Research Guides: History: Find Book Reviews

Using Library Search to Locate Book Reviews

Select the "Articles" box after searching by book title and author.

For best results, limit to 'Reviews' from the Resource Type category in your results list. Then limit your search results to "Peer reviewed-only" to find only academic reviews.

Databases for Academic Book Reviews

The core history journal databases —

America: History & Life for reviews of books written about the Western Hemisphere;
Historical Abstracts for reviews of books written about the Eastern Hemisphere;
JSTOR for reviews of history books with an imprint more than a few years old;
and ProjectMUSE for reviews of books published in the last several years —

These databases cover, in addition to book reviews, scholarly journal articles, dissertations, editorials, and speeches, so be sure to limit your search to "Book Review" in both America: History & Life and Historical Abstracts, and to "Reviews" in JSTOR. You might try searching for the keywords "book" AND "review" in separate search boxes, or enter the phrase "review article" into a single search box.

The following are dedicated book review databases:

Library Search This link opens in a new window
Search for the name of a book. Select the "Article" box. Then use the "Resource Type" filter and select "Review" to limit to book reviews.
Gale Literature: Book Review Index This link opens in a new window
Book Review Index Online includes records for reviews published in scholarly journals. Reviews written in such publications do the best job of situating monographs within wider historiographical debates.