History

Information sources

Databases

Find articles relevant to your subject by searching databases.

Look at the guides to get the most from each database.

These databases are available for use by Leeds staff and students both on and off-site within the terms of the license agreements. Off-site users will need to login using their Leeds username and password.

You can also see a complete list of databases for History

Key databases


Africabib An open access database covering African studies publications on a wide range of topics. It consists of the following seven databases: Africana Periodical Literature; African Women; Women Travellers to Africa; Islam in Africa; Kenya Coast; Water and Africa; Education in Africa.
America: History and Life This database allows you to search for journal articles on all periods of the history of the United States and Canada. It is useful for History, sociology and Politics and is updated monthly. It allows Boolean and advanced searching. Guide to using America: History and Life
ATLA Religion Allows you to search for journal articles in theology and religious studies. It provides information on topics such as biblical studies, world religions, church history, and religion in social issues. Coverage spans from 1949 to the present. There are no full text articles on ATLA, so check the Library catalogue to see if the Library has the article you want. Guide to using ATLA Religion
Avalon Project This project from Yale University Law School gives access to a full text collection of documents available on the web relating to world history. It has a U.S. focus (including relations with other nations) with some non U.S. documents. Most documents date from 18th century to present, but some pre 18th century documents are included. It also includes a section on 20th century history, or you can explore the section called “Document Collections” for relevant material.
Black Women Radicals Database The Black Women Radicals Database (BWRD) is a database of historical and transnational Black women activists and leaders. BWRD seeks to overcome the erasure of Black women’s political leadership, organising, theorizing, and socio-political movement building in Africa and in the African Diaspora.
Box of Broadcasts BoB (Box of Broadcasts) National is a shared online off-air TV and radio recording service for UK higher and further education institutions. It enables you to choose and record any broadcast programme from 60+ TV and radio channels. The recorded programmes are then kept indefinitely and added to a growing media archive (currently at over 1 million programmes), with all content shared by users across all subscribing institutions.
Bridgeman Education Bridgeman Education is a complete visual resource offering over 1,000,000 digital images of art, history and culture from global museums, galleries, private collections and contemporary artists all copyright cleared for educational use. Due to technical limitations, Bridgeman Education is only available on campus, or through Desktop Anywhere. Guide to using Bridgeman Education
British Newspapers 1600-1950 An extensive collection of newspapers from across the British Isles, and the British Empire. Enables the discovery of primary source documents through the use of multiple search options and powerful research tools.
Chinese Film and Newsreel Scripts from the Cultural Revolution The collection of film advertisements and transcripts of Chinese documentary films and newsreels is made up of around 1750 items. It spans the years 1946 to 1985, although the bulk of the items in the collection are transcripts for the documentary films and newsreels from the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976. All documents in the collection are in Chinese
Dimensions Dimensions is the world’s largest linked-research database, covering articles, grants, patents, clinical trials, datasets, policy documents and technical reports. It also provides research metrics. There is a free version open to all, or a subscription version. You must register for an account with your Leeds email address to get full access, from a computer within the University’s IP range or through the virtual desktop. Once you are registered, you can access the database from off-campus. If you are a student, you can put “student” in the job title field. Guide to using Dimensions
Early English Books Online Almost all subjects are covered: English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, and science. Contains digital page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473 to 1700, beginning with the first book printed in English by William Caxton. Contains about 100,000 of over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection and the Early English Books Tract Supplement. Search or read the full text, and view page images and any illustrative content. This database is updated quarterly. Guide to using Early English Books Online
Early European Books Early European Books traces the history of printing in Europe from its origins through to the end of the seventeenth century, offering full colour, high resolution facsimile images of rare and hard to access printed sources to 1700. The project to create this database is working in partnership with five national Libraries to digitise their curated collections from this period. Guide to using Early European Books
Eighteenth Century Collections Online This database, which contains over 180,000 titles, allows you to search or read the full text of books, pamphlets, essays or broadsides printed in the UK or the Americas between 1701 and 1800, on any topic. Works included are primarily in English but some foreign language material printed in England is also present. As well as searching the text you can view page images and illustrative content. The database is updated annually. Guide to using Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Erudit Erudit gives free access to French-language resources in the social sciences and humanities from the North American region. It indexes journal articles, books and proceedings, theses and dissertations, and research reports.
EuroDocs This gives access to European primary source documents freely available on the web. The site is divided by country, and within each country you can browse material by period. In addition you will find video or sound files, maps, photographs or other imagery, databases, and other documentation.
Handbook of Latin American Studies Search for details of books, book chapters, conference papers and articles in Latin American studies. The database is multilingual and covers the fields of anthropology, archaeology, genealogy, art, economics, geography, government and politics, international relations, literature, music, philosophy, and sociology. The database is updated weekly with coverage starting from 1936. Physical copies are located in the Brotherton Library. Guide to using Handbook of Latin American Studies
