History

Reference books are helpful starting places if you need:

1. An overview of topic, person, place, or event.
2. To browse for topic ideas.
3. Help with focusing or narrowing your topic.
4. A list of core resources for your topic. Many reference books provide a short bibliography and/or suggested scholarly readings. These readings usually represent the best scholarship for the topic at hand up to the time the reference work was published.

Use reference sources to gain background (and sometimes specific) knowledge on a topic and to quickly identify core scholarly resources on a topic. Below is a list of selected reference sources. Find others in Knox Primo by doing a keyword search for your topic and using terms such as "encyclopedia" or "dictionary" or "handbook." 

• Culture Wars in America: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices
• Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History
• Dictionary of American History -- REF E 174 D52
• Encyclopedia of African history
• Encyclopedia of American Social History -- HN 57 E58
• Encyclopedia of American Studies -- E169.1 E625
• Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History -- REF E 185 E54
• Encyclopedia of Colonial Latin America (1550s to 1820s)
• Encyclopedia of Early Modern Latin America (1820s to 1900)
• Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
• The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
• The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History
• The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History
• The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History
• Women in World History -- REF HQ 1115 W6