Background or "reference" sources are a great place to start in building your bibliographies. These are scholarly encyclopedias, handbooks, bibliographies, and similar sources that will often contain lengthy essays with background information on a topic and overviews of the relevant scholarship. Citations to the secondary literature will always be included, and often so too will citations to primary sources.
A key reference collection. Relevant works here include The Cambridge History of Latin America, The Cambridge World History of Slavery, Vol 4. (1804-2016), and The Cambridge History of the Cold War.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia in Latin American History
and
Oxford Research Encyclopedia in American History
The Oxford Research Encyclopedias are a great starting point for your research. Articles here will usually provide suggestions for finding both primary and secondary sources.
Oxford Bibliographies
This is a large collection of bibliographic “articles,” each containing numerous bibliographic annotations, often of both primary and secondary sources. The collection is arranged into several modules - see especially the Atlantic History module for a number of potentially relevant articles.
Wiley Online Library
Relevant titles such as The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies will provide overviews of topics and suggestions for further reading.
See especially the History collections.
Useful, up-to-date information on 250 countries and territories. Includes coverage of recent events, political and economic information, and statistical data.
Gale Virtual Reference Library
Includes the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences and other sources useful for quick references.
This guide is intended for students in Professor Edward Rugemer's course and provides an overview of key resources in the Yale Library for writing your research papers this semester.
To access Yale resources from off-campus, you will need to use the University's Virtual Private Network (VPN).