Historical Abstracts Search for journal articles on world history, dating from 1450. The database America: History and Life is included within Historical Abstracts, so you can choose to include or exclude the history of North America from your search, or to limit your search to articles on North American history. Arranged in 2 parts: Historical abstracts: Part A. Modern history abstracts; and, Historical abstracts: Part B. Twentieth century abstracts. Updated quarterly. Guide to using Historical Abstracts
History E-book Project Gives access to the full text of many books that are of major importance to historical studies. You can search by keyword (including Boolean and proximity) or by browsing (title, author and subject) across the collection. Accompanying the full text of each monograph are the table of contents and reviews. Guide to using History E-book Project
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Fully searchable, indexed House of Commons bills, papers and command papers from 1688-2012. There is also some supplementary material from 1688. There will be regular releases of papers from current sessions of Parliament or a huge collection of everything placed before the House of Commons from 1688-2008/09. The papers have been scanned, and the full text can be searched. Guide to using House of Commons Parliamentary Papers
International Medieval Bibliography The International Medieval Bibliography (IMB), established in 1967, is the leading interdisciplinary bibliography of the Middle Ages. It contains journal articles in History and Medieval Studies. The IMB is produced by an editorial team at the University of Leeds and some 30 contributors worldwide. It covers periodical literature and miscellany volumes published in Europe, North America, Australasia, Brazil, Japan and South Africa. The database is updated quarterly. Guide to using International Medieval Bibliography
J-Stage J-STAGE is an electronic journal platform for STEM information in Japan, developed and managed by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). J-STAGE supports Japanese societies and research organisations, and has published more than 3,000 journals, conference proceedings and other academic publications.
JSTOR JSTOR provides access to more than 10 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines including Art and Art History, Performing Arts, Architecture and Music. Guide to using JSTOR
L'Année Philologique Search for modern editions of ancient texts, journal articles and conference proceedings on classical authors and the classical world. The database is updated annually. There is a limit to the number of simultaneous users.
Library of Latin Texts Online This is a database of Christian Latin Texts, including the Corpus Christianorum editions, supplemented by other texts. This database allows you to search for the full text of works by early Christian authors and to search within these texts. It is useful for Theology and Religious Studies, History, Classics and Medieval Studies. Coverage from Classical Antiquity to 1965. This database is updated at irregular intervals. Guide to using Library of Latin Texts Online
Making of the Modern World This database covers 1450 to 1850 and provides digital facsimile images of 61,000 works on economics, business and trade, giving insights into the economic, social and political conditions of the time. Full text searching is available across this collection. Guide to using Making of the Modern World
News on Screen Search 20th century news through over 185,000 cinemagazine & newsreel stories linked to production documents & films. It would be useful for History and Communications Studies. This database is no longer updated and covers 1910-1983.
Nineteenth Century Collections Online Nineteenth Century Collections Online contains primary source collections of the nineteenth century. It consists of monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, photographs, statistics, and other kinds of documents in both Western and non-Western languages. Four modules are available at Leeds: Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange; British Politics and Society; British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture; and European Literature, 1790-1840: The Corvey Collection.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Search for full text biographies of all notable deceased public figures who have influenced British history and culture. Useful for any subject. The database is updated three times a year. The printed volumes of all editions and supplemental volumes are shelved in the Brotherton Library General Reference Collection. Guide to using Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Project MUSE Project MUSE is a platform for digital humanities and social sciences journals and e-books from a number of scholarly publishers. It also includes open access content.
Scopus Scopus is a large abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature from more than 18,500 journals and quality web sources, with smart tools to track, analyse and visualize research. Coverage starts from 1823. Guide to using Scopus
Times Digital Archive Search the complete digital edition of The Times (London), from 1785-1985, using keyword searching and hit-term highlighting to retrieve full facsimile images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to facilitate searching. Guide to using Times Digital Archive
Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2009 The only literary weekly to offer comprehensive coverage of the latest and most important publications, in every subject, in several languages as well as reviewing current theatre, cinema, music, and exhibitions. This resource is potentially useful for students and researchers of English literature and other humanities or social science subjects, and anyone needing to find out more about the reception of a 20th century literary or artistic work when it first appeared. It enables you to track the views of influential opinion makers and the controversies of the day or explore in depth the literary activity of the last 100 years. More than 250,000 reviews, letters, poems and articles are available, with full page images. Guide to using Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2009
Visualising China The site offers researchers free open access to major online collections such as Historical Photographs of China (University of Bristol), the Sir Robert Hart Collection (Queen’s University, Belfast) and Joseph Needham’s Photographs of Wartime China (Needham Research Institute, Cambridge), as well as to previously unseen and private collections and a selected Google Books library of China related publications. Coverage from 1850 to 1950.
Web of Science Search for journal articles using three databases; Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index and Arts and Humanities Citation Index. A current awareness service provides citation alerts for newly added journal articles. Each database is updated weekly. Guide to using Web of Science

