InfoGuides: Core Sources in Asian History: Find Secondary Sources

Core Tools

The gold standard of historical scholarship remains the monograph. Books about a single subject published by university presses are typically the culmination of years of scholarship on a topic. Use library catalogs to find these materials.

University Libraries Catalog: Search for books, journals, and media available at the Mason Libraries.
WRLC Catalog: Search for books, journals, and media in research libraries in the Washington, DC area.
Library of Congress Catalog: Search the collections at the Library of Congress.
WorldCat: Search for books and media in libraries around the world.
CRL: Search for newspapers, journals, documents, and archives of the Center for Research Libraries. Mason is a member of this International Consortium of Research Libraries which provides access to a host of research collections via ILL and some online sources.

Selected Specialized Resources

Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
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Provides English language abstracts of scholarly literature from 1955 to present (journal articles, articles in collections, dissertations, book reviews) on world history from 1450, excluding North America. Note: with full-text links to 420,000 journals.
Tutorial for the Historical Abstracts database.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is a collection of core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences digitized in most cases back to the first date of issue. Includes selected books, primary sources and other materials for academic work.
Tutorial for the JSTOR database.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
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Provides digital humanities and social science content for the scholarly community. Offers full-text versions of scholarly journals and books from many of the world's university presses and scholarly societies. Tutorial for the Project MUSE database.
Essay and General Literature Index This link opens in a new window
Citations to essays and articles in collections of essays in the humanities and social sciences. View a tutorial on this database here.
Essay and General Literature Index Retrospective This link opens in a new window
Cites essays, articles and miscellaneous works published in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Covers 8 Centuries (1900-1984) of essays, annuals and serial publications from the 20th Century. Tutorial for the Essay and General Literature Index Retrospective database.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
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Provides full-text, peer-reviewed journals, as well as indexing and abstracts for monographs, reports, and conference proceedings. Features content going back as far as 1887. Tutorial for the Academic Search Complete database.

Arts & Humanities Citation Index This link opens in a new window
Indexes more than 1,700 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals and selected items from over 250 scientific and social sciences journals from 1975 to the present. Part of Web of Science. Use the dropdown editor labeled "Editions" to select Arts & Humanities Citation Index in the search box.
Tutorial for the Arts & Humanities Citation Index database.
Web of Science: Core Collection This link opens in a new window
Contains citations and searchable author abstracts, covering scholarly literature in journals, books and conference proceedings. Includes: Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Book Citation Index, Conference Proceedings Citation Index, Current Chemical Reactions, Index Chemicus, and Emerging Sources Citation Index. Additional resources available by selecting from the dropdown list next to the Core Collection heading. Tutorial for the Web of Science: Core Collection database.

Chicago Manual of Style Online This link opens in a new window
Latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, with access to previous edition.
Tutorial for the Chicago Manual of Style Online database.
Economist Intelligence Unit Country Information This link opens in a new window
Extensive country information from various Economist Intelligence Unit publications, covering most countries and including politics, economics, business, markets and data. Publications include Country Report, Country Profile, Country Monitor, and Business Newsletters.
Tutorial for the Economist Intelligence Unit Country Information database.
Gale Virtual Reference Library This link opens in a new window
Collects full-text encyclopedias, handbooks, and other sources for multidisciplinary research. Includes format features such as article translation available in 20+ languages, audio streaming, and MP3 file downloads.
Oxford Bibliographies Online This link opens in a new window
Offers exclusive, authoritative research guides developed by scholars and librarians worldwide to address a variety of subjects, including African Studies, Anthropology, Atlantic History, Cinema and Media Studies, Classics, Criminology, Education, International Law, International Relations, Latin American Studies, Management, Music, Political Science, and Sociology. Tutorial for the Oxford Bibliographies Online database.
Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 300 Oxford University Press dictionaries and reference works. Texts are updated after new editions of the print book are published. Tutorial for the Oxford Reference database.
Statesman's Yearbook This link opens in a new window
Provides concise geographic, historical, economic, political, social and cultural overviews of each country in the world; and biographical profiles of current and key past leaders. The complete archive, from 1864 to present, is included. Features major international organizations and a tool for easy comparison of a wide range of data fields across all countries of the world. Tutorial for the Statesman's Yearbook database.