Historiography

General reference works

• A companion to Western historical thought [electronic resource]. Edited by Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza. Oxford : Blackwell, 2006. See "Blackwell Reference Online" below.
• Historiography : ancient, medieval, & modern. Ernst Breisach. 3rd ed. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2007.
  Firestone D13 .B686 2007
• Encyclopedia of historians and historical writing. Editor, Kelly Boyd. London; Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999.
  History Graduate Study Room (SH). Firestone C-Fl D14 .E529 1999
  This massive two-volume encyclopedia has authoritative articles on historians, the historiography of particular times and places, and approaches to the writing of history. There is good coverage of world history, as well as U.S. and European history. Suggestions for further reading are brief, but helpful.
• Blackwell dictionary of historians. Edited by John Cannon. New York: Blackwell, 1988.
  General and Humanities Reference (DR). Firestone D14 .B58 1988
  Outdated and Euro-centric, but still handy for the period before 1980.
• American Historical Association’s guide to historical literature. General editor, Mary Beth Norton; associate editor, Pamela Gerardi. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
  General and Humanities Ref. (DR): Ready Reference. Z6201 .A55 1995
  The essential guide to reading on virtually any topic in history. Must now be supplemented by searching for works published about the early 1990s.
• The study of history: a bibliographical guide. Compiled by R.C. Richardson. 2nd ed. Manchester [England]; New York: Manchester University Press, 2000.
  History Graduate Study Room (SH). Firestone C-Fl D13 .R44 2000
  Well-organized and selective guide to books and articles on historiography. The section on the various approaches taken by historians in the 20th century is especially useful.
• The Routledge companion to historical studies. Alun Munslow. 2nd ed. London; New York: Routledge, 2006.
  History Graduate Study Room (SH). Firestone C-Fl D13 .M47 2006
  A guide to the new approaches to history of the late 20th century. Arranged alphabetically. Very helpful for explaining the jargon of the new history. Good bibliographies, unfortunately presented in abbreviated lists with each article.
• Dictionary of concepts in history. Harry Ritter. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, c1986.
  General and Humanities Reference (DR). Firestone D13 .R49 1986
  Now outdated, but solid up through about 1980, and more readable than the above.

United States history

• United States history: a bibliography of the new writings on American history. Compiled by Louise A. Merriam and James W. Oberly. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press; New York, NY.
  History Graduate Study Room (SH). Firestone C-Fl Z1236 .M47 1995
• The state of U.S. history. Edited by Melvyn Stokes. Oxford; New York: Berg, 2002.
  History Graduate Study Room (SH). Firestone C-Fl E175 .S73 2002
• Reader’s guide to American history. Editor, Peter J. Parish. London; Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.
  History Graduate Study Room (SH). Firestone C-Fl Z1236 .R43 1997
  Essays that describe the major work by historians on a topic and, in the process, provide a good introduction to the historiography. Particularly useful to the student trying to decide what to read first.

Historiographic essays and journal articles

• History Compass
  An online journal devoted to review articles on a wide variety of topics in history.
• Annual bulletin of historical literature
  History Graduate Study Room 0431.464 and online
• Blackwell "Companions"
  Blackwell publishes a very useful series of books of historiographic essays on many topics in history. They are available online through Blackwell Reference Online.
  Note: to find print copies of the Blackwell Companions, do a keyword search in the Main Catalog for " Blackwell companions to history," "Blackwell companions to American history," " Blackwell companions to British history," " Blackwell companions to world history," or " Blackwell companions to European history " to see if there is a volume in this series that covers your topic. Some copies circulate, and others are in the History Graduate Study Room on C floor.
• America: History & Life and Historical Abstracts
  In both of these bibliographic databases, "historiography" is a Subject. For example, in AHL, to find historiography on the American Civil war, do a Subject search for:
  civil war historiography

Historiography in the Main Catalog

When you are searching the Main Catalog for books on your topic, "historiography" is a useful keyword, because it is used in Library of Congress Subject Headings. For example:

• Historiography--Great Britain.
• United States --Politics and government --1783-1865 --Historiography.
• World War, 1914-1918 --Historiography.
• Europe--Historiography.

A few final thoughts

Most doctoral dissertations in history begin with a discussion of previous work on whatever the topic may be, so it may be helpful to search Dissertation Abstracts (ProQuest Digital Dissertations) for a recent dissertation on your topic. In general, dissertations written after 1995 will be available in full text.

A good textbook or introduction to a topic may have a bibliographic essay -- sometimes at the back, under the title "Further Reading." When well done, this can be extremely helpful in getting oriented to the literature on your topic.