LibGuides: HIST1992 Honors Workshop for Prospective Thesis Writers: Books + Articles

Defining Secondary Sources

Secondary sources are forms of writing and critique that offer interpretations or critical analyses of historical and primary source material.

Examples: monographs (books about a single subject), scholarly journal articles and review essays, biographies, encyclopedias, and textbooks.
Explore secondary sources related to your research interests in order to:

1) identify themes and trends in your field

2) generate historical context

3) formulate research questions that will lead to unique contributions to your field

Use the tabbed boxes below to explore print and digital books and search key databases for journal articles.

*Begin your search with BruKnow, the Brown Library's catalog!

BruKnow This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
BruKnow is the Library's platform for searching books, ebooks, databases, articles, multimedia, digital collections, and special collections, current
HathiTrust This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Discover millions of books, journals, images and maps digitized from libraries around the world, current.
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of book and ejournal titles digitized from libraries around the world. As members of HathiTrust, Brown users get PDF download access to nearly 3 million public domain or permissioned works that were a part of the Google Books digitization projects, or were contributed to the trust by other member institutions.

To login, click the LOGIN BUTTON and select Brown University from the list of institutions. If you have not already authenticated with your Brown username and password, you will then be asked to do so. While you can read articles without logging in, you will NOT be able to download articles.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides access to more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
Provides image and full text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics and other fields of the humanities and social sciences. Consult the online tables of contents for holdings, as coverage varies for each title.

If you are experiencing printing problems from JSTOR while using a Macintosh computer, please download the most recent version of Adobe Reader. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.
If you need assistance, please contact the CIS Help Desk or eresources@brown.edu.

*If you can't locate what you need in BruKnow, use WorldCat (link below) to make an Interlibrary Loan (ILL) request or explore some of the Open Access (OA) repositories listed below.

WorldCat FirstSearch This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive database of books and other materials in library catalogs around the world. Best used for advanced search of book records.

Open Access Repositories

This is a curated list. Visit A-Z Databases to explore all of Brown's database subscriptions.

Note: BruKnow searches do not always capture everything contained in a subscription database. Navigate to the database platform via the links below for full-text searching, which may yield better results.

America: History and Life This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Includes article abstracts and citations of reviews and dissertations on the history and culture of the United States and Canada, 1954-present
1954-present; article abstracts and citations of reviews and dissertations on the history and culture of the United States and Canada.
Bibliography of British and Irish History This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Bibliographic information on historical writing covering the British Isles, British Empire, and Commonwealth, 55 BC-present
55 BC-present; the Bibliography of British and Irish History provides bibliographic data on historical writing dealing with the British Isles, and with the British Empire and Commonwealth. It is the successor to the Royal Historical Society Bibliography of British and Irish History, available online from 2002 to 2009.
Hispanic American Periodical Index (HAPI) This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides access to articles, book reviews, documents, original literary works, and other research materials about Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics in the United States, 1967-present.
1970-present; HAPI is an online source for information about Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics in the United States. Included are complete bibliographic citations to articles, book reviews, documents, original literary works, and other materials appearing in over 400 key scholarly social science and humanities journals published worldwide.
Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
An index to articles, books and dissertations on world history about the 15th century to the-present.
1954-present; article abstracts and citations of books and dissertations on the history of the world from 1450 to the-present. Excludes the U. S. and Canada.
Oxford Bibliographies Online This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Oxford Bibliographies offers exclusive, authoritative research guides across a variety of subject areas.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text access to more than 8,500 full text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals.
Current; scholarly, multidisciplinary full text database, designed for the academic community with more than 8,500 full text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals.