History 34 : Nazi Germany
Fall 2006
GENERAL SOURCES | ENCYCLOPEDIAS, ATLASES, ETC. | BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND INDEXES | A FEW WORDS ABOUT JOURNAL ARTICLES | WORLD WIDE WEB RESOURCES
GENERAL SOURCES
The Five-College
Library Catalog is a good place to start library research. You can search for books, journals, and moving pictures in all Five Colleges, or you can limit the search to Amherst's holdings. All books are listed by their AUTHORS, TITLES, and SUBJECTS, and you can also search by KEYWORD.
KEYWORD searching is not likely to yield a comprehensive list of books on any particular topic, but it's often a good way to start (use quotation marks around multi-word phrases to invoke exact-phrase searching); you can type in a common language characterization of your topic, say "Nazi Germany", then, if you browse through the resulting list, select titles related to your research interests and examine the FULL VIEW catalog record, and note which official subject headings are assigned, you can click on those and do a more thorough SUBJECT search.
SUBJECT searching as such (i.e. 'Subject begins with') requires that you use the exact word or phrase libraries have chosen to describe your topic. The official subject headings for the topic above, for instance, include "Germany -- Politics and Government -- 1933-1945" and "National Socialism"; for works on the war, try "World War, 1939-1945"; and for books about the Holocaust, see "Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)". Be as specific as you can be, and keep in mind that most major subject headings have detailed sub-divisions, so browse through those as well. The five-volume Library of Congress Subject Headings, near the Reference Desk, is a thesaurus of official library terminology. Ask at the Reference Desk if you're not
sure what words or phrases to use.
For quick background information, try Britannica Online from any computer on campus; just click
on the colored link.
ENCYCLOPEDIAS, ATLASES
Modern Germany: An Encyclopedia of History, People,
and Culture, 1871-1990. New York, Garland, 1998. 2 volumes.
Short articles, many of which have very brief bibliographies,
on broad and narrow subjects, people, places, events, etc. (Ref DD 14
M64 1998)
Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus. Stuttgart,
Klett-Cotta, 1998; 3rd ed.
In two parts: part one has ten- to twenty-page essays on broad
topics, with bibliographies; part two is made up of brief, alphabetically-arranged
entries on people, places etc. (Ref DD 256.5 E59 1998)
The Simon and Schuster Encyclopedia of World War II.
New York, S&S, 1978.
Brief entries on people, places, weaponry, etc., with maps
and photos; no bibliographies. (Ref D 740 S57)
U.S. Army in World War II, Special Studies: Chronology
1941-1945. Washington DC, GPO, 1960.
Day-by-day summaries of military events. (Ref D 769 A533)
The Times Atlas of the Second World War. London,
The Times, 1989.
Detailed, full-colour maps. (Ref G 1038 T6 1989b)
Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. New York, Macmillan,
1990; 4 volumes.
Alphabetically-arranged entries on people, places, topics,
etc., with some maps and photos, and very brief bibliographies. (Ref D
804.3 E53 1990)
Historical Atlas of the Holocaust. New York, Macmillan,
1996.
Maps of Jewish communities, transport routes, extermination
camps, etc. (Ref G 1797.21 E29 H5 1996)
Encyclopedia of European Social History from 1350 to
2000. N.Y., Scribner's, 2001. 6 volumes.
An excellent collection of essays (with short bibliographies)
on major topics in European social history, including historiography,
periods, regions and nations, sociology, gender, religion, etc. (Ref HN
373 E63 2001)
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHIES, INDEXES, AND DATABASES
Subject bibliographies and indexes, which list
books and/or articles on particular topics, can lead you to substantial
reading lists in your area of research; they are useful even when older
and not including citations to current publications; computerized indexes
enable you to update.
The International Bibliography of Historical Sciences (Ref D1 I61), an annual listing of books and articles (the most recently
issued volume covers 1996, so it needs updating) in English, French, German,
etc., is worth checking for most subjects; it's organized by period and
by subject, and may require some browsing to find what you need. Depending
on your research topic, one or more of the following may be useful: The
Nazi Era 1919-1945, A Select Bibliography... (Ref DD 256.5 K44 1982), The Third Reich, 1933-1945 (Ref DD 256.5 S576 1987), German
Foreign Policy 1918-1945 (Ref DD 240 K54 1991), World War II
and its Origins: A Select Annotated Bibliography of Books in English (Ref D 743 B58 1975), Bibliography on Holocaust Literature (Ref D 804.3 E32 1986 + supplement, 1990), Holocaust Literature: A Handbook
of Critical, Historical, and Literary Writings (Ref D 804.3 H6475 1993), Uncertain Judgment: A Bibliography of War Crimes Trials (Ref KZ 1168 L49 1979). To locate topical bibliographies, use the SUBJECT
category in the Library Catalog, guess at KEYWORD(s), and/or ask at the
Reference Desk.
Online indexes are computerized listings of journal articles
and/or books, searchable, usually, by authors, titles, keywords, subjects,
dates, etc. Among several potentially useful indexes available by clicking
here are Historical Abstracts and Expanded Academic Index. The latter, while more general in
its coverage and therefore significantly more selective than the former,
has the advantage of including many electronic, full-text articles.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT JOURNAL ARTICLES
Printed and computerized indexes and bibliographies provide citations to articles which may or may not be owned by the Amherst College Library. To find out if and where we have older issues of journals, you must look up each journal title (not article titles or authors) in the Library Catalog (use the JOURNAL TITLE KEYWORD search, with quotation marks around a multi-word title). Be attentive to volume numbers and dates which show up onscreen since sometimes we've started or stopped a subscription in the middle of a run. Some older volumes of journals may be housed in the Amherst College Depository, an off-campus storage facility. You can request volumes from the Depository by filling out a form which pops up when you select 'Requests' from the left side of the Library homepage, then 'Depository'. The 'Journal Locato'r (in the gray box above, right) is the handiest tool for tracking down electronic versions of journals we subscribe to.
WORLD WIDE WEB RESOURCES
A Google search using "Nazi Germany" yields over seven million results.
It's more efficient to use what are called metasites - sites which compile relevant links - provided the selection is worthwhile. Click on 'Subject and Course Guides' in the Library homepage, then try 'History' and 'German'.
Always remember that the World Wide Web, unlike the Library, is largely un-refereed, that is, the information mounted may or may not be legitimate. Be skeptical, and read critically. Who's responsible for the site? What are their sources of information? When was the site produced? Does it seem to be regularly maintained?
Comments regarding this page should be directed to: Michael Kasper