Watch the video below to learn how to use your key terms to find the best search results in any digital database.
When you are assessing articles to determine if they will be useful to you, use the Hourglass Method from Paul Edwards' How to Read a Book. The most important, most general information can be found at the beginning and end of articles, paragraphs, or chapters. The details are found in the middle. Scan the general information before reading the details to save yourself time!
The Columbian Exchange by
Thirty years ago, Alfred Crosby published a small work that illuminated a simple point, that the most important changes brought on by the voyages of Columbus were not social or political, but biological in nature. The book told the story of how 1492 sparked the movement of organisms, both large and small, in both directions across the Atlantic. This Columbian exchange, between the Old World and the New, changed the history of our planet drastically and forever. The book The Columbian Exchange changed the field of history drastically and forever as well. It has become one of the foundational works in the burgeoning field of environmental history, and it remains one of the canonical texts for the study of world history. This 30th anniversary edition of The Columbian Exchange includes a new preface from the author, reflecting on the book and its creation, and a new foreword by J. R. McNeill that demonstrates how Crosby established a brand new perspective for understanding ecological and social events. As the foreword indicates, The Columbian Exchange remains a vital book, a small work that contains within the inspiration for future examinations into what happens when two peoples, separated by time and space, finally meet.
Food in World History by
Providing a comparative and comprehensive study of culinary cultures and consumption throughout the world from ancient times to present day, this book examines the globalization of foodnbsp;and explores the political, social and environmental implications of our changing relationship with food. Including numerous case studies from diverse societies and periods, Food in World History examines and focuses on: how food was used to forge national identities in Latin America the influence of Italian and Chinese Diaspora on the US and Latin America food culture how food was fractured along class lines in the French bourgeois restaurant culture and working class cafes the results of state intervention in food production how the impact of genetic modification and food crises has affected the relationship between consumer and product. This concise and readable survey not only presents a simple history of food and its consumption, but also provides a unique examination of world history itself.
Sugar Changed the World by
When this award-winning husband-and-wife team discovered that they each had sugar in their family history, they were inspired to trace the globe-spanning story of the sweet substance and to seek out the voices of those who led bitter sugar lives. The trail ran like a bright band from religious ceremonies in India to Europe's Middle Ages, then on to Columbus, who brought the first cane cuttings to the Americas. Sugar was the substance that drove the bloody slave trade and caused the loss of countless lives but it also planted the seeds of revolution that led to freedom in the American colonies, Haiti, and France. With songs, oral histories, maps, and over 80 archival illustrations, here is the story of how one product allows us to see the grand currents of world history in new ways. Time line, source notes, bibliography, index.
Use Noodletools to create your bibliography!
username: cgps
password: library
Need a refresher? It's important to have some background information on your topic before you begin your research.
Learn more about the Columbian Exchange below:
Search all of Infobases' excellent history databases at once here! A good place to start. No password needed on campus or at home.
This is an interesting history database! It focuses on normal life in the past--no kings and queens here. If you are researching historical inventions, labor, relationships, immigration, etc, try this one. username: Columbia5w
password: MelvilleWhales!
Typing a general term like "corn" or "chocolate" into a database might not turn up any relevant results. Try combining your topic with additional key words like "trade" or "columbian exchange". Don't give up on the first try--it's a good idea to generate a whole LIST of terms related to your topic.
You can use your textbook or Wikipedia to help you if you don't know that much about your topic. Here's an example of a list of search terms if my topic for this project was potatoes.
-Potatoes
-Potato trade
-Incan Farming
-Columbian Exchange
-European introduction to potatoes
-Inca Empire
-Conquistadors
-Francisco Pizarro
For more information, watch the tutorial below. How many terms can you come up with?
