World history brings a global perspective to the study of historical events anywhere, but information resources tend treat world history as a catch-all, geographically as history of everywhere outside North America (see the American history subject guide) and chronologically as beginning in the European Renaissance. For earlier periods, see the Classical studies and Medieval and early modern studies subject guides. For prehistory and archaeology, see the guide for anthropology.
World History in Context provides curated topic pages with academic journal articles, primary sources, reference works, news sources, multimedia, and biographies on people, countries and cultures, conflicts, organizations, religions, events, periods, and economics.
A collection of encyclopedic articles and primary documents on the Ancient Worlds and Mesoamerica, from Mesopotamia to Victorian England. Includes color and black-and-white images, illustrations, and maps, chronologies, bibliographies, glossaries, and lesson plans for teachers.
Historical Abstracts indexes citations, abstracts, and full text from journals, books, and dissertations that cover the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more. Full text available as HTML and PDF. The database allows limiting results to specific time periods (not just publication dates). You can limit to peer-reviewed sources. 1800s-present.
CLIO Notes for Historical Abstracts will guide you through subjects in World History since 1450 (excluding the United States and Canada) by allowing you to browse through chronologies and brief summaries of significant events and themes in modern history. On the main screen you will find a list of majors time periods and events. Each of these is further divided into subtopics that display informative essays and suggestions for further research. Linked subject terms are also provided that will allow you to search the entire Historical Abstracts database for articles, book citations and dissertations.
The historical period limiter searches the time span of the event described within the record. There are two options to select for era: "b.c.e. (BC)" and "c.e. (AD)"; where b.c.e. refers to Before the Common Era and c.e. refers to the Common Era. If no era is selected, the search limiter defaults to "c.e. (AD)". To search any historical period Before the Common Era, the "b.c.e. (BC)" value must be selected before clicking the search button. It is possible for a record to include more than one historical period. Please note that the year 0 is not searchable.
1950 c.e. - 1960 c.e. will return results that occur between 1950 and 1960 including any events that encompass part or all of the historical period. (For example, a record with the time span 1900-1999 will be included in the above search).
1950 c.e. in the first edit box will return results from 1950-present.
2000 c.e. in the second edit box will return all results up to the year 2000 c.e.
1929 c.e. - 1929 c.e. will match the exact year of 1929 c.e. Any records that encompass this year in their range will also be included in the results.
The Iter Bibliography includes literature pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700). It indexes citations for books, journal material (articles, reviews, review articles, bibliographies, catalogues, abstracts, and discographies), as are citations for dissertation abstracts, and essays in books (including entries in conference proceedings, Festschriften, encyclopedias, and exhibition catalogues). Use the Check for full text link to connect to Get VText.
The History of Science, Technology, and Medicine database indexes citations and abstracts of journal articles, conference proceedings, books, dissertations, maps, and other materials on the history of science, medicine, and technology. 1600s-present.
an archive of academic journals in the humanities, social science, and sciences, back to their earliest issues. So for some purposes, it is a collection of secondary sources and for others, primary sources. If you want to do a comprehensive search of the literature on a topic, don't start in JSTOR; use a discipline-specific database instead and/or Humanities & Social Sciences Index Retrospective: 1907-1984, a simple but historically deep index of academic articles that includes historical headings mapped to current ones:
Although a few journals in JSTOR include content up to the current issue, in most cases the latest content in JSTOR will be at least two years old.
While JSTOR journals are among the most reputable in their subject areas, not all subject areas are included.
JSTOR articles are presented as they were originally published: they will include terms and information that today could be regarded as inappropriate, incomplete, or worse. But if you want to know what scholars in, say, the 1930s said about controversial topics like race, some religious traditions, gender and sexuality, or mental or physical impairments, you will need to use search terms that match those of that time, even though they may offend you deeply.
Complementing JSTOR with a more international orientation, PAO is a archive of more than 700 periodicals in the humanities and social sciences since their first issues. More than 150 are in languages other than English. Coverage is from volume 1, issue 1 of each journal, and all issues are digitized from cover to cover.
Large and wide-ranging collections of historical and contemporary legal materials, including codes, treaties, constitutions, topical collections of historical documents, law reviews (resembling JSTOR), legal treatises from the US, Canada, and the UK. Not limited to strictly legal topics: includes, for example, Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law.
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