britain, Brits.
Warning: You may get unexpected results. Brit* will also yield Brittany, Britons, and Britches. Virginia* will bring up articles on the Virginia opossum

Historiography Texts

There are books, often called Tertiary texts, that are about the study of history itself.
These Historiographical texts - the history of history - can provide insights into what historians have said about your topic. These include:

Oxford Bibliographies Online: Atlantic History This link opens in a new window
Peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on the transnational interconnections between Europe, North America, South America, and Africa, particularly in the early modern and colonial period.

The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution by Edward G. Gray (Editor); Jane Kamensky (Editor)
Call Number: Stacks ; E208 .O94 2013
ISBN: 9780199746705
Publication Date: 2012-12-06
The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution introduces scholars, students and generally interested readers to the formative event in American history. In thirty-three individual essays, by thirty-three authorities on the Revolution, the Handbook provides readers with in-depth analysis ofthe Revolution's many sides, ranging from the military and diplomatic to the social and political; from the economic and financial, to the cultural and legal.Its cast of characters ranges far, including ordinary farmers and artisans, men and women, free and enslaved African Americans, Indians, and British and American statesmen and military leaders. Its geographic scope is equally broad. The Handbook offers readers an American Revolution whosegeo-political and military impact ranged from the West Indies to the Mississippi Valley; from the British Isles to New England and from Nova Scotia to Florida. The American Revolution of the Handbook is, simply put, an event that far transcended the boundaries of what was to become the UnitedStates.In addition to a breadth of subject matter, the Handbook offers a broad range of interpretive and methodological approaches. Its authors include social historians, historians of politics and institutions, cultural historians, historians of diplomacy, imperial historians, ethnohistorians, andhistorians of gender and sexuality. Instead of privileging a single or even several interpretive perspectives, the Handbook attempts to capture the full scope of current revolutionary-era scholarship. Nothing comparable has been published in decades.
A Companion to the American Revolution by Jack P. Greene (Editor); J. R. Pole (Editor)
Call Number: Online
ISBN: 1281320749
Publication Date: 2010-01-10
" A Companion to the American Revolution" is a single guide to the themes, events, and concepts of this major turning point in early American history. Containing coverage before, during, and after the war, as well as the effect of the revolution on a global scale, this major reference to the period is ideal for any student, scholar, or general reader seeking a complete reference to the field. Contains 90 articles in all, including guides to further reading and a detailed chronological table. Explains all aspects of the revolution before, during, and after the war. Discusses the status and experiences of women, Native Americans, and African Americans, and aspects of social and daily life during this period. Describes the effects of the revolution abroad. Provides complete coverage of military history, including the home front. Concludes with a section on concepts to put the morality of early America in today's context.
The Debate on the American Revolution by Gwenda Morgan
Call Number: E209 .M67 2007
ISBN: 9780719052415
Publication Date: 2007-11-01
This book is the first in-depth study of the way in which historians have dealt with the coming of the American Revolution and the formation of the US Constitution. The approach is thematic, examining how historians in different periods interpreted these events and their causes and, more contentiously, their meaning. Making accessible to modern readers the work of often-neglected early historians, this book examines how the emergence of history as a professional discipline led to new and competing versions of the history of the Revolution. It spans the entire period from the first generation of writers, whose ideas about history were shaped by the Enlightenment, to those of the twenty-first century who drew on the rich legacy provided by black studies, gender and women's studies, cultural studies and ethnohistory. This book will be an invaluable resource for all students and scholars of the American Revolution.