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United States History: Finding Journal Articles

Choosing a Database

The Duke University Libraries offer hundreds of periodical and newspapers indexes, both in print and electronic format.  Below is a selected list of online databases which can be useful for finding secondary literature.  Note: These databases are restricted to Duke users.

Journal Articles

America: History and Life (1954 to present) The first database you should consult to identify secondary literature in the field of U.S. history. It abstracts articles and provides bibliographic citations to reviews and dissertations on the history and culture of the US and Canada from prehistoric times to the present.

Web of Science indexes thousands of academic journals.  The hallmark of this database is its cited reference searching.  This allows the user to identify other authors that have cited a particular journal article or book.  Date coverage for social sciences titles is 1956 to present; humanities titles are indexed from 1975 to present.

JSTOR provides full-text access to thousands of articles from archived academic journals.  Date coverage varies by individual journal title, but a typical coverage range is from the beginning of the journal until 5 years ago.

Project Muse provides access to journal articles in the humanities and social sciences.

PAIS indexes articles, government documents, and grey literature related to international politics and public policy. Coverage 1914 to present.