- University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Research Guides
- Book Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences
- Multi-Disciplinary Databases
Book Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences : Multi-Disciplinary Databases
About this Guide
This guide provides databases, Web sites, and print sources for finding book reviews. Book reviews are published in a number of sources including magazines, newspapers, scholarly journals, and book review publications (e.g., The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review). This guide includes databases and print sources that index all of these sources.
To find reviews of fiction books and books for the general reader, it may be helpful to look in Book Review Digest Plus and multidisciplinary databases with a variety of publications including magazines and newspapers. To find books written on a specific subject, it may be helpful to look in a subject-specific database that indexes scholarly, or academic, publications.
To begin searching for a book review, it is helpful to know the title of the book, the author's name, and the book's publication year. It is also helpful to know the subject of the book to choose the appropriate database.
Multi-Disciplinary Databases
- Academic SearchIndexes 8,450 popular magazines and academic journals and provides full-text articles from more than 4,650 journals. Date Range: 1984–current. Tip: Choose "Book Review" from the “Document Type” drop-down menu.
- Book Review Digest PlusCitation information, excerpts, or full text for reviews of more than 550,000 fiction, nonfiction, social science, and general science books. Includes popular, scholarly, and specialty English-language journals. Date Range: 1983–current. Tip: Choose "Book Review" from the "Document Type" drop-down menu.
- JSTORIncludes full text of 1200 journals in many fields -- African-American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, economics, education, history, literature, philosophy, political science, demography, sociology, and more. Date Range: Dates vary. Tip: Check the box for "Reviews" under "Narrow Results" and "Item Type" in Advanced Search.
- Nexis UniNexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) offers access to more than 17,000 news, legal and business sources, including print and online journals; television and radio broadcasts; newswires and blogs; local, regional, national and international newspapers with deep archives; extensive legal sources for federal and state cases and statutes, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions since 1790; and business information on more than 80 million U.S. and international companies and more than 75 million executives. (Updated daily)
- Periodicals Index OnlineContains citations to articles from more than 3,500 periodicals in the social sciences and humanities published in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, and Germany. Mostly contents notes. Date Range: Late 18th Century–current minus 8 years Tip: Check the box for "Review" under "Document Type."
- Project MuseProvides full-text access to current content from over 400 titles representing nearly 100 not-for-profit publishers in the humanities and social sciences. Date Range: 1990-current. Tips: Search. In search results, check the box for "Reviews" under "Content Type."
- Reader's Guide RetrospectiveComprehensive indexing of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States. More than 500 retrospective general-interest periodicals (pre-1983) also included without abstracts. Date Range: 1890-1982. Tip: Choose “Book Review” from “Document Type” drop-down menu.
- Times (London) Digital ArchiveIncludes page facsimiles of all the issues of the London Times published from 1785–1985. Date Range: 1785–1985. Tips: Use the "Advanced Search.” Check the box for "Reviews," under "Search Limiters"“ and "by document type."
- Web of ScienceIndexes more than 8,000 peer-reviewed journals, providing complete bibliographic data and author abstracts. Date Range: 1982–current. Tips: To search for book reviews, type the book title in the first box and select title from the drop-down menu. Add row. Select "Document Type" from the drop-down menu and then select "Book Review" from the drop-down menu. Click "Search."