History

Provides access to subscribed Cambridge University Press electronic books

No other resource for early modern scholarship is as comprehensive as Early English Books Online (EEBO) with over 146,600 titles and associated bibliographic records. Users can explore complete, digitized images of all the works listed in the key bibliographic records of English literature: The Short-Title Catalogue (Pollard & Redgrave, 1475-1640); The Short-Title Catalogue II (Wing, 1641-1700); The Thomason Tracts; and the Early English Books Tract Supplements, as well as original almanacs, pamphlets, musical scores, prayer books and other primary sources.

Access around 200,000 ebooks across all subject areas.

ECCO is a searchable corpus of books, pamphlets and broadsides in all subjects printed between 1701 and 1800. It currently contains over 180,000 titles with over 32 million fully-searchable pages. It is a digitization of the 18th century section of the works catalogued in the English Short-title Catalogue (ESTC). The ESTC project has been recording all works published or printed in Britain, Ireland, territories under British colonial rule, and the United States. It also catalogues material printed elsewhere which contains significant text in English, Welsh, Irish or Gaelic, as well as any book falsely claiming to have been printed in Britain or its territories.

Oxford History Handbooks offer thorough introductions and a survey of the current state of research in key topics, including material culture, oral history, witchcraft, genocide, nationalism, Reformation, Cold War, the English Revolution, end of empire etc. Chapters review key issues and major debates and indicate how the debates might evolve.

Watch this video about how to make the most of the features available.

Good for finding books, chapters and articles on British and Irish history, including the local history of e.g. London and Portsmouth. It also covers migration, gender, race, military history, the British Empire and decolonisation, so you can find quality sources covering Africa, America etc.

• If you're interested in a journal article you've found, scroll to the bottom and try clicking the DOI in the External links section - as long as you're connected to the VPN, you'll be able to go straight to the full article of anything we buy.
• If you're interested in a book or chapter, click the Library Discover button above the record, then on the next screen, expand the list of Holding libraries to see if Portsmouth is listed. 
• Access these videos showing you how to make the most of this database which contains 640,000 records.

The world's leading source of articles and chapters on all aspects of world history from 1450 onwards.

Provides access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, reports and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
Watch this video for great tips.

A highly respected, peer-reviewed journal which includes articles on all aspects of history since 1500. This journal is always one of the most used by Portsmouth students.

Each year this peer-reviewed journal covering post-1918 history tops the charts for Portsmouth students. It covers a broad range of historical approaches including social, economic, political, diplomatic, intellectual and cultural.

The leading American peer-reviewed journal for the study of European intellectual, political, and cultural history since the Renaissance. The JMH explores not only events and movements in specific countries, but also broader questions that span particular times and places.

A key, peer-reviewed journal for social history topics - very popular with Portsmouth students.

The key journal for naval and maritime history - our subscription lets you access articles from 1911 onwards.

The leading peer-reviewed journal concentrating on oral history.

A well established, peer-reviewed journal which is always popular with Portsmouth students.

A key, peer-reviewed journal covering women's history from the 19^th century onwards.

One of the top US peer-reviewed journals covering all aspects and eras of history. Book reviews written by invited experts form a large part of each issue and are extensive, critical, and place the reviewed work within historiographical context.

A peer-reviewed journal covering Latin America, the Caribbean, inter-American relations and the Latin American Diaspora across Social Science and Humanities topics.

The leading academic journal about the American Civil War.

Highly respected, peer-reviewed articles on Latin American history and culture.

A peer-reviewed journal which gives international perspectives on the history, literature, politics and culture of the United States.

The most well-known, peer-reviewed journal on Latin America - it covers many aspects of Latin America as taught at Portsmouth.

The key peer-reviewed journal if you need articles on the history of the Southern United States.

The key source for peer-reviewed articles on slavery, the dismantling of slave systems and the legacy of slavery.

A popular, peer-reviewed journal which covers the history of Eastern and Western Europe, including the United Kingdom, from 1918 to the present.

A good source of peer-reviewed articles covering all aspects of history across Europe from the later Middle Ages right up to the end of the twentieth century.

The top, peer-reviewed journal covering German history.

From Vienna, its chief listening post, and also from Prague and Warsaw, the AP covered Eastern Europe during the Cold War. Reporters rotated in and out of the Eastern bloc, writing about the declining influence of the Soviet Union, the last days of the Iron Curtain, and the political and economic re-structuring of the former Soviet satellites. These collections are composed almost entirely of wire copy, which was saved by the bureaus. The Vienna bureau files include copy documenting events in Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, the former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and the former Yugoslavia in the years 1952 to 2000 (date spans vary by country). News releases from government news agencies are often interfiled. Look out for the Berlin documents dated August 1946 which were rescued from a cellar. Amongst other topics, they cover the food situation of German civilians.

Search and read a wide range of national and regional newspapers from 1741-1950.

Watch this short video to get a quick overview (we have parts 1 - 5).

Access facsimiles of 22 Chinese newspapers published in English between 1832 and 1953. They include the North China Herald and the Chinese Repository, which cover British/Western attitudes towards the Qing government and the Chinese people during and after the Opium Wars. They are considered critical primary sources in the study of late imperial China and Sino-foreign relations.

Search America's newspaper pages from 1789-1924. Although the full contents of each paper are not available, you can search for keywords in a wide range of papers from each state and find relevant articles from this service provided by The Library of Congress.

Search all the newspaper and magazine archives which we buy from Gale Cengage in one go. Once you've done a search, use Term Clusters and Term Frequency on the right of the screen to help you analyse your results or use the panel of options to narrow in different ways.

Access stories and photos from The Guardian (1821-2003) and The Observer (1791-2003). Use Nexis if you want to search up to the current day.

The world's first illustrated weekly newspaper containing useful background for Victorian topics in particular.

A British countercultural underground newspaper 1966-1986.

Founded in 1903, the Mirror plays a pivotal role in the history of journalism. Peaking in 1967, with a daily circulation of 5.25 million, the newspaper has had a history full of highs and lows. Today, it is the only mainstream left-wing tabloid remaining in the UK. Gale's Mirror Historical Archive, 1903-2000 features more than 800,000 pages of brand-new, full text searchable, scans of the complete run of the Mirror from 1903-2000, including the Sunday Mirror.

Full text articles from many news sources and trade journals both UK and international. Archives sometimes stretching back to the mid 1980s. For use in the UK only.

This online archive includes African-American newspapers as well as titles that pre-date a state's admission into the Union. There is a wide variety of titles and date coverage e.g. Afro-American (Baltimore), Daily Hot Blast, (Anniston, Alabama) Detroit Free Press, The Washington Globe, with the oldest newspaper dating from 1800. There are numerous ways to search or browse.

PressReader lets you access UK and international newspapers, plus a wide range of magazine content. Everything is full colour with archives varying in length depending on the publication.

Login guidance

Search over 15 ProQuest archives in 1 single search. Content includes

• magazines like Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Prima, She
• magazines covering cinema, theatre, TV, radio and gaming
• 19th century British periodicals
• a range of newspapers, including The Guardian and Observer, South China Morning Post and 19th century Chinese newspapers which were published in English
• the John Johnson archive of printed ephemera 

Founded in Hong Kong in 1903, this paper is known for its authoritative, influential, and independent reporting on Hong Kong, China and all of Asia, as well as its perspective of the rest of the world. Gain unique insights into modern Chinese history, 20th century politics, economics, and more. Search from 2000 up to the current day via Nexis Uni.

1271 London and provincial newsbooks, newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets and single-sheet ephemera, 1600 to 1800.

Launched in 1855 as an affordable newspaper, by 1876 The Telegraph was the largest-selling newspaper in the world. The newspaper was directed at a wealthy, educated readership and is commonly associated with traditional Toryism, despite its more "liberal" beginnings. The Telegraph Historical Archive has over 1 million pages of content and includes the Sunday edition from its inception in 1961. The archive offers a fundamental insight into UK domestic and international affairs and culture.

During the twentieth century, The Telegraph cemented its reputation as a pioneering yet reliable source of news reporting. There was the infamous uncensored interview with Kaiser Wilhelm of 1908, in which he successfully alienated Britain, France, Russia, and Japan. In 1942, the newspaper published the cryptic crossword puzzle responsible for recruiting Allied codebreakers during the Second World War.

Search over 200 years of articles. Articles are full facsimiles of what was published on the day and you can view the article in its original page location if you want.

Watch this video showing you how to make the most of the features available.

A collection covering the growth of readership, including magazines for women, children and leisure interests.

The text of 460 journals published between the 1680s and the 1930s. This archive includes millions of facsimile pages from a wide range of publications from scholarly and professional titles through to art periodicals, penny weeklies and illustrated family magazines.

This archive gives you highly respected commentary and analysis of global news each week from 1843 to 2015. Search by subject or browse by date. The articles are full facsimiles, including photos and charts.
Read about financial crises as they happened.

Access the full text of popular entertainment industry magazine archives, including New Musical Express, Variety, The Stage and Screen International.

Search all the newspaper and magazine archives which we buy from Gale Cengage in one go. Once you've done a search, use Term Clusters and Term Frequency on the right of the screen to help you analyse your results or use the panel of options to narrow in different ways.

Originally known as The London Gazette, this was the first official journal of record and the newspaper of the Crown. The Gazette became an authoritative and reliable source of news. Today, The Gazette is divided into service-specific areas of interest: Wills and Probate, Insolvency and the All Notices board; with sector-related guides, industry news and other useful resources encouraging users to tailor searches. To access historic content from 1665 onwards, use the column down the left where there is a publication date option.

A searchable archive of the US (1867 to present) and UK (1930-2015) editions of Harper's Bazaar. This resource chronicles over 150 years of American, British, and international fashion, culture, and society, supporting researchers by offering unique insights into the events, attitudes, and interests of the modern era.

Uncover detailed information about feminist magazines produced by women who campaigned for equality during the 1970s and 1980s. Each entry includes where to find the magazines and links to online copies where possible. Compared to magazines today, these publications contain fewer images and advertisements. They were often non-commercial ventures, produced on a shoe-string budget and reliant on free feminist labour. The financial support of the Greater London Council was vital to magazines such as Spare Rib and Outwrite, while Mukti had funding from Camden Council.

Social Shanghai was a magazine founded by Mina Shorrock in Shanghai in early 1906. It began as a monthly publication for "ladies" and expanded over time to cover all aspects of social life in Shanghai and other Chinese treaty ports, including fashions, sports and recreation, weddings, gardening, home furnishings, school education, infrastructure, travels, municipal council departments, shows and exhibitions, literature, book reviews, music, and personal sketches. It was the first foreign-language magazine published in China that reproduced substantially photographs in its pages.

A magazine archive chronicling the lives of Britain’s black community during the 1970s and 1980s. First launched in 1973, it combined radical journalism with campaigning zeal to shine a light on the issues affecting Britain’s black communities, as well as providing insight and commentary on politics in Britain and abroad. The years available in this archive range from 1974 - 1988.

The famous US weekly magazine

A complete searchable archive of American Vogue, from the first issue in 1892 to the current month. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included. You can find images by garment type, designer and brand names.

Search the backfiles of leading women's magazines from the late-19th century through to 2005. Titles include Company, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Prima, Seventeen and She from the UK and Canada. If you want to search just the UK versions, go to Advanced Search, then scroll to Place of Publication and tick London. Access more recent content via PressReader.

One of the fashion industry's most influential journals, coverage is from the first issue in 1910 to material from within the last twelve months. Every page, article, advertisement and cover has been included and is fully searchable.

This is a book and website aimed at those looking for guidance as they encounter big data for the first time and who wish to actively create and interrogate digital data.

This enables you to discover new insights across online archives with text and data mining resources, visualization tools, and methodology suggestions. The incremental process of Build, Clean, and Analyze supports newcomers and experienced users alike as they interpret both Gale Primary Sources and their own documents.

For a quick overview to understand what Digital Scholar Lab can do, watch this 2 minute video. For deeper understanding of each stage of the process, there are a whole set of videos here.

This is an open access, peer reviewed journal of methodology for digital historians. It contains lessons on skills, technology and tools, plus a blog.

An archive of UK television and radio programmes from free to air channels (1998 onwards). For use in the UK only. Find some great tips about how to use BoB in these short videos.

The British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent lets you search over 90,000 images of socio-political cartoons from British newspapers and magazines. You can download images free of charge for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the source according to this example: British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent: 06646, Michael Cummings, Daily Express, 4 January 1965.

This website holds detailed information on over 6000 films showing images of life in the British colonies. Over 150 films are available to view in full - advanced search lets you limit to those which have videos.

Over 100 films covering different aspects of India 1899-1947 from the British Film Institute National Archive

World War I image archive

Search over 20 online archives in one go, ranging from Early Modern England to 20th century Britain and America, plus China, Japan and the Middle East. The primary sources include letters, diaries, household accounts, Foreign Office declassified documents, photos, videos and much more. You can search all the archives separately but a cross-search may uncover unexpected treasures!

Themes covered include: childhood and family, objects, food, disability, the body, the home, women, dress and fashion, theatre, animals, the sea, work, leisure and consumption etc. Each theme goes from antiquity through to the 21st century. You can search by time or place as well as by theme.

Explore five centuries of primary source material documenting the story of food and drink. The materials in this collection illustrate the deep links between food and identity, politics, power, gender, race, and socio-economic status, as well as charting key issues such as agriculture, nutrition, and food production.

You can access printed and manuscript cookbooks, advertising ephemera, government reports, films, and illustrated content revealing the evolution of food and drink within everyday life and the public sphere. The unique material in this collection has been sourced from across the globe to reflect a wide range of food cultures and traditions.

Oxford History Handbooks offer thorough introductions and a survey of the current state of research in key topics, including material culture, oral history, witchcraft, genocide, nationalism, Reformation, Cold War, the English Revolution, end of empire etc. Chapters review key issues and major debates and indicate how the debates might evolve.

Watch this video about how to make the most of the features available.

Search or browse one of the most detailed primary sources for the history of Britain and its former colonies. Reports from military officers serving abroad are included, as well as Command Papers, Bills, Committee reports. Hansard is available from 1803-2005. (See UK Parliament link if you need more recent papers.)

Wiley Digital Archives comprises unique or rare historical primary sources, digitized from leading - mainly scientific - societies, libraries, and archives around the world. All Archives are cross-searchable, and contain tools for searching, browsing, analyzing and visualizing primary source content.

A gateway to thousands of the UK's richest archives held in over 220 institutions across the country. The Archives Hub helps you discover unique and often little-known sources to support your research.

If you want to trace details about a specific person or place, or perhaps need inspiration for creative writing, this could be just what you need! Connected Histories provides an all-in-one search across electronic content available on various sites such as 19^th Century British Pamphlets, the Clergy of the Church of England, Charles Booth Archive, Convict Transportation Registers, Proceedings of the Old Bailey, British Newspapers 1600-1900 etc. If you find something useful on a resource we pay for e.g. British Newspapers, you may need to follow the link to that resource from the Finding Articles page within these Subject Pages.

Explore Credo for trusted reference sources like dictionaries - a great alternative to Wikipedia! 

Watch these short videos to get started:

1. Search tips
2. Using the automated mind map

Links to primary historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated.

A cultural gateway into over 50 million digitised documents, maps, images and newspaper archives from across Europe. Thematic collections include World War I, fashion, industrial heritage, personal stories and sport. Special newspaper collections include issues covering the Paris World Exhibition of 1889, World War I and Eastern Europe in 1989.

The UK national centre for History based at Senate House, University of London.

This gives a wide range of statistics on population, education, (un)employment, agriculture, industry, motor vehicles, railways, TV and radio etc. Data can be viewed as PDF (downloadable) or Excel format which can then be exported. Make sure to use the "Search within book" option, not Springer's general search box at the top of the screen.

Enhance your research by searching over 450 free collections hosted by JSTOR but digitized from the holdings of over 135 universities, libraries and archives around the world. As well as documents, you will find postcards, maps, photos, student artwork and more. Although you can browse all collections, you may find it quicker to click Contributors and identify an institution you are interested in, then search within what they have provided.

This website presents the often untold stories of the migrants who came to and shaped the British Isles from Roman times to the 21st century. While it is primarily designed to support teachers and students studying migration to Britain, its aim is to be a useful resource for anyone interested in Britain’s migration history.

The national record of over 60,000 biographies, 72 million words, 11,000 portraits of significant, influential or notorious figures who shaped British history and culture, worldwide, from the Romans to the 21st century - extremely useful for detailed biographies about literary figures.

Useful advice defining primary sources, then how to find and evaluate them on the web. This is provided by the American Library Association so some of the sources mentioned are most useful for those doing American history.

A primary source for historical research, the Annual Register - first edited by Edmund Burke - is a complete and detailed chronicle of events in Britain and across the world from 1758 to the current year. The link here lets you access the volume for 1758. To find the others, just type Annual Register plus the year you need into the Portsmouth library catalogue.

Themes covered include: childhood and family, objects, food, disability, the body, the home, women, dress and fashion, theatre, animals, the sea, work, leisure and consumption etc. Each theme goes from antiquity through to the 21st century. You can search by time or place as well as by theme.

This collection contains materials produced by the British Ministry of Information (MOI) and Central Office of Information (COI) from 1939-2009. It provides a unique insight into what successive British governments wanted their citizens to know, think, and do, as well as how their methods and media of achieving their aims changed over time. In addition, it reveals the image of Britain that different governments chose to project to the rest of the world.

Items range from posters and stickers to pamphlets and guidance booklets. The subject matter is just as varied, covering public health, education, social security, civil defence, international politics, race relations, sex discrimination, public sector career opportunities, policing, the environment, and Britain’s membership of the European Economic Community. Most of the items were published during the post-war period, but some date from the First and Second World Wars. 

Search or browse the full text of British Cabinet Papers from 1915-1996 which are held in the National Archives. If you want to search, it is worth reading the search tips available on the site.

This archive contains analysis, research, debates and speeches from the Royal Institute of International Affairs from 1920-2008. Topics covered include the Cold War, energy security, nuclear disarmament, decolonisation etc. You can also listen to recordings of meetings and speeches as well as seeing the transcript in many cases.

Watch this short introductory video.

Access 800,000 pages of primary source documents produced between 1874 and 1965. You will find handwritten letters to and from Winston Churchill, plus the typed manuscripts of his speeches. The Teaching & Research section also contains academic overviews on key topics such as women and social change, empire and imperialism, the origins of the First World War, the Cold War and nuclear weapons, the "special relationship" between Britain and America and Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty - all have links to relevant documents within the archive.

Digital images of a wide range of original documents, including diaries, letters, personal narratives, trench journals, scrapbooks etc. Supplementing the primary sources is a wealth of secondary resources including interactive maps, 360° panoramas and walk-throughs of the Sanctuary Wood Trench System, the Memory Wall, In Their Own Words feature, scholarly essays, a chronology and glossaries. The Visual Perspectives and Narratives module has greater emphasis on the role of women, plus the home front.

Originally known as The London Gazette, this was the first official journal of record and the newspaper of the Crown. The Gazette became an authoritative and reliable source of news. Today, The Gazette is divided into service-specific areas of interest: Wills and Probate, Insolvency and the All Notices board; with sector-related guides, industry news and other useful resources encouraging users to tailor searches. To access historic content from 1665 onwards, use the column down the left where there is a publication date option.

Georgian Papers Online is a catalogue created by the Royal Archives to make available in digitised form the historic manuscripts held in the Royal Archives and Royal Library but it is not yet a complete catalogue of the Georgian Papers. The catalogue contains descriptions and digitised images of over 200,000 pages of documents dating from the reigns of George I to William IV, including personal letters, diaries, account books and records of the Royal Household. Check What's in the catalogue? in the left hand column for lists of documents available.

Digitised documents, images and film of the First World War contributed by members of the public to a project hosted by the University of Oxford.

Bringing together unique primary sources drawn from world-class maritime archives and heritage collections, Life at Sea takes a socio-cultural approach, focusing on the individual experiences and personal narratives of seafarers. Through a broad range of sources, from journals and memoirs to ships’ logs and court records, the lives of ordinary seamen, merchants, whalers and pirates can be explored. This resource offers exciting new insights into three centuries of the Anglo-American maritime world, 1600-1900.

For a quick overview, watch this.

MarineLives is a collaborative volunteer driven project dedicated to the collaborative transcription, linkage and enrichment of primary manuscripts from the English High Court of Admiralty, 1627-1677 (the original Admiralty Court records are held at the National Archives in Kew). The thematic focus is on marine lives, but with the emphasis on lives touched by the marine (mariners, shore trades, merchants), rather than on pure "marine history", and on the interconnectedness and intermingling of marine lives in terms of materials, language, commerce and correspondence. There are over 12,757 text pages and 12,167 images available. Finding aids created by volunteers are available on topics as diverse as Bad Behaviour and Invective; Inns, Taverns and Victualling Houses; and Slavery.

Use the column down the left of the screen to explore further.

The Royal Naval Museum, in Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard, is one of Britain's oldest maritime museums. The Museum's aim is to preserve and present the history of the 'Fleet' - the ships and the men and women who manned them.

With volumes dating from 1759 - 1817, these searchable, facsimile volumes of a contemporary periodical designed for public consumption contain mini-biographies, poetry, reports from various stations/ports, births/marriages/deaths/promotion notices, extracts from/copies of letters (possibly reprinted from the newspapers), etc. (We also have volumes 22, 31, 33, 35, 36, 37 and 40 available as Cambridge e-books.)

Access rare and original documents on naval history.

This resource is restricted to members of the University of Portsmouth

You have two ways to access the login instructions:

1. Contact the Library from any Library enquiry desk or by contacting us:

• Email: library@port.ac.uk
• Tel: 023 9284 3228

2. Connect to the University VPN and use the link below:

View restricted access information for resources

To verify you are a University member, please use your university email account or include your student/staff number in your message. If calling, please have your student/staff card ready.

This archive contains primary sources covering the development of urban centres and the major restructuring of society that took place during the Industrial Revolution. The collections offer an understanding of key events such as Chartist agitation, Anti-Corn Law disturbances, the Peterloo massacre and tensions underlying policy formation and the nature of Victorian government. Home Office records reflect the varied responsibilities of the Home Secretary's office, including petitions to the Crown, appointments to public offices, disturbances and sedition, inventions, poor relief, prison administration, public health, public order, and the universities.

Get an overview in this short video.

The national record of over 60,000 biographies, 72 million words, 11,000 portraits of significant, influential or notorious figures who shaped British history and culture, worldwide, from the Romans to the 21st century - extremely useful for detailed biographies about literary figures.

This key resource for the early modern period brings you original historical documents ranging from high level international politics and diplomacy to the charges against a steward for poisoning people. The correspondence, reports, memoranda, and parliamentary drafts from ambassadors, civil servants and provincial administrators present a full picture of Tudor and Stuart Britain in terms of domestic and foreign policy. In addition, Eighteenth Century Part 1 gives you access to State Papers Domestic, Military, Naval and Registers of the Privy Council 1714-1782, so naval historians can read all papers covering Lords of the Admiralty and Naval Commanders, plus casualty lists.

Watch this video showing you how to work effectively with State Papers Online.

Access over 2,000 stories and 25,000 digitised items, including photographs, letters and diaries about ordinary people who lived through the Second World War. Often the stories and photographs have been contributed by relatives who want their loved ones to be remembered. Their Finest Hour is a University of Oxford project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to empower local communities to preserve these stories and objects before they are lost to posterity. You can read about the project here.

Search or browse one of the most detailed primary sources for the history of Britain and its former colonies. Reports from military officers serving abroad are included, as well as Command Papers, Bills, Committee reports. Hansard is available from 1803-2005. (See UK Parliament link if you need more recent papers.)

Wiley Digital Archives comprises unique or rare historical primary sources, digitized from leading - mainly scientific - societies, libraries, and archives around the world. All Archives are cross-searchable, and contain tools for searching, browsing, analyzing and visualizing primary source content.

Produced in 2014, this site includes around 500 sources from across Europe. It examines key themes such as origins of the war, race, empire and colonial troops, propaganda, life for soldiers and civilians. A historical debates section looks at how historians' views of the war have changed over time.

This archive contains letters, memos, transcripts, photos and official correspondence from leaders and governments that shaped the events of the last 2 centuries. The archive includes documents written by British officials recording their perspective on events and their impressions of people they met. A search for "Royal Navy" (in double quotation marks as shown) will pull up numerous documents of interest.

Most of the manuscript collections in this archive consist of the British Foreign Office and United States consular and diplomatic records for China and Japan in the 19th century. These records were generally maintained in the local consular or diplomatic posts and reflect the day-to-day accounting of the activities of the indigenous populations and their national governments, the expansion of trade, and the exercise of extraterritorial rights and treaty provisions. In addition, a selection of missionary correspondence and journals has been included, as missionaries usually provided some of the earliest contact in various Asian locales with Western ideals.

This resource collects sources from nine archives to give an incredible insight into the changes in China between 1793 and 1980, including the birth and early years of the People’s Republic. You will find a wide variety of primary source material detailing China’s interaction with the West from Macartney’s first Embassy to China in 1793, through to the Nixon/Heath visits to China in 1972-74. It provides multiple perspectives – from politicians, diplomats, missionaries, business people and tourists – and documents many key events.

Watch this 23 minute webinar to understand how this archive could help you.

This collection consists of the Foreign and Colonial Office Confidential Print for the countries of the Levant and the Arabian peninsula, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Sudan digitised from The National Archives, UK. Beginning with the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the 1830s, the documents trace the events of the following 150 years, including the Middle East Conference of 1921, the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia, the partition of Palestine, the 1956 Suez Crisis and post-Suez Western foreign policy, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The six parts of this collection make available all British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan between 1919 and 1980 but our access covers 1930-1948. Throughout most of this period the major European powers, the United States and Japan maintained considerable political and economic interests in China, most notably in the foreign concessions in Shanghai and other ‘treaty ports’. Due to the long-unique nature of the relationship between Britain and China, these formerly restricted British government documents, consisting of diplomatic dispatches, letters, newspaper cuttings, maps, reports of court cases, biographies of leading personalities, summaries of events and diverse other materials, provide unprecedented levels of detail into one of the most turbulent centuries of Chinese history.

Please note that we have only been able to buy 2 parts: Part 2 = 1930-1937: The Long March, civil war in China and the Manchurian Crisis. Part 3 = 1938-1948: Open Door, Japanese war and the seeds of communist victory.

Published in three parts, this collection makes available extensive coverage of British Foreign Office files dealing with Japan between 1919 and 1952: Japan and Great Power Status, 1919-1930; Japanese Imperialism and the War in the Pacific, 1931-1945; Occupation of Japan, 1946-1952.

These Foreign Office files cover British concerns over colonial-held territory in the Far East, as well as Japanese relations with China, Russia, Germany and the United States. Consisting of diplomatic dispatches, correspondence, maps, summaries of events and diverse other material, this collection from the rich FO 371 and FO 262 series unites formerly restricted Japan-centric documents, and is enhanced by the addition of a selection of FO 371 Western and American Department and Far Eastern sub papers.

Watch this 25 minute webinar to discover more about making the most of this archive.

The official historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions that have been declassified and edited for publication. You can browse or search documents from 1861-1960.

Migration to New Worlds explores the movement of people from Britain, Europe and Asia between 1800 and 1924, although some material outside this time period is also included. Thematic areas include motives for emigration, port conditions and organisation and journey conditions.

Watch this 30 minute webinar to discover more about this archive. Note that actual content for research is introduced from 0.58 seconds into the recording.

This collection replicates all the minutes of meetings held by the Board of Directors of the Shanghai Municipal Council from July 1854 to December 1943. A wide range of topics were discussed at these board meetings, such as sanitation, transportation, telecommunication and postal service, taxation, urban planning, gas supply, street lighting, rickshaw operator management, animal protection, and police system. The minutes taken from July 1854 to December 1906 are handwritten while the rest are typewritten.

Good for US history and politics from the twentieth century onwards, this site contains declassified US documents.

The Municipal Gazette provides a unique window into the workings of the Shanghai International Settlement during the period of revolution, the Republic, internationalization of Shanghai, national uprising, and world war.

A wide ranging archive which includes US Supreme Court records, books, pamphlets, newspapers and facsimiles of letters by the English abolitionist William Wilberforce etc

U.S. Declassified Documents Online covers the 20th and 21st centuries. The collection brings together the most sensitive documents from all the presidential libraries and numerous executive agencies in a single, easily searchable database. You will find this useful for a range of topics including decolonisation and foreign policy across the world, as well as civil rights etc.

