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Bala Cynwyd Middle School: Researching Leaders in History: Using Journal Articles

Finding Journal and Newspaper Articles

Journal articles provide scholarly information on specific aspects of topics.  They give focused and frequently up-to-date analyses of the leaders you are studying. The following indexes are the best ways for you to identify journal articles related to your interests.

Examples of Journal Articles

Napoleon: Saint, Sinner or Both?

Gildea, Robert.  History Today 63, 11 (Nov. 2013): 58. 

AbstractGildea examines the enduring and divisive debate surrounding the reputation of the French emperor who anticipated the best and the worst of the 20th century. Seventy years ago, interned by the Germans in Buchenwald concentration camp, the Dutch professor Peter Geyl tried out on the inmates his view that the place of Napoleon in history should be reconsidered in the light of Hitler's tyranny. Although Napoleon was not the author of genocide and was wedded to equality and the rights of man, Geyl nevertheless thought that Napoleon was responsible for murder and massacre on a grand scale.

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Rabin's Assassin Inadvertently Strengthened Desire for Peace

Marshall, Rachelle.  Washington Report on Middle East Affairs 6 (Jan 31, 1996): 7.

Abstract:  By Nov. 4 the Rabin government appeared reluctant to implement even the minimal concessions called for in the Oslo agreements, and Congress seemed determined to scuttle the agreements entirely. Rabin's death on that day brought about a dramatic change of course--at least for the time being. One of the most shocking events in Israel's history--the killing of a Jewish leader by another Jew--had consequences almost directly contrary to what the right-wing assassin intended. A poll taken on Nov. 6 by the newspaper Yediot Ahronot found that 74 percent of Israelis now favored making peace with the Palestinians. On Sept. 28 they had been evenly split on the issue. Within the week, Congress voted to lift the suspension of U.S. aid to the Palestinians and to allow the PLO office to reopen. Hard-liners reversed themselves, one congressman said, in order to show support for "Rabin's legacy of peace."

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Bella Abzug

Bosworth, Patricia.  Nation 277, 3 (July 21, 2003- July 28, 2003): 20-21.

Abstract:  The article profiles Bella Abzug, the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress on a women's rights/peace platform. Abzug wanted to be a lawyer and was then on scholarship at Columbia Law School in 1944. That was also the time she met her husband, Martin. She served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977. She was considered an expert in parliamentary law and was the first member of Congress to call for the impeachment of U.S. President Richard Nixon. Abzug also introduced pioneering bills on childcare, family planning and abortion rights.

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