History of Western Civilization I, II

Welcome to the research guide for your course in the History of Western Civilization I, II.  The suggested electronic resources are available linked from here and from the Electronic Resources section of the library home page.  Print resources are available in the PHC on-campus collection or by mail to distance learning members of the PHC community.  You may check out the location and availability of an item in the on-campus collection through the online catalog, Voyager, accessed here and through the menu on the left.

Professional library assistance is available on campus, by phone at 540-441-8400, or by email at askalibrarian@phc.edu .

 

Reference Works

Oxford Classical Dicitionary at Ref D 5 .O9 2003 is a great place to gain an overview of your topic and identify possible search terms.

Decline of the Ancient World, by A. H. M. Jones. DG 311 .J62 1966.

Encyclopedia of World History, published in 2000. Ref D 21 .E577 2000.

Milestone Documents in World History, published in 2010, explores primary source documents that shaped the world.  Ref D 5 .M55 2010.

Making of Late Antiquity, by Peter Brown, offers a comprehensive view into the Roman world of the second, third, and fourth centuries. DG 312 .B76.

New Cambridge Medieval History, vols. 1-7, is an authoritative and comprehensive resource that begins in the closing days of the late Roman World and continues through the late 1400's.  D 117 .N48 1995.

Sketches of the History of Man, vols. 1-3, by Henry Home, Lord Kames, is part of the Natural Law and Enlightenment series. CB 25 .K3 2007.

Story of Civilization, vols. 1-11, by Will Durant, (c) 1963, opens with the early civilizations in the Near East and continues through 19th century Napoleanic Wars is available at CB 53 .D85 1992.

Full text documents of Epic of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and Machiavelli's The Prince are available in the library's collection and online at eBooks.  

 The Loeb Library found in the PA section of the library's collection is the easiest place to find English translations of primary source documents from ancient Greek and Latin.

 

Databases

Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800
Millions of images of documents and books printed in America between Jamestown and 1800.

Early English Books Online
Full-text of books printed in English from 1473-1700.

JSTOR provides access to articles from over 240 scholarly journals in a wide variety of disciplines, although acquisitions are subject to a moving inclusion date with the result that most articles are 5 years old or older, which is usually not a problem in history research, but may be a problem if more current research is needed.

Milestone Documents of World History
This database provides access to 125 iconic primary source documents along with in-depth analytical essays. The primary sources are pulled from all time periods and geographic locations.

Original Sources - World History  access an extensive collection of primary source documents in a variety of disciplines.

ProQuest  has an extensive collection of current articles from scholarly journal articles and newspapers.  The site is easy to navigate and allows users to limit searches to provide focused results.  The site also suggests alternative subject terms to use if a broader or narrower search is required. 

 

Internet

Avalon Project provides access to the Yale University site containing a variety of primary source documents in the area of history, law, politics, diplomacy, and government.

BBC Ancient History  access the BBC archives on the topics of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Viking history and British pre-history.

Labyrinth provides access to a collection of Georgetown University maintained resources for medieval studies.

NYPL Digital Library provides access to an extensive array of visual information from images of Greek pottery to great works of medieval art to illuminated medieval manuscripts. 

Euro Docs connects to online primary source documents - transcriptions, translations, and facsimiles in European history.

 

Subjects

Civilization, Classical--History

Civilization, Western--History

Civilization, Western--History--Sources

 

Research tips 

• Search by subject: Once you have located one item in the catalog, you may click on the search term within the record to find other items on the same or similar, subjects.
• Once you locate an appropriate resource, potential valuable resources may be listed in the item's bibliography. 
• Use JSTOR and LexisNexi Academic to locate  articles on a particular subject.
• Interlibrary loan (ILL):  If you are unable to locate an item in the PHC online or on-campus collection, you may request resources through Interlibrary loan.  ILL requests may be made directly into the library database WorldCat.  If you have difficulty requesting an ILL in WorldCat, you may use the form on the website or request assistance from any of the library staff.
• Loudoun County Public Library's Purcellville Branch is available to students offering a variety of potentially valuable resources.  A library card may be obtained by presenting your PHC library card and their catalog is available online, as well as the option to request items.

Turabian is the approved citation format for this course.  Information on proper Turabian citation is available in the PHC collection, Chicago manual of style, at Ref Z 253 .U69 2003 or online at several sites, such as OWL (Online Writing Lab).  

Created 2010 Thornhill. Revised 2011 Favelo/Thornhill. Reviewed 2012 Favelo