Selected Digital Primary Sources for History

Sourced from the School of Oriental and African Studies and the British Library, this digital collection of English-language sources includes maps, colour paintings, photographs, and drawings. It contains records of major diplomatic missions to China, from the late 18th and early 19th century missions of Macartney and Amherst, to those of Nixon and Heath in the 20th century. Provides a fully-searchable access to the Chinese Recorder, a major Protestant missionary periodical, from 1867-1941.

Spans five centuries, from 1492 to 1969, and charts the rise and fall of empires around the world. Sections include: Cultural Contacts (1492-1969); Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class, and Colonialism (c1789-1969). This resource provides original documents and contextual essays to enable exploration of colonial history, politics, culture, and society. Cross-searchable with Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration, and Cultural Exchange.

Features a wealth of primary source materials for the study of the Great War, complemented by a range of contextual secondary sources. Includes 3 modules:
1. Personal Experiences (with letters, photographs, diaries, postcards, sheet music, etc.)
2. Propaganda and Recruitment (with aerial leaflets, atrocity propaganda, international posters, cartoons, etc.)
3. Visual Perspectives and Narratives (with material from the Imperial War Museum, including artwork, museum objects, film clips, etc.)

Created by the U.S. intelligence community to benefit policy makers and analysts, this resource provides foreign views and perspectives on historical events from thousands of monitored broadcasts and publications. Geographic scope includes: the Middle East, Africa, North Africa, the Near East, and South Asia. Comprehensive media reports include: news, interviews, speeches, and editorial commentary.

Sourced from the UK National Archives, this resource combines eye-witness accounts, regular reviews, and analyses; syntheses of newspaper articles, conference reports, and economic assessments; and synopses of key events, personalities, and developments relating to China from 1949-1956. It reflects the exchange of information between London, the British Embassy in Beijing, and consular outposts; it also reveals the ongoing dialogue between Britain, America, Europe, and the Commonwealth on issues relating to East Asia.

The single largest source for the study of women's history in the world, containing materials dated from 1543 to 1945, written in 15 languages, and originating from Continental Europe, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand. Digitized contents include: books, pamphlets, and periodicals reflecting the evolution of feminist consciousness and the movement for women's rights.

Includes diaries and journals, official and private papers, letters, sketches, paintings, and Indian documents containing histories and literary works. It is relevant to study of the British Indian Empire's government, administration, and politics; the relationship between Britain and the British Indian Empire; and the relationship between the British Indian Empire and the Indian Princely States. It includes writings the of British administrators, Indian princes, soldiers, traders, missionaries, and explorers.

Provides an extensive collection of manuscripts for the study of medieval travel writing. The core materials are collections of medieval manuscripts in libraries around the world, from the 13th to 16th centuries, as well as maps, images, bibliographies, and chronologies. This resource focuses on accounts of journeys to the Holy Land, India, and China; many images are in full colour. The original documents are in Latin, German, Spanish, Dutch, and English; includes relevant secondary texts of translations and editions.

Contains thousands of primary sources that relate to the long nineteenth century (approximately 1749-1984) sourced from world-wide collections across the globe, written in multiple languages, with geographic coverage spanning Africa, Continental Europe, East/South Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Content types include: monographs (books), manuscripts, newspapers, ephemera, photographs, statistics, and maps.

An important portal for slavery and abolition studies. Contains documents and collections produced from 1490 to 2007, sourced from libraries and archives across the Atlantic world. Topics include: the African Coast, the Middle Passage, the varieties of slave experience, religion, revolts, abolition, and legislation. Features case studies from America, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Cuba. Provides links to significant external online sources, approved by leading scholars.

Contains over 1,500 trench journal titles sourced from leading archives around the world, including those of the Imperial War Museums and The British Library, written by service people from every type of unit and every combatant nation. Most are journals from units based on the Western Front in France and Belgium; but there are also magazines from units serving on the Eastern Front in Gallipoli, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Britain, and America.