Reference books are great starting point in a research project.
There are two kinds of reference books:
The titles listed below are only a representative sample of many specialized reference books that are available in the library. To look for more encyclopedias on political science, try search words: political science AND encyclopedias as subjects
The Encyclopedia of Political Science
Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. History: Government and Politics
Encyclopedia of Presidential Campaigns, Slogans, Issues, and Platforms
Encyclopedia of the American left
Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy
Encyclopedia of the United Nations
Congress, Presidents, and American Politics
Facts about the Presidents by
Wilson's acclaimed Facts About the Presidents continues with its much-anticipated Eighth Edition. Written for both general readers and researchers, this volume will be one of the most widely consulted works in your reference collection. The new Eighth Edi
Safire's Political Dictionary
When it comes to the vagaries of language in American politics, its uses and abuses, its absurdities and ever-shifting nuances, its power to confound, obscure, and occasionally to inspire, William Safire is the language maven we most readily turn to for clarity, guidance, and penetrating, sometimes lacerating, wit. Safire's Political Dictionary is a stem-to-stern updating and expansion of the Language of Politics, which was first published in 1968 and last revised in 1993, long before such terms as Hanging Chads, 9/11 and the War on Terror became part of our everyday vocabulary. Nearly every entry in that renowned work has been revised and updated and scores of completely new entries have been added to produce an indispensable guide to the political language being used and abused in America today. Safire's definitions--discursive, historically aware, and often anecdotal--bring a savvy perspective to our colorful political lingo. Indeed, a Safire definition often reads like a mini-essay in political history, and readers will come away not only with a fuller understanding of particular words but also a richer knowledge of how politics works, and fails to work, in America. From Axis of Evil, Blame Game, Bridge to Nowhere, Triangulation, and Compassionate Conservatism to Islamofascism, Netroots, Earmark, Wingnuts and Moonbats, Slam Dunk, Doughnut Hole, and many others, this language maven explains the origin of each term, how and by whom and for what purposes it has been used or twisted, as well as its perceived and real significance. For anyone who wants to cut through the verbal haze that surrounds so much of American political discourse, Safire's Political Dictionary offers a work of scholarship, wit, insiderhood and resolute bipartisanship.