If you’re wondering where to find the best resources for your next paper on History or Politics, start with The SHAFR Guide Online: An Annotated Bibliography of U.S. Foreign Relations since 1600—now available from the Library. The 2.1 million word online report, sponsored by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), lists resources compiled and annotated by top scholars, covering American Foreign Policy from early colonial times to the present.
The 30 chapters of the SHAFR Guide cover every type of historical source: government documents, biographies, monographs, book chapters, journal articles, web sites, and much more.
Chapter 1 offers a place to start, with a wide array of bibliographies, overviews, and syntheses that cover general topics.
Chapters 2–26 provide a chronology of U.S. history, each chapter focusing on sources that will help with research in a specific historical period, beginning with colonial times and ending with the Obama administration.
Chapters 27–30 suggest works that will put you on the cutting edge of the hottest themes in modern-day research. For example:
- Race, Gender, and Culture in U.S.—sources not traditionally associated with Foreign Relations research, from popular culture, media, art, music, religion, sports, and public diplomacy.
- Economic Issues and U.S. Foreign Relations—literature dealing with foreign economic policy.
- Domestic Issues, the Congress, and Public Opinion in U.S. Foreign Policy—works addressing the impact of domestic politics on American foreign policy.
- U.S. Foreign Relations and Non-Governmental Actors—non-governmental organizations and inter-governmental organizations, and their role in U.S. foreign relations.
Each chapter arranges sources with links to primary published materials coming first (no more citing sources from someone else’s work). Next come works on historiography, then suggestions of topical material. For example, if you’re interested in how commercial enterprise has affected U.S. relations with Asian countries, and you look in “Chapter 6: The United States, Asia, and the Pacific, 1815–1919,” there is a category dedicated to whaling.
The SHAFR Guide Online: An Annotated Bibliography of U.S. Foreign Relations since 1600 is just one of the online resources offered by the Library. Please check our list of new online resources. It’s updated daily!