Africabib

An open access database covering African studies publications on a wide range of topics. It consists of the following seven databases: Africana Periodical Literature; African Women; Women Travellers to Africa; Islam in Africa; Kenya Coast; Water and Africa; Education in Africa.

America: History and Life

This database allows you to search for journal articles on all periods of the history of the United States and Canada. It is useful for History, sociology and Politics and is updated monthly. It allows Boolean and advanced searching.

Guide to using America: History and Life

ATLA Religion

Allows you to search for journal articles in theology and religious studies. It provides information on topics such as biblical studies, world religions, church history, and religion in social issues. Coverage spans from 1949 to the present. There are no full text articles on ATLA, so check the Library catalogue to see if the Library has the article you want.

Guide to using ATLA Religion

Avalon Project

This project from Yale University Law School gives access to a full text collection of documents available on the web relating to world history. It has a U.S. focus (including relations with other nations) with some non U.S. documents. Most documents date from 18th century to present, but some pre 18th century documents are included. It also includes a section on 20th century history, or you can explore the section called “Document Collections” for relevant material.

Black Women Radicals Database

The Black Women Radicals Database (BWRD) is a database of historical and transnational Black women activists and leaders. BWRD seeks to overcome the erasure of Black women’s political leadership, organising, theorizing, and socio-political movement building in Africa and in the African Diaspora.

Box of Broadcasts

BoB (Box of Broadcasts) National is a shared online off-air TV and radio recording service for UK higher and further education institutions. It enables you to choose and record any broadcast programme from 60+ TV and radio channels. The recorded programmes are then kept indefinitely and added to a growing media archive (currently at over 1 million programmes), with all content shared by users across all subscribing institutions.

Bridgeman Education

Bridgeman Education is a complete visual resource offering over 1,000,000 digital images of art, history and culture from global museums, galleries, private collections and contemporary artists all copyright cleared for educational use. Due to technical limitations, Bridgeman Education is only available on campus, or through Desktop Anywhere.

