HIST 20103: History of the American People, 1877 to Present

Books, articles, and other library resources for students in U.S. History II

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Finding History by Place and Period

Search for books by geographic place, history, time period. Depending on the topics covered by a book, subject headings can be very broad or very specific.   Examples:

  • united states--history--1865-
  • united states--history--20th century
  • united states--history--1919-1933
  • san francisco, calif--history--20th century

You may find subjects for more specific topics:

  • vietnam war, 1861-1975
  • feminism--united states--history
  • protest movements--united states--history
  • black power--united states--history
  • hippies united states

Keyword vs. Subject

Boolean connectors

Keywords--terms that can appear anywhere in a record--are the quick and easy way to search.
Using keywords, you can combine multiple ideas, or locate specific essays inside collective works.

Connectors: Use "and" or "or" to specify multiple words in any field, any order. Use "and not" to exclude words. Examples:

  • china and japan
  • china or japan
  • asia and not "asia minor"

Wildcards: Words may be right-hand truncated using an asterisk or question mark:

  • * for any number of characters
  • ? to replace a single character anywhere within a word

    Examples : theat*, wom?n

    Adjacency: "And" is assumed between words. Place phrases in quotes. Example:

    "ottoman empire"

    Subject Headings--terms applied by catalogers or indexers--describe the content of the item. Often, subject headings are divided by geographic place, by time period, by ethnic group, or other aspects. Subject headings are searched as phrases.


    Using subject headings will pull together related records with terminology you may have not considered in your keyword search.

    Examples:

    keywords Subject Headings
    colombian exchange america--discovery and exploration
    mughul india mogul empire
    athenian democracy greece--politics and government--to 146 B.C.