You can view a short video explaining this archive. To help you narrow down effectively, there is also a video about the advanced search features.

Themes covered include: childhood and family, objects, food, disability, the body, the home, women, dress and fashion, theatre, animals, the sea, work, leisure and consumption etc. Each theme goes from antiquity through to the 21st century. You can search by time or place as well as by theme.

A database of "petitions to the state from veterans and their families for welfare payments as a result of injuries and bereavement sustained during the English Civil Wars." The site also provides supporting background information, including a bibliography, about the conflicts in England and Wales, their significance, and other insights into 17th-century life that the documents offer. Civil War Petitions is a joint project of the universities of Leicester, Nottingham (the site host), Cardiff, and Southampton.

An invaluable research tool providing biographical information about individual clergymen and the succession of clergy in individual parishes. You will also find details about patrons, schools and schoolteachers.

No other resource for early modern scholarship is as comprehensive as Early English Books Online (EEBO) with over 146,600 titles and associated bibliographic records. Users can explore complete, digitized images of all the works listed in the key bibliographic records of English literature: The Short-Title Catalogue (Pollard & Redgrave, 1475-1640); The Short-Title Catalogue II (Wing, 1641-1700); The Thomason Tracts; and the Early English Books Tract Supplements, as well as original almanacs, pamphlets, musical scores, prayer books and other primary sources.

This project offers rare and invaluable sources for examining the lived experience of people who witnessed this pivotal era of English history. From 'ordinary' people through to more prominent individuals and families, these documents show how everyday working, family, religious and administrative life was experienced across England.

For a quick overview, watch this. 

A high quality online reference source bought specially for the early modern History courses at Portsmouth.

An online tutorial on reading the handwriting found in documents written in English 1500-1800; includes a practice section. Provided by the UK National Archives, developed in partnership with the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies (SLAIS), University College London.

This key resource for the early modern period brings you original historical documents ranging from high level international politics and diplomacy to the charges against a steward for poisoning people. The correspondence, reports, memoranda, and parliamentary drafts from ambassadors, civil servants and provincial administrators present a full picture of Tudor and Stuart Britain in terms of domestic and foreign policy. In addition, Eighteenth Century Part 1 gives you access to State Papers Domestic, Military, Naval and Registers of the Privy Council 1714-1782, so naval historians can read all papers covering Lords of the Admiralty and Naval Commanders, plus casualty lists.

Watch this video showing you how to work effectively with State Papers Online.

Access a wide range of primary sources related to the arts in the Victorian era, from playbills and scripts to operas and complete scores. These rare documents were sourced from the British Library and other renowned institutions. Covering more than a century, British Theatre, Music, and Literature is without equal as a resource for 19th century scholars. The collection provides a detailed look at the state of the British art world with, for example, not only manuscripts and compositions, but also documents such as personal letters, annotated programs, meeting minutes, and financial records, offering scholars an unmatched glimpse into the inner workings of the arts world and life in Victorian Britain.

Papers, notebooks and casebooks from the survey into London life and labour, 1886-1903. Booth family papers are also included.

An invaluable research tool providing biographical information about individual clergymen and the succession of clergy in individual parishes. You will also find details about patrons, schools and schoolteachers.

This archive comprises more than 2 million pages from manuscripts, books, broadsheets, and periodicals. It unites a number of disciplines, from law, criminology, and history to studies of popular culture and fiction. The full story of a notable crime can be revealed via court transcripts, prison and transportation records, petitions, police advertisements, collections of newsprint cuttings, ballad broadsheets, and criminological comment. Digitally available for the first time is a wealth of English archival crime material, both rural, as with the Althorp papers, and urban, with collections of police correspondence from London and Manchester. The extensive notebooks of English judge John Duke Coleridge have also been digitized, and also collections of police correspondence from London and Manchester.

The collection covers Europe, North America, India, and the Antipodes and includes material in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German.

This short video gives tips about using the archive.

ECCO is a searchable corpus of books, pamphlets and broadsides in all subjects printed between 1701 and 1800. It currently contains over 180,000 titles with over 32 million fully-searchable pages. It is a digitization of the 18th century section of the works catalogued in the English Short-title Catalogue (ESTC). The ESTC project has been recording all works published or printed in Britain, Ireland, territories under British colonial rule, and the United States. It also catalogues material printed elsewhere which contains significant text in English, Welsh, Irish or Gaelic, as well as any book falsely claiming to have been printed in Britain or its territories.

Explore primary sources for gender history, women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men's movement, the body, domesticity and the family. The records available include some from pressure groups giving details of 20th century lobbying and activism.

Watch this 40 minute webinar to understand more about the content available.

Georgian Papers Online is a catalogue created by the Royal Archives to make available in digitised form the historic manuscripts held in the Royal Archives and Royal Library but it is not yet a complete catalogue of the Georgian Papers. The catalogue contains descriptions and digitised images of over 200,000 pages of documents dating from the reigns of George I to William IV, including personal letters, diaries, account books and records of the Royal Household. Check What's in the catalogue? in the left hand column for lists of documents available.

This gives a wide range of statistics on population, education, (un)employment, agriculture, industry, motor vehicles, railways, TV and radio etc. Data can be viewed as PDF (downloadable) or Excel format which can then be exported. Make sure to use the "Search within book" option, not Springer's general search box at the top of the screen.

An online archive of just under 68,000 printed items covering aspects of everyday life in Britain in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. You will find posters and handbills for theatrical and non-theatrical entertainments, broadsides relating to murders and executions, book and journal prospectuses, popular topographical prints, and a wealth of different kinds of printed advertising material.

Watch this short video introducing the collection.

Over 240,000 manuscript and printed pages providing historical records on over 3.35 million people. Facilities are provided to allow you to link together records relating to the same individual, and to compile biographies of the best documented individuals (free registration required if you want to do this).

Access a range of primary and secondary sources covering London from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. As well as documents, you will find interactive maps, illustrations and photographs to really bring the streets to life.

This archive contains primary sources covering the development of urban centres and the major restructuring of society that took place during the Industrial Revolution. The collections offer an understanding of key events such as Chartist agitation, Anti-Corn Law disturbances, the Peterloo massacre and tensions underlying policy formation and the nature of Victorian government. Home Office records reflect the varied responsibilities of the Home Secretary's office, including petitions to the Crown, appointments to public offices, disturbances and sedition, inventions, poor relief, prison administration, public health, public order, and the universities.

Get an overview in this short video.

The national record of over 60,000 biographies, 72 million words, 11,000 portraits of significant, influential or notorious figures who shaped British history and culture, worldwide, from the Romans to the 21st century - extremely useful for detailed biographies about literary figures.

Discover what life was like for the poorest communities in Victorian Britain, and explore the government policy, social reform movements and philanthropic efforts of charitable institutions that sought to alleviate poverty. This archive offers a multi-dimensional portrait of poverty from the perspectives of central state officials, local bureaucrats and inspectors, social policy makers, politicians and people working in private voluntary organizations. Documents cover the complex social climate of 19th and early 20th century Britain between the introduction of the New Poor Law in 1834 and the abolition of the workhouse system in 1930.

For a quick overview, watch this. If you want an in-depth introduction to this resource, watch this 1 hour webinar (information about this specific resource starts at 8 min 30 secs).

London's Central Criminal Court records 1674-1913 - just under 200,000 trial details are available.