Guide to using Bridgeman Education

British Newspapers 1600-1950

An extensive collection of newspapers from across the British Isles, and the British Empire. Enables the discovery of primary source documents through the use of multiple search options and powerful research tools.

Chinese Film and Newsreel Scripts from the Cultural Revolution

The collection of film advertisements and transcripts of Chinese documentary films and newsreels is made up of around 1750 items. It spans the years 1946 to 1985, although the bulk of the items in the collection are transcripts for the documentary films and newsreels from the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976. All documents in the collection are in Chinese

Dimensions

Dimensions is the world’s largest linked-research database, covering articles, grants, patents, clinical trials, datasets, policy documents and technical reports. It also provides research metrics. There is a free version open to all, or a subscription version.

You must register for an account with your Leeds email address to get full access, from a computer within the University’s IP range or through the virtual desktop. Once you are registered, you can access the database from off-campus. If you are a student, you can put “student” in the job title field.

Guide to using Dimensions

Early English Books Online

Almost all subjects are covered: English literature, history, philosophy, linguistics, theology, music, fine arts, education, mathematics, and science. Contains digital page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473 to 1700, beginning with the first book printed in English by William Caxton. Contains about 100,000 of over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640) and Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700) and their revised editions, as well as the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661) collection and the Early English Books Tract Supplement. Search or read the full text, and view page images and any illustrative content. This database is updated quarterly.

Guide to using Early English Books Online

Early European Books

Early European Books traces the history of printing in Europe from its origins through to the end of the seventeenth century, offering full colour, high resolution facsimile images of rare and hard to access printed sources to 1700. The project to create this database is working in partnership with five national Libraries to digitise their curated collections from this period.

Guide to using Early European Books

Eighteenth Century Collections Online

This database, which contains over 180,000 titles, allows you to search or read the full text of books, pamphlets, essays or broadsides printed in the UK or the Americas between 1701 and 1800, on any topic. Works included are primarily in English but some foreign language material printed in England is also present. As well as searching the text you can view page images and illustrative content. The database is updated annually.

Guide to using Eighteenth Century Collections Online

Erudit

Erudit gives free access to French-language resources in the social sciences and humanities from the North American region. It indexes journal articles, books and proceedings, theses and dissertations, and research reports.

EuroDocs

This gives access to European primary source documents freely available on the web. The site is divided by country, and within each country you can browse material by period. In addition you will find video or sound files, maps, photographs or other imagery, databases, and other documentation.

Handbook of Latin American Studies

Search for details of books, book chapters, conference papers and articles in Latin American studies. The database is multilingual and covers the fields of anthropology, archaeology, genealogy, art, economics, geography, government and politics, international relations, literature, music, philosophy, and sociology. The database is updated weekly with coverage starting from 1936. Physical copies are located in the Brotherton Library.

Guide to using Handbook of Latin American Studies

Historical Abstracts

Search for journal articles on world history, dating from 1450. The database America: History and Life is included within Historical Abstracts, so you can choose to include or exclude the history of North America from your search, or to limit your search to articles on North American history. Arranged in 2 parts: Historical abstracts: Part A. Modern history abstracts; and, Historical abstracts: Part B. Twentieth century abstracts. Updated quarterly.

Guide to using Historical Abstracts

History E-book Project

Gives access to the full text of many books that are of major importance to historical studies. You can search by keyword (including Boolean and proximity) or by browsing (title, author and subject) across the collection. Accompanying the full text of each monograph are the table of contents and reviews.

Guide to using History E-book Project

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers

Fully searchable, indexed House of Commons bills, papers and command papers from 1688-2012. There is also some supplementary material from 1688. There will be regular releases of papers from current sessions of Parliament or a huge collection of everything placed before the House of Commons from 1688-2008/09. The papers have been scanned, and the full text can be searched.

