America: History and Life (AHL) is a complete bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Published since 1964, the database comprises over 530,000 bibliographic entries for periodicals dating back to 1954. Additional bibliographical entries are constantly added to the databases from editorial projects such as retrospective coverage of journals issues published prior to 1954.

This extensive database covers over 1,700 journals [ Journal List ] published worldwide. In addition to covering all key English-language historical journals, America: History and Life coverage includes selected historical journals from major countries, state and local history journals, and a targeted selection of hundreds of journals in the social sciences and humanities. Over 90% of the articles included are published in English-language journals. The articles are abstracted by an experienced group of abstracters, most of who are historians and librarians who are experts in the content of the journals they cover. All abstracts are written in English and are carefully edited for clarity and precision. America: History and Life on the Web also includes in-process entries prior to their completion for the print version. In addition to articles, each year America: History and Life includes approximately 6,000 citations of book and media reviews from a selection of over one hundred key journals in US and Canadian history as well as related fields. The database also includes citations to abstracts of dissertations and masters' theses published in these areas. Each entry in the database is assigned appropriate indexing. Every year approximately 16,000 new entries are added to the America: History and Life database.