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Research Guides

HSTRY 498: Race & Radicalism in US History: Finding Scholarly Books

Selected eBooks

book: Black against Empire the History and Politics of the Black Panther Party
book: A Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement
book: To March for Others: The Black Freedom Struggle and the United Farm Workers
book: My People Are Rising: Memoir of a Black Panther Party Captain
book: From the Jaws of Victory : The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement
book: The Rising Tide of Color: Race, State Violence, and Radical Movements across the Pacific
book: An Interracial Movement of the Poor : Community Organizing and the New Left in the 1960s
book: Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left: Radical Activism in Los Angeles
book: Body and Soul the Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination
book: Philip Vera Cruz: A Personal History of Filipino Immigrants and the Farmworkers Movement
book: The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland
book: The Asian American Movement
book: Samurai among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Paradoxical Life
book: Remaking Radicalism: A Grassroots Documentary Reader of the United States, 1973–2001
book: Recognition, Sovereignty Struggles, and Indigenous Rights in the United States: A Sourcebook
book: The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle
book: Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice
book: No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement
book: Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century
book: Black Power, Yellow Power, and the Making of Revolutionary Identities
book: Raza Si, Guerra No: Chicano Protest and Patriotism During the Viet Nam War Era
book: Sovereign Acts : Contesting Colonialism Across Indigenous Nations and Latinx America
book: The Hidden 1970s: Histories of Radicalism
book: The Struggle in Black and Brown: African American and Mexican American Relations during the Civil Rights Era

UW Libraries Search

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Find eBooks

You can find eBooks in two ways:

  • Do your search and then on the results screen, filter your results by using the toolbar:
    • Choose Availability: "Available Online" and Resource Type: "eBooks"
    • And then click on the green "Apply Filters" button
       
  • Use the Advanced Search option
    • Change "Show Only" to "UW Libraries" and "Material Type" to "eBooks"
       
  • See the eBook FAQ for more information

Search Tips

 

  • By Topic - Type in the keywords that broadly describe your topic. For example: mexican americans civil rights
     
  • By Title - search for a specific book by title. Type in the first few words of the book title in quotations. For example: "risiing tide of color"
     
  • By Author - search for books written by a specific author. Type in the last name followed by the first name of the author in quotations. For example: "jung moon-ho"

Finding Books that are Primary Sources

Primary sources in book format include memoirs, interviews, collections of reprinted writings and publications, and published diaries and collections of letters. In addition, we will have books published during the time period you are researching. So for example, if you are researching the Freedom Riders in the early 1960s you can find books published during the that period that are primary sources. Many of the books will be in print; some may be available via HathiTrust Emergency Library (UW login required to check out the HathiTrust ebook). Curbside pick-up of print books is available.

Use these search tactics to identify published primary sources:

  • Search for books written by key participants and organizations. Use the Advanced Search option in UW Libraries Search and change Any Field to Author/creater and search for by name or organization.  For example, do an author search for "black panther party" or "angela davis"

  • Limit your search by publication year. Use the Advanced Search option in UW Libraries Search and use the publication date option to limit to a specific date range. Or use the Publication Date option on the search results page to filter items by date.

Use special subject terms that designate primary sources in conjunction with your topic.  Use the Advanced Search option in UW Libraries Search and change Any Field to Subject and use one of these terms. Type in your topic in the other search line.

  • personal narratives
  • diaries
  • correspondence
  • interviews
  • sources

History eBook Collections

 Additional collections of eBooks can be found on eBook Collections guide. The following collections have strong history content:

Dissertation Databases

To identify dissertations written at the University of Washington as well as other universities use one of the following databases. If a dissertation is not available online then submit an interlibrary loan request to get a copy. You can also buy copies of many dissertations via Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global.

Why Use Scholarly Books & Articles?

The raison d'être of scholars is to attempt to describe, explain, interpret and analyze issues & events. Scholars use evidence to support their interpretations which are most often published in the form of books and journal articles (secondary sources). So why should you use secondary sources?

Strengths

  • Written by expert scholars. Before publication academic books and articles are vetted by other scholars in a process known as peer review.
  • Peer review ensures that scholarly books and articles are more reliable and credible than other types of publications.
  • Provide historical/broader/in depth context and analysis of a topic. For example, if you are researching Armenian genocide, you may want to use a scholarly source to get information on the history of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. 
  • Scholarly articles and books are based on evidence (primary sources) that are cited in the footnotes and bibliography. They are often a quick way to identify potential primary sources that you too may wish to use as evidence in your research paper. 

 

Keep in mind

  • Expert scholars are likely to use specialized terminology and theory in their analyses making scholarly articles and books sometimes difficult to understand.

How to Read Scholarly Material

Scholarly articles and books have a purpose -- an argument (also called a thesis) that they are attempting to make about an issue and present evidence to support this argument. As you read a scholarly article first check to see if there is an abstract, a brief overview of the article. This will give you an idea if the article will be relevant for your research. Then look for the author's argument. Ask yourself, does the author adequately support their argument with evidence.

For more information on reading a scholarly article see: Analyzing Scholarly Articles, How to Read an Academic Article & How to Read a Secondary Source.
Tags: spring 2021