Guide to using House of Commons Parliamentary Papers

International Medieval Bibliography

The International Medieval Bibliography (IMB), established in 1967, is the leading interdisciplinary bibliography of the Middle Ages. It contains journal articles in History and Medieval Studies. The IMB is produced by an editorial team at the University of Leeds and some 30 contributors worldwide. It covers periodical literature and miscellany volumes published in Europe, North America, Australasia, Brazil, Japan and South Africa. The database is updated quarterly.

Guide to using International Medieval Bibliography

J-Stage

J-STAGE is an electronic journal platform for STEM information in Japan, developed and managed by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). J-STAGE supports Japanese societies and research organisations, and has published more than 3,000 journals, conference proceedings and other academic publications.

JSTOR

JSTOR provides access to more than 10 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines including Art and Art History, Performing Arts, Architecture and Music.

Guide to using JSTOR

L'Année Philologique

Search for modern editions of ancient texts, journal articles and conference proceedings on classical authors and the classical world. The database is updated annually. There is a limit to the number of simultaneous users.

Library of Latin Texts Online

This is a database of Christian Latin Texts, including the Corpus Christianorum editions, supplemented by other texts. This database allows you to search for the full text of works by early Christian authors and to search within these texts. It is useful for Theology and Religious Studies, History, Classics and Medieval Studies. Coverage from Classical Antiquity to 1965. This database is updated at irregular intervals.

Guide to using Library of Latin Texts Online

Making of the Modern World

This database covers 1450 to 1850 and provides digital facsimile images of 61,000 works on economics, business and trade, giving insights into the economic, social and political conditions of the time. Full text searching is available across this collection.

Guide to using Making of the Modern World

News on Screen

Search 20th century news through over 185,000 cinemagazine & newsreel stories linked to production documents & films. It would be useful for History and Communications Studies. This database is no longer updated and covers 1910-1983.

Nineteenth Century Collections Online

Nineteenth Century Collections Online contains primary source collections of the nineteenth century. It consists of monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, photographs, statistics, and other kinds of documents in both Western and non-Western languages. Four modules are available at Leeds: Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange; British Politics and Society; British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture; and European Literature, 1790-1840: The Corvey Collection.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Search for full text biographies of all notable deceased public figures who have influenced British history and culture. Useful for any subject. The database is updated three times a year. The printed volumes of all editions and supplemental volumes are shelved in the Brotherton Library General Reference Collection.

Guide to using Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Project MUSE

Project MUSE is a platform for digital humanities and social sciences journals and e-books from a number of scholarly publishers. It also includes open access content.

Scopus

Scopus is a large abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature from more than 18,500 journals and quality web sources, with smart tools to track, analyse and visualize research. Coverage starts from 1823.

Guide to using Scopus

Times Digital Archive

Search the complete digital edition of The Times (London), from 1785-1985, using keyword searching and hit-term highlighting to retrieve full facsimile images of either a specific article or a complete page. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos divided into categories to facilitate searching.

Guide to using Times Digital Archive

Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2009

The only literary weekly to offer comprehensive coverage of the latest and most important publications, in every subject, in several languages as well as reviewing current theatre, cinema, music, and exhibitions. This resource is potentially useful for students and researchers of English literature and other humanities or social science subjects, and anyone needing to find out more about the reception of a 20th century literary or artistic work when it first appeared. It enables you to track the views of influential opinion makers and the controversies of the day or explore in depth the literary activity of the last 100 years. More than 250,000 reviews, letters, poems and articles are available, with full page images.

Guide to using Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2009

Visualising China

The site offers researchers free open access to major online collections such as Historical Photographs of China (University of Bristol), the Sir Robert Hart Collection (Queen’s University, Belfast) and Joseph Needham’s Photographs of Wartime China (Needham Research Institute, Cambridge), as well as to previously unseen and private collections and a selected Google Books library of China related publications. Coverage from 1850 to 1950.

Web of Science

Search for journal articles using three databases; Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index and Arts and Humanities Citation Index. A current awareness service provides citation alerts for newly added journal articles. Each database is updated weekly.

Guide to using Web of Science