HIST 280: West African History Since 1800 (Spring 2025)

• Keep it simple!
  • Only use a few search terms at once, connected by AND
  • Example: "French West Africa" AND Education
• Use nouns (people/place/thing/film) as search terms in the search
  • Example: Liberia involvement in Cold War politics 
    • Liberia AND "cold war" AND politics
• Limit to books and ebooks.
• Use Boolean!
  • Liberia AND "cold war" AND politics
• When you find a book on your topic, open it and pay attention to the subject terms!
  • There is a special subject heads for Liberia AND "Cold war"
• Skim books to see why they are in the results.
  • Frequently there will be a chapter in the book that is of interest.   

Key Subject Headings 

• Search the name of your country of interest as a SUBJECT
• After keyword searching, see what terms are Subjects and narrow the search accordingly

Example: a SUBJECT search for "sierra leone" AND "civil war"

Key Subject terms

• Anti-imperialist
• African politics & government
• Country names
• Benin
• Burkinia Faso
• Cabe Verde
• Gambia
• Ghana
• Guinea
• Ivory Coast
• Liberia
• Mali
• Mauritania
• Niger
• Nigeria
• Senegal
• Sierra Leone
• Togo

If you cannot find any books on your topic, use WorldCat to find books we don't own.
The W&M Libraries will order it via Interlibrary Loan at no charge, and you'll borrow it from us without issue. 
Don't limit yourself to books just in our collection!