Library Services

Book Reviews for History
Research Guide

Online Databases | Reference Materials | Web Resources

Online Databases
Major Databases

Book Review Digest
Indexes book reviews appearing in many journals back to 1983. There is a print equivalent in Reference for years prior to 1983. See Reference Sources in this guide.

America: History and Life
Indexes history journals back to 1964. Use the Advanced Search screen, type keywords from the book title or author name and check the box: Limit to Book Reviews.

JSTOR 
Search the History collection in JSTOR which has full-text of 15 history journals with varying retrospective coverage, for example American Historical Review is available back to 1895. Use the Advanced search feature to narrow a search to article Type=review.

SocINDEX with Full Text
Covers journals in sociology but also in social history, political science, and racial and ethnic relations, some back to 1895. Use Advanced Search screen to limit search to Document Type=Book Review.

Florida Heritage Collection
Digitized materials broadly representing Florida's history, culture, arts, literature, sciences and social sciences. Contains many full-text book reviews, including those appearing in the Florida Historical Review. Search to see a list of reviews, or search by keywords in the book title or author name.

Multidisciplinary Databases

Academic Search Complete  (EbscoHost)
Indexes over 4,650 publications covering many disciplines, some back to 1975. Use the Advanced Search screen to limit searches by document Type=Book Review.

Proquest Research Library
multidisciplinary database indexing over 2600 journals back to 1971; includes many full-text journals. Use the Advanced Search feature, click on More Options, then limit search to Document Type=Review, Book Reviews.

Proquest Newspapers
Index and full-text of many US. Newspapers, back to the 1980's and 1990's. Major papers such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and L.A. Times can be searched separately. Using the Advanced Search Screen, click on "More Options" to limit searches to Document Type=Reviews, Book Reviews.

Expanded Academic ASAP
Indexes and absracts over 3300 periodicals beginning in 1980. Covers most academic disciplines.

Social Sciences Full Text
Beginning in 1983, an index of approximately 350 journals in the applied and theoretical social sciences, mainly anthropology, economics, geography, law and criminology, political science, social work, sociology, and international relations. Includes full-text of most articles. Use the drop-down menu for Document Type=Book Review when searching book titles, or authors, in the search boxes.

LexisNexis Academic
Indexing and abstracts for major U.S. newspapers, found under U. S. News, including the New York Times back to 1969. From 1980 to the present,many of the newspapers are provided in full text.

OmniFile (Wilson)
"This multi-disciplinary database ...[combines] six of Wilson's full-text databases ... on WilsonWeb. Indexing begins in 1982, abstracts in 1984, and full-text coverage in 1994. Full text from over 1,700 journals; indexing/abstracts from over 3,000. "

American Periodical Series Online 1740-1900
Provides indexing and full-text of approximately 1100 older periodicals. To search for reviews, choose Search for Articles, then an Advanced Search screen. Click on More Search Options and select Document Type=Review as the book title is searched using the search boxes.

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Reference Materials

Indexes

H. W. Wilson Co. (1905-1990, 1998-2003). Book Review Digest..
REF Z1219 .C96

Gale Research Co. (1965-2004). Book Review Index..
REF Z1035 .A1 B6

Index to Book Reviews in the Humanities (1961-1964, 1966-1990). Index to Book Reviews in the Humanities.
REF Z1035 .A1 I5

National Library Service (v. 1-6) Cumulative Book Review Index .1905-1974.
REF Z1035 . A1 N35 1975

New York Times Co. (1851-1869, 1890-2003 - a few years missing). New York Times Index.
REF AI 21 .N44

London Times (1997 -). Times Index...
REF AI 21 .T46

Institute for Scientific Information (1956-1990). Social Sciences Citation Index. (Citation Index volumes). Philadelphia: ISI.
REF Z 7161 .S65

Web Resources

Sources for History Related Book Reviews

The History Journals Guide.
http://www.history-journals.de/reviews/index.html
Online Reviews Index "aims to provide links to reviews and conference reports published in history e-journals or distributed by mailing lists. At the moment, it indexes ca. 160 periodicals and lists."

H-Net Reviews
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/
A free source of scholarly reviews in the humanities and social sciences, searchable via title, author or keywords. Information about the reviewer is included.

HistoryNet
http://www.historynet.com/reviews
Online reviews from Primemedia's History magazines (American Civil War, American History, Aviation History, British Heritage, Civil War Times, MHQ, Vietnam, Wild West, World War II.)

Reviews in History
http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper
An e-journal begun in 1996, publishing reviews on "significant works in all fields of historical interest." Editorial board and most scholars from British universities.

General Book Review Sources

New York Review of Books
http://www.nybooks.com/nyrb/

New York Times Book Review
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/review/index.html
Book reviews since 1996. (See Index to New York Times in print, and New York Times on microfilm for prior years.)

San Francisco Chronicle Book Reviews
http://www.sfgate.com/eguide/books/bookreview/
Book reviews in the Sunday Book Reviews section since 1995.

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