Research Guides: HIST 284: Native North America (HC): Background

Encyclopedias and Handbooks

Subject encyclopedias, handbooks and companions provide overviews of ideas, people, and events They are a quick way to find out the basic facts and current points of debate. When using an article in an encyclopedia or handbook, always check the bibliography for further reading at the end of the article. It will provide a selective list of the books, articles, and, sometimes, primary sources.

American National Biography
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ISBN: 0198606699
Publication Date: 2000-present
Scholarly dictionary of American biography. Useful not only for the up-to-date sketches of peoples' lives but also for the references to further sources.
Oxford African American Studies Center
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Comprehensive collection of scholarship focused on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture. Features articles by top scholars in the field, images, primary sources with specially written commentaries, maps, charts and tables, and biographies.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History by Lynn Dumenil, ed.
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Publication Date: 2012-04-13
Social structures that shaped American life, including family, work, leisure, social movements, and patterns of mobility and settlements, are central to the work, as are themes of race,gender, ethnicity, and class. Sensitive to transnational developments, the volume draws extensively on new literature on slavery, health and disease, sexuality, women's activism, and technology's impact on everyday life.
Bryn Mawr students, please write Margaret Schaus (mschaus@haverford.edu) to have articles sent.
Oxford Handbook of American Indian History by Frederick E. Hoxie (ed.)
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Publication Date: 2016-04-13
"Everything you know about Indians is wrong." As the title of a recent book proclaims, most of what is generally known is the fruit of stereotypes and vague images. This book presents an accurate and comprehensive history of the indigenous peoples who lived-and live-in the territory that became the United States.
The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature by James H. Cox (Editor);
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Publication Date: 2014-08-28
The Handbook's forty-three essays, organized into four sections, cover oral traditions, poetry, drama, non-fiction, fiction, and other forms of Indigenous American writing from the seventeenth through the twenty-first century. The essays take into account the last twenty years of recovery and scholarship, and address the diverse range of texts, secondary archives, writing traditions, literary histories, geographic and political contexts, and critical discourses in the field.
The Oxford Handbook of Slavery in the Americas by Robert L. Paquette (Editor); Mark M. Smith (Editor)
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ISBN: 9780199227990
Publication Date: 2010-09-25
Offers penetrating, original, and authoritative essays on the history and historiography of the institution of slavery in the New World. Includes the chapter "Indian Slavery" by Alan Gallay.

Literature Reviews

Literature reviews are a particularly useful resource when doing research. They address the issues involved in a particular question and the debates among scholars. They map out the intellectual terrain succinctly and give you the major landmarks in terms of key authors and significant titles for greater understanding.

Oxford Bibliographies Online. Atlantic History
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Extensive annotated bibliographies on specific topics in early American history written by scholars in the field. This volume has new entries added twice a year. Essays of interest now available include:
"Art of the Plains Peoples"
"Atlantic Biographies"
"Demography of the Atlantic World"
"The Idea of Race"
"Indigenous Knowledge"
"Land and Property in the Atlantic World"
"Native American Histories in North America"
"Native Americans" In the Cinema and Media Studies Section
"Native Americans and African Americans" In the African American Studies Section
"Native North American Women"
History Compass
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Offers interpretive essays highlighting recent scholarship. Titles of interest among the literature reviews include:
"Death in Early America" (2016)
"Indian Slavery: An Atlantic and Hemispheric Problem" (2016)
"Native–White Intermarriage and Family in 19th‐century North America" (2016)
"Transatlantic Indians in the Early Modern Era" (2016)

Dissertations & Theses
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ProQuest Dissertations and Theses is a collection of scholarly research in the Humanities and Social Sciences that consists of 2.7 million searchable citations to dissertations and theses from around the world, and 1.2 million full-text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. Coverage is from 1861 to the present day.