As the 19th century opened in Britain, William Paley published his Natural Theology (1802), a text that seemed to successfully integrate 18th century natural science and religious belief into a sophisticated scheme proving that the universe demonstrated its own divine design. Liberal Christianity, however, would not go uncontested. The 19th century, instead, was punctuated by economic, social, and intellectual events that birthed two powerful waves of evangelical revival waves that in turn sparked highly influential religious and secular responses of a rationalist, philosophically organicist, or countercultural character. These disruptive events included the demographic upheavals of the early and second industrial revolutions, the mid-century revolutionary political upsurges of 1848, early trade union activity, stratigraphic geology spawned by the mining industry, and the natural selection thesis forcefully argued by Darwin's Origin of the Species (1859). All three types of intellectual response were associated with powerful impulses toward moral or social reform. It is impossible to consider the topic of religion in the long 19th century without considering its relationship to the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, temperance, conditions of labor, utopian experiments in living, missions to aid the poor, and the emergence of Christian Socialism and the Social Gospel movement, which this collection illustrates.

An extensive range of primary and secondary sources, plus thematic essays on multiple aspects of feminism from 1776 to 1928.

A wide ranging archive which includes US Supreme Court records, books, pamphlets, newspapers and facsimiles of letters by the English abolitionist William Wilberforce etc

An essential resource for the study of popular entertainment in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries containing everything from full-text books, to posters and performance tickets.

Watch this 90 second video about how to store items for later use.

Access 40 years of self-regulation and censorship in the film industry via detailed case files for nearly 20,000 film projects that were submitted to the Production Code staff. The collection also includes several hundred files for films reviewed by the Studio Relations Committee between 1927 and 1929, and a small number of files for films released after 1968. The selection includes films from every studio and genre, as well as examples of important foreign productions and independently made films. The Production Code Administration files document the self-regulation process from the first submission of a script, play, or literary property to the final approval of the finished film. The core of the files is the correspondence between the studios or producers and the staffs of the PCA and the MPAA. However, the files are also filled with letters to and from theater owners, censor boards, religious organizations, government entities, and other special interest groups that were concerned with the content of films.

Themes covered include: childhood and family, objects, food, disability, the body, the home, women, dress and fashion, theatre, animals, the sea, work, leisure and consumption etc. Each theme goes from antiquity through to the 21st century. You can search by time or place as well as by theme.

An archive of UK television and radio programmes from free to air channels (1998 onwards). For use in the UK only. Find some great tips about how to use BoB in these short videos.

The British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent lets you search over 90,000 images of socio-political cartoons from British newspapers and magazines. You can download images free of charge for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the source according to this example: British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent: 06646, Michael Cummings, Daily Express, 4 January 1965.

"British Pathé is considered to be the finest newsreel archive in the world and is a treasure trove of 85,000 films unrivalled in their historical and cultural significance....1896 to 1978, the collection includes footage from around the globe of major events, famous faces, fashion trends, travel, science and culture." Also includes Reuters historical collection.

This website holds detailed information on over 6000 films showing images of life in the British colonies. Over 150 films are available to view in full - advanced search lets you limit to those which have videos.

Access questionnaires and interviews about cinema in the UK in the 1960s.

A cultural gateway into over 50 million digitised documents, maps, images and newspaper archives from across Europe. Thematic collections include World War I, fashion, industrial heritage, personal stories and sport. Special newspaper collections include issues covering the Paris World Exhibition of 1889, World War I and Eastern Europe in 1989.

Over 100 films covering different aspects of India 1899-1947 from the British Film Institute National Archive

Explore documents, fanzines, photos and newsreel footage to help understand these key decades when consumer culture and pop music took off and protest movements were big news.

Access the annual reports and other publications of the UK's Commission for Racial Equality from the 1970s - 2008.

Explore 20 collections of documents, including minutes of meetings and conferences, press releases, fliers, brochures, press clippings, US government memoranda and reports, private correspondence, surveys and photos.

Watch this quick introduction to the archive - please note we only subscribe to Part 1 which contains British material as well as coverage from North America.

Access thousands of items from archives based mainly in the USA but also including the UK, Ireland, Spain and Brazil. The largest collections are photos, clippings and newsletters but you will also find correspondence, speeches, posters and ephemera.

Disability in the Modern World: History of a Social Movement encompasses an international set of resources to enrich study in a wide range of disciplines from media studies to philosophy.

Explore primary sources for gender history, women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men's movement, the body, domesticity and the family. The records available include some from pressure groups giving details of 20th century lobbying and activism.

Watch this 40 minute webinar to understand more about the content available.

Read and listen to the testimonies of over 100 women who took part in the protests against US cruise missiles being held at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire starting in 1981 and lasting 19 years. Photographs and music from the protests are also available.

Features of the site include a timeline, links to personal stories/memories, photographic archives etc. The Resources link at the top right of the site leads to a wide range of links relating to women's organisations and activism in the UK and beyond

Launched in 1981 by the University of Sussex as a rebirth of the original 1937 Mass Observation, this aims to document the social history of Britain by recruiting volunteers to write about their lives and opinions. It is one of the most important sources available for qualitative social data in the UK. This collection consists of the directives (questionnaires) sent out by Mass Observation in the 1980s/1990s and the thousands of responses from the hundreds of Mass Observers on topics such as elections, Europe, AIDS, the miners' strike, Britishness, the fall of the Berlin Wall, TV soaps, family life, education, the National Lottery, the Stephen Lawrence Enquiry, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Watch this quick overview of the material covering the 1990s.

A key source about daily life in the 20th century. You can look at topic collections (1938-65) on juvenile delinquency, holidays, leisure, industry etc., or view diary entries (1939-51) and day surveys. File reports (1937-1972) cover subjects such as propaganda, morale, popular culture, food, shopping, sex, fashion and much more.

Watch this 90 second video to find out about the interactive chronology you can access within Mass Observation.

This site unpacks the issues of migration, identity and diversity facing contemporary societies. It features information, stories, images and learning resources, with links and further reading to follow up. Read about new research on the histories and cultures of Britain's diverse communities. The Migration Histories section looks at some major historical migrations and how they have helped shape the UK.

This archive from the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick, lets you access documents starting with Jewish East London in the 1880s, moving through British ports 1910s-1930s, West Indian migration 1948-58, South Asian and Ugandan Asian migration in the 1970s to Race, policing and the 1980s riots. Although many documents can be accessed online, some are only available in printed form in Warwick.

This resource covers the fascinating subject of feminism over the long nineteenth century (1776-1928). It contains an extensive range of primary and secondary resources, including photographs and illustrations.

A collection of 205 oral history interviews conducted between 1974 and 1981 covering the suffrage movement in Edwardian Britain but then widening to discussion of women's lives and experience as the 20th century progressed. Scroll down to find all the recordings.

A major collection on women's history held within the London School of Economics and Political Science Library but available to those who need to use it.

Access a digitised collection of annual reports, pamphlets and newspapers held at the LSE but made available to everyone.

Although widely quoted, opinion polls are rarely published in full or held by libraries. This collection offers the complete text of the polls and surveys of the major organizations named below, along with the statistical results.

