These are often good starting points for learning about a topic, person, or time period, and for beginning the process of developing a reading list.  A good general place to start is the Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Examples of encyclopedias or guides focused on particular regions or topics include The Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic or The Oxford Companion to British History. In addition, both the Cambridge and Oxford University Presses publish multi-volume works on the history of different regions, such as the Cambridge History of Modern France (or China, Iran, etc.), or the Short Oxford History of the British Isles (or Italy, France, etc.)

There are also a large number of reference works devoted to biographical information, such as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for the British Empire, or the Dictionnaire de biographie francaise for France.

Many of these books are in the reference area on the first floor of Canaday, and some are available online.

The Bryn Mawr College Library has extensive holdings of 19th and early 20th century British and European books and magazines, either on the open shelves or in Special Collections.  They can be found by searching in Tripod, and the Special Collections Department has created online guides to holdings on certain topics, such as the History of London.

Long runs of many European popular magazines from the 19th century can be found on the B-level of Canaday, including Punch, The Quarterly Review and the Saturday Review of Politics. Literature, Science and Art.

Large numbers of historical books, pamphlets, newspapers and manuscripts are now available online, some through free sites and some only through subscriptions.  The contents of the free sites can often be found through Google searches, while the contents of the subscription sites can usually be found only by going directly to the site.  Listed below are some of the sites that will be most useful for modern European history research.

For a more complete list of the online primary sources, see the Tri-College Libraries Subject Portal page for History - Primary Sources: