Reference analysis of the American Historical Review

This paper attempts to evaluate the literature of the field of history through a multi‐decade reference analysis of the American Historical Review. Reference analysis, a subsection of the larger field of bibliometrics, is a method of determining the characteristics of a field or subject by careful examination of the literature of that area. This study will analyze references from one issue of the AHR from the years 1950, 1970, 1990, and 2002 in five areas: total citations, age of the citations, language of the citations, format of the citations (e.g. monograph, journal, etc.), and the number of authors per citation. Hopefully, this analysis will help to define the patterns (if any) that have characterized the field of history through time.