The Tom Harrisson Mass-Observation experiment and Britain's war-time Home Intelligence Reports were two comparatively short-lived attempts at feeling the pulse of public opinion and collating the expressed views of a wide cross-section of the British Public in order to formulate action and legislation. A far more extensive operation was undertaken in the 28 years since 1960 by the joint members of the Association of Political Opinion Pollsters (APOP). Namely, MORI (Market and Opinion Research International), NOP (National Opinion Polls Market Research); HARRIS (The Harris Research Centre), MARPLAN and GALLUP. For the first time ever, the complete political and social opinion polls of these five major social survey organizations have been brought together and indexed. In consequence, political scientists, sociologists and economic and social historians now have ready access to a formidable body of material providing data on political opinion, public tastes, major concerns and many individual issues.

Subjects covered include: AIDS, Channel Tunnel, Constituency and marginal polls, General elections, Homosexuality, Miner's Strike, Police, Poll tax, Political trends

The governments of Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher come under close scrutiny. It is possible to analyze when governments lost the common touch, or when they gained popular support. For instance, how important was the Falklands' factor for Margaret Thatcher, and how did Neil Kinnock turn the Labour Party around?

From Vienna, its chief listening post, and also from Prague and Warsaw, the AP covered Eastern Europe during the Cold War. Reporters rotated in and out of the Eastern bloc, writing about the declining influence of the Soviet Union, the last days of the Iron Curtain, and the political and economic re-structuring of the former Soviet satellites. These collections are composed almost entirely of wire copy, which was saved by the bureaus. The Vienna bureau files include copy documenting events in Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, the former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and the former Yugoslavia in the years 1952 to 2000 (date spans vary by country). News releases from government news agencies are often interfiled. Look out for the Berlin documents dated August 1946 which were rescued from a cellar. Amongst other topics, they cover the food situation of German civilians.

This collection contains materials produced by the British Ministry of Information (MOI) and Central Office of Information (COI) from 1939-2009. It provides a unique insight into what successive British governments wanted their citizens to know, think, and do, as well as how their methods and media of achieving their aims changed over time. In addition, it reveals the image of Britain that different governments chose to project to the rest of the world.

Items range from posters and stickers to pamphlets and guidance booklets. The subject matter is just as varied, covering public health, education, social security, civil defence, international politics, race relations, sex discrimination, public sector career opportunities, policing, the environment, and Britain’s membership of the European Economic Community. Most of the items were published during the post-war period, but some date from the First and Second World Wars. 

Search or browse the full text of British Cabinet Papers from 1915-1996 which are held in the National Archives. If you want to search, it is worth reading the search tips available on the site.

This archive contains analysis, research, debates and speeches from the Royal Institute of International Affairs from 1920-2008. Topics covered include the Cold War, energy security, nuclear disarmament, decolonisation etc. You can also listen to recordings of meetings and speeches as well as seeing the transcript in many cases.

Watch this short introductory video.

Access 800,000 pages of primary source documents produced between 1874 and 1965. You will find handwritten letters to and from Winston Churchill, plus the typed manuscripts of his speeches. The Teaching & Research section also contains academic overviews on key topics such as women and social change, empire and imperialism, the origins of the First World War, the Cold War and nuclear weapons, the "special relationship" between Britain and America and Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty - all have links to relevant documents within the archive.

This collection consists of the Foreign and Colonial Office Confidential Print for the countries of the Levant and the Arabian peninsula, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Sudan digitised from The National Archives, UK. Beginning with the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the 1830s, the documents trace the events of the following 150 years, including the Middle East Conference of 1921, the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia, the partition of Palestine, the 1956 Suez Crisis and post-Suez Western foreign policy, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Digital images of a wide range of original documents, including diaries, letters, personal narratives, trench journals, scrapbooks etc. Supplementing the primary sources is a wealth of secondary resources including interactive maps, 360° panoramas and walk-throughs of the Sanctuary Wood Trench System, the Memory Wall, In Their Own Words feature, scholarly essays, a chronology and glossaries. The Visual Perspectives and Narratives module has greater emphasis on the role of women, plus the home front.

Published in three parts, this collection makes available extensive coverage of British Foreign Office files dealing with Japan between 1919 and 1952: Japan and Great Power Status, 1919-1930; Japanese Imperialism and the War in the Pacific, 1931-1945; Occupation of Japan, 1946-1952.

These Foreign Office files cover British concerns over colonial-held territory in the Far East, as well as Japanese relations with China, Russia, Germany and the United States. Consisting of diplomatic dispatches, correspondence, maps, summaries of events and diverse other material, this collection from the rich FO 371 and FO 262 series unites formerly restricted Japan-centric documents, and is enhanced by the addition of a selection of FO 371 Western and American Department and Far Eastern sub papers.

Watch this 25 minute webinar to discover more about making the most of this archive.

Digitised documents, images and film of the First World War contributed by members of the public to a project hosted by the University of Oxford.

Access declassified documents from Margaret Thatcher's personal files, as well as public and private archives in the UK and USA. You will also find videos, photos and the text of most speeches up to 1990.

World War I image archive

Access over 2,000 stories and 25,000 digitised items, including photographs, letters and diaries about ordinary people who lived through the Second World War. Often the stories and photographs have been contributed by relatives who want their loved ones to be remembered. Their Finest Hour is a University of Oxford project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to empower local communities to preserve these stories and objects before they are lost to posterity. You can read about the project here.

This site hosted by The National Archive links via the UK Government Web Archive to the Office of the Prime Minister and Number 10 - Tony Blair Archives. Following the Office of the Prime Minister link you can access speeches, statements and press conferences, as well as video recordings of Prime Minister's Questions.

U.S. Declassified Documents Online covers the 20th and 21st centuries. The collection brings together the most sensitive documents from all the presidential libraries and numerous executive agencies in a single, easily searchable database. You will find this useful for a range of topics including decolonisation and foreign policy across the world, as well as civil rights etc.

You can view a short video explaining this archive. To help you narrow down effectively, there is also a video about the advanced search features.

Produced in 2014, this site includes around 500 sources from across Europe. It examines key themes such as origins of the war, race, empire and colonial troops, propaganda, life for soldiers and civilians. A historical debates section looks at how historians' views of the war have changed over time.

This archive contains analysis, research, debates and speeches from the Royal Institute of International Affairs from 1920-2008. Topics covered include the Cold War, energy security, nuclear disarmament, decolonisation etc. You can also listen to recordings of meetings and speeches as well as seeing the transcript in many cases.

Watch this short introductory video.

This website holds detailed information on over 6000 films showing images of life in the British colonies. Over 150 films are available to view in full - advanced search lets you limit to those which have videos.

A brilliant source containing essays, maps, primary sources and an interactive chronology on the theme of Empire across the last 5 centuries

Read in-depth coverage about empires across the world from ancient to modern times. Entries include the Suez Crisis of 1956, the partition of Africa, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dutch East Indies, propaganda and empire, decolonization in the French and British empires, postcolonialism and much more.

Migration to New Worlds explores the movement of people from Britain, Europe and Asia between 1800 and 1924, although some material outside this time period is also included. Thematic areas include motives for emigration, port conditions and organisation and journey conditions.

Watch this 30 minute webinar to discover more about this archive. Note that actual content for research is introduced from 0.58 seconds into the recording.

Read authoritative, peer-reviewed, regularly updated entries written by experts on African History from across the world. Topics include African Diaspora, Afrocentrism, Oral Traditions, Women's History, Religious History, Slavery and Colonial History.

