HIST 3387: World War II

This guide is intended to provide a starting point for researching military, political, economic, and social topics in the global history of World War II (WWII, the Second World War), including in particular the topics of the Holocaust, the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese-American confinement, and the bombing of Japan.

This guide is not comprehensive; it does not list all of the resources on this topic or in related disciplines owned by the Library or available on the Internet. This guide serves merely as a starting point for research.

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Subject headings allow you to find books according to broader and narrower topics.

Below are sample subjects; click on them to jump straight into a list of books.

To browse for different, broader, or narrower subjects, go to the library catalog and click "Exact Search." Enter a term and click "subject." You can start browsing for a broad subject like Education, then look for more specific subjects, such as Education England History 18th century.

Once you know some subject headings, you can also just use them as keywords during an advanced search, using the subject row.

• World War 1939-1945
• World War 1939-1945 Historiography
   
• World War 1939-1945 Campaigns  (tip: add a country or region at the end, like Africa or Eastern Front, to narrow your search)
• World War 1939-1945 Campaigns Pacific
• World War 1939-1945 Campaigns Western Front
• World War 1939-1945 Campaigns Eastern Front
   
• World War 1939-1945 Battlefields
• World War 1939-1945 Aerial operations
• World War 1939-1945 Naval operations
• World War 1939-1945 Regimental histories  (tip: add a country at the end, like Great Britain, to narrow your search)
   
• World War 1939-1945 Prisoners and prisons
• World War 1939-1945 Casualties
• World War 1939-1945 Atrocities
• World War 1939-1945 Atrocities Soviet Union (or substitute another country)
• Or combine the subjects "World War 1939-1945 Eastern Front" (and) Atrocities to find sources about atrocities on the Eastern Front, more broadly
   
• World War 1939-1945 Causes
• World War 1939-1945 Diplomatic history
   
• World War 1939-1945 Political aspects
• World War 1939-1945 Economic aspects
• World War 1939-1945 Social aspects
• World War 1939-1945 Psychological aspects
• World War 1939-1945 Religious aspects
• World War 1939-1945 Moral and ethical aspects
   
• World War 1939-1945 Women
• World War 1939-1945 Refugees
• World War 1939-1945 Veterans
• World War 1939-1945 Food supply
• World War 1939-1945 Registers  (of servicemen, the dead, etc.)
   
• World War 1939-1945 Public opinion
• World War 1939-1945 Statistics
• World War 1939-1945 Propaganda
• World War 1939-1945 Posters
• World War 1939-1945 Press coverage
   
• World War 1939-1945 Peace
   
• World War 1939-1945 Participation, Female
• World War 1939-1945 Participation, Japanese American
• World War 1939-1945 Participation, Jewish
• ... or browse for other specific groups of participants
• World War 1939-1945 Biography
   
• World War 1939-1945 Sources
• World War 1939-1945 Personal narratives  (tip: add a  nationality at the end, like American or British, to narrow your search)
• World War 1939-1945 Pictorial works
• World War 1939-1945 Poetry
• World War 1939-1945 Songs and music
• World War 1939-1945 Art and the war
• World War 1939-1945 Literature and the war
   
• Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), Attack on, 1941
• Japanese Americans Evacuation and relocation 1942-1945
• Atomic bomb Japan
• Hiroshima-shi (Japan) History Bombardment, 1945
• Nagasaki-shi (Japan) History Bombardment, 1945
   
• Holocaust Jewish 1939-1945
• Holocaust Jewish 1939-1945 Causes
• Holocaust Jewish 1939-1945 Historiography
• Holocaust Jewish 1939-1945 Influence
• Holocaust Jewish 1939-1945 Personal narratives
• Holocaust Jewish 1939-1945 Poland
• Holocaust Jewish 1939-1945 Psychological aspects
• Holocaust Jewish 1939-1945 Public opinion
• Jews Persecutions [broader than above heading; covers persecutions in Poland, Hungary, Moldova, etc., both before and during the WWII period]

An excellent way to discover additional resources is to browse for books in relevant call number ranges.

E806 - E812 - [United States] Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administrations, 1933-April 12, 1945
E813 - E816 - [United States] Truman's administrations, April 12, 1945-1953

D720 - D728 - History, General, ... Period between World Wars (1919-1939)
D731 - D838 - History, General, ... World War II (1939-1945)

DD233 - DD257.4 - History of Germany, ... Revolution and Republic, 1918-
DD253 - DD256.8 - History of Germany, ... Hitler, 1933-1945. National socialism
DD256 - History of Germany, ... Period of World War II, 1939-1945
DD257 - DD257.4 - History of Germany, ... Period of Allied occupation, 1945-

DC397 - History of France, ... 1940-1946
DG571 - DG572 - History of Italy, ... 1919-1945, Fascism
DK266 - DK292 - History of Russia, ... Soviet regime, 1918-1991
DK4397 - DK4420 - History of Poland, ... 1918-1945

To discover the call number ranges for broader, narrower, or different subjects, consult the Library of Congress Classification Outline.