Library Guides: Historical Primary Sources: Asia: Primary Sources

General Collections

American Proxy Wars: Korea and Vietnam (FBIS)
Translated and English-language radio and television broadcasts, newspapers, periodicals, government documents, and books covering the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts.

Amnesty International Archives
Explore the growth of the human rights movement during the second half of the twentieth century through the International Secretariat records of Amnesty International. 1961 - 1991
"This collection covers a wide range of human rights concerns and issues including:
Activism and Campaigning, Global Politics, Mass Atrocities, Migrants and Refugees, Minority Rights, Mistreatment and Disappearances, Political Prisoners and Prisoners of Conscience (POCs), Structure and Administration of Amnesty International, Torture and Death Penalty."

Asia and the West: Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange
A selection of records that constitute a political and social history of Western interaction with a number of Asian countries during the nineteenth century.

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Most of the manuscript collections in this archive consist of the British Foreign Office and United States consular and diplomatic records.

Decolonization: Politics and Independence in Former Colonial and Commonwealth Territories
Digital archive of political ephemera and organizational material from across the world covering twentieth century political parties, pressure groups and trade union movements, created for, about and by local actors.
"This resource brings together primary source material produced in over 70 former British colonies and Commonwealth nations, alongside some from former French and Portuguese territories, created for local audiences by local actors during a period of enormous global change. Largely eschewing the accounts of colonizers, this collection helps researchers explore decolonization as a historical process sparked from within, specifically the changing or adapting of systems from an imposed imperial or colonial structure after 1945 and up to the present day. The archive sheds light on national political developments that followed decolonization and how former colonies negotiated their own agency and futures.
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East Meets West: Original Records of Western Traders, Travelers, Missionaries and Diplomats to 1852
Call Number: MICROFILM 78185 Newspapers & Microforms

Empire Online
Digitized collection of original manuscript and printed documents from around the world to support research in the field of colonial and empire studies. [1492-1962]
Includes 70,000 images of original manuscript and printed documents to support study and research in the field of colonial and empire studies. Five sections include: Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class, Imperialism and Colonialism, c. 1607-1969. In addition to original documents, this database contains scholarly essays and analysis.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports
The Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Report includes radio and television broadcasts, newspapers and periodicals, government statements, books, and other sources of unrestricted information such as databases and gray literature from non-English sources around the world. The original mission of the FBIS was to monitor, record, transcribe and translate intercepted radio broadcasts from foreign governments, official news services, and clandestine broadcasts from occupied territories. [1941 - 1996]
Information from thousands of foreign media sources, including political speeches, television and radio broadcasts, newspapers, periodicals, and more, offering an extensive collection of military, political, scientific and technical reports from countries around the world, translated into English. The original mission of the FBIS was to monitor, record, transcribe and translate intercepted radio broadcasts from foreign governments, official news services, and clandestine broadcasts from occupied territories. Coverage is global with the exception of the FBIS Annexes (a supplementary publication created by the U.S. intelligence community to benefit analysts and policy makers from April 1974 through September 1996) and Western European regional broadcasts.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration and Cultural Exchange
Digitized collection of original manuscript and printed documents from around the world to support the study of fifteen major commodities: chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, opium, oil, porcelain, silver and gold, spices, sugar, tea, timber, wheat, and wine and spirits.
Provides original sources materials to help explore the history of fifteen major commodities and to examine the ways that these have changed the world. The commodities include: chocolate, coffee, cotton, fur, opium, oil, porcelain, silver and gold, spices, sugar, tea, timber, wheat, and wine and spirits.
Global Missions and Theology
A collection that documents the broad range of nineteenth century religious missionary activities, practices and thought in the United States; includes personal narratives, organizational records and biographies of the essential leaders, simple missionaries and churches.
A collection that documents the broad range of nineteenth century religious missionary activities, practices and thought in the United States; includes personal narratives, organizational records and biographies of the essential leaders, simple missionaries and churches.

IDP International Dunhuang Project = 國際敦煌項目：絲綢之路在線
IDP is a ground-breaking international effort to make information and images of all manuscripts, paintings, textiles and artifacts from Dunhuang and archaeological sites of the Eastern Silk Road freely available on the Internet, and to encourage their use in educational and research programs.
International Institute of Social History
Extensive archive of world labor and social history, with many digitized collections covering all regions.
‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’: Missionaries in Asia during the World Wars, 1914-1946 (BOA)
This collection contains first hand accounts by missionaries attached to The Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) both during peacetime and the turmoil of the World Wars. The SPG was a Church of England missionary organization active across the world in the spreading of Christianity during the colonial period. The subject matter largely pertains to SPG missionaries' experience of Japanese expansionism during the Second World War.

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Historical Primary Sources: Asia: Primary Sources

General Collections