Includes over 200,000 House of Commons sessional papers from 1715 to the present, with supplementary material back to 1688.

U.S. Declassified Documents Online covers the 20th and 21st centuries. The collection brings together the most sensitive documents from all the presidential libraries and numerous executive agencies in a single, easily searchable database. You will find this useful for a range of topics including decolonisation and foreign policy across the world, as well as civil rights etc.

You can view a short video explaining this archive. To help you narrow down effectively, there is also a video about the advanced search features.

Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires since 1820 explores prominent themes in world history since 1820: conquest, colonization, settlement, resistance, and post-coloniality, as told through women’s voices. With a clear focus on bringing the voices of the colonized to the forefront, this highly-curated archive and database includes documents related to the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and United States Empires, and settler societies in the United States, New Zealand and Australia.

Online scholarly resource focusing on the socio-political history of South Africa, particularly the struggle for freedom during the period from 1950 to the first democratic elections in 1994

Read authoritative, peer-reviewed, regularly updated entries written by experts on African History from across the world. Topics include African Diaspora, Afrocentrism, Oral Traditions, Women's History, Religious History, Slavery and Colonial History.

The liberation of Southern Africa and the dismantling of the Apartheid regime was one of the major political developments of the 20th century, with far-reaching consequences for people throughout Africa and around the globe. Access a collection of documents which focuses on the complex and varied liberation struggles in the region, with an emphasis on Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. It brings together materials from various archives and libraries throughout the world documenting colonial rule, dispersion of exiles, international intervention, and the worldwide networks that supported successive generations of resistance within the region.

Access key US documents, including the Declaration of Independence, online.

Explore a range of documents from the early 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century covering desegregation, civil rights activities and protests, race relations and community integration, plus African American culture. You will find facsimiles of letters, pamphlets, photos, maps, legal records etc, plus oral history interviews which you can watch.

Read accounts of slave life by over 2,300 former slaves as told to interviewers between 1936 and 1938.

Access over 100,000 documents related to the study of the Presidency from George Washington onwards - includes speeches and foreign policy documents.

This online archive gives you 1,600 documents from 1790 - 2000, arranged in 6 blocks. Documents are brought together from the following sources: American Periodicals, Black Abolitionist Papers, ProQuest History Vault, ProQuest Congressional, Supreme Court Insight and Alexander Street’s Black Thought and Culture.

A rich range of resources related to FDR.

Explore manuscripts, artwork and rare printed books dating from the earliest contact with European settlers right up to photographs and newspapers from the mid-twentieth century. Browse through a wide range of rare and original documents from treaties, speeches and diaries, to historic maps and travel journals. You will find material relating to Native American history in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Access sound and video clips, together with photos and documents related to JFK (type archive in the search box to get a link to the Digital Archives)

A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through to reconstruction.

Access thousands of speeches, sermons, letters and other historic documents by and about Martin Luther King, Jr. The site also includes the King Online Encyclopedia which has information on over 1000 civil rights movement figures and a chronology of the movement.

An archive about racial segregation including photos and letters.

The papers of Rosa Parks (1913-2005) span the years 1866-2006, with the bulk of the material dating from 1955 to 2000. This collection, hosted by the Library of Congress, contains approximately 7,500 manuscripts, as well as 2,500 photographs. It documents many aspects of Parks's private life and public activism on behalf of civil rights for African Americans.

A wide ranging archive which includes US Supreme Court records, books, pamphlets, newspapers and facsimiles of letters by the English abolitionist William Wilberforce etc

A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through to reconstruction.

Most of the manuscript collections in this archive consist of the British Foreign Office and United States consular and diplomatic records for China and Japan in the 19th century. These records were generally maintained in the local consular or diplomatic posts and reflect the day-to-day accounting of the activities of the indigenous populations and their national governments, the expansion of trade, and the exercise of extraterritorial rights and treaty provisions. In addition, a selection of missionary correspondence and journals has been included, as missionaries usually provided some of the earliest contact in various Asian locales with Western ideals.

This resource collects sources from nine archives to give an incredible insight into the changes in China between 1793 and 1980, including the birth and early years of the People’s Republic. You will find a wide variety of primary source material detailing China’s interaction with the West from Macartney’s first Embassy to China in 1793, through to the Nixon/Heath visits to China in 1972-74. It provides multiple perspectives – from politicians, diplomats, missionaries, business people and tourists – and documents many key events.

Watch this 23 minute webinar to understand how this archive could help you.

This collection consists of the Foreign and Colonial Office Confidential Print for the countries of the Levant and the Arabian peninsula, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Sudan digitised from The National Archives, UK. Beginning with the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the 1830s, the documents trace the events of the following 150 years, including the Middle East Conference of 1921, the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia, the partition of Palestine, the 1956 Suez Crisis and post-Suez Western foreign policy, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The six parts of this collection make available all British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan between 1919 and 1980 but our access covers 1930-1948. Throughout most of this period the major European powers, the United States and Japan maintained considerable political and economic interests in China, most notably in the foreign concessions in Shanghai and other ‘treaty ports’. Due to the long-unique nature of the relationship between Britain and China, these formerly restricted British government documents, consisting of diplomatic dispatches, letters, newspaper cuttings, maps, reports of court cases, biographies of leading personalities, summaries of events and diverse other materials, provide unprecedented levels of detail into one of the most turbulent centuries of Chinese history.

Please note that we have only been able to buy 2 parts: Part 2 = 1930-1937: The Long March, civil war in China and the Manchurian Crisis. Part 3 = 1938-1948: Open Door, Japanese war and the seeds of communist victory.

Published in three parts, this collection makes available extensive coverage of British Foreign Office files dealing with Japan between 1919 and 1952: Japan and Great Power Status, 1919-1930; Japanese Imperialism and the War in the Pacific, 1931-1945; Occupation of Japan, 1946-1952.

These Foreign Office files cover British concerns over colonial-held territory in the Far East, as well as Japanese relations with China, Russia, Germany and the United States. Consisting of diplomatic dispatches, correspondence, maps, summaries of events and diverse other material, this collection from the rich FO 371 and FO 262 series unites formerly restricted Japan-centric documents, and is enhanced by the addition of a selection of FO 371 Western and American Department and Far Eastern sub papers.

Watch this 25 minute webinar to discover more about making the most of this archive.

This collection replicates all the minutes of meetings held by the Board of Directors of the Shanghai Municipal Council from July 1854 to December 1943. A wide range of topics were discussed at these board meetings, such as sanitation, transportation, telecommunication and postal service, taxation, urban planning, gas supply, street lighting, rickshaw operator management, animal protection, and police system. The minutes taken from July 1854 to December 1906 are handwritten while the rest are typewritten.

Social Shanghai was a magazine founded by Mina Shorrock in Shanghai in early 1906. It began as a monthly publication for "ladies" and expanded over time to cover all aspects of social life in Shanghai and other Chinese treaty ports, including fashions, sports and recreation, weddings, gardening, home furnishings, school education, infrastructure, travels, municipal council departments, shows and exhibitions, literature, book reviews, music, and personal sketches. It was the first foreign-language magazine published in China that reproduced substantially photographs in its pages.

The Municipal Gazette provides a unique window into the workings of the Shanghai International Settlement during the period of revolution, the Republic, internationalization of Shanghai, national uprising, and world war.