Research Guides: HIST 038: Russia in the 20th Century (SC): Overviews & Reference

Why use reference books?

Use the index (or search) these books to identify entries related to your topic or areas of interest. You might not find entries that narrowly focus on your topic; if so, try to find entries that relate broadly.

Use reference books to:

Contextualize your topic (and get background information)
Find search terms (for use in databases and primary source collections)
Identify which aspects of a topic interest you
Get citations for relevant books, articles, and primary source collections
Identify which scholars have written about the topic
Identify areas of debate and disagreement in the scholarly literature

Overviews and Reference

Tripod search: overviews of the Soviet Union and Russia
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This link will show you books available from the Swarthmore Libraries that can offer an overview of various aspects of Russian history and culture. These can be good places to start if you're browsing for a topic or looking for background information.

Oxford Reference
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An excellent tool for researching a particular element of Russian history in greater depth. If you'd like a broad overview of an event, biographical information, or suggestions for further reading, try searching Oxford Reference for a relevant entry.

A good rule of thumb: if you'd like to look it up on Wikipedia, consider looking it up in Oxford Reference (or Credo Reference, listed below). Often, the Oxford or Credo reference entry will be more detailed. Usually it will cite sources that you can cite in your papers.
Credo Reference
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Provides full-text access to over 500 reference books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, books of quotations, etc., in various fields including art, law, literature, social sciences, and technology.