Primary sources online
About Primary Sources
- What is a primary source? Primary sources are first-hand sources created at the time of a particular event or period.
Learn more about primary sources... - Using primary sources -- Questions to ask when looking at primary sources (Library of Congress)
Primary sources online relating to civil wars and insurrections
- Empire Online (Adam Matthew Digital) This link opens in a new windowObjects, documents, manuscripts, relating to imperialism and empire, especially British.
- History Vault (Proquest) This link opens in a new windowUseful for resources where US government involvement, such as military and public policy, is involved. Examples: civil rights in the United States, woman suffrage
- Roper Center Public Opinion Archives (with iPOLL) This link opens in a new windowA great source for public opinion research, mostly US-based, from 1930's to present
- Sixties : Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960-1974 This link opens in a new windowThe Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 19601974 brings the 1960s alive through diaries, letters, autobiographies and other memoirs, written and oral histories, manifestos, government documents, memorabilia, and scholarly commentary. Focus on the United States.
Primary source digital collections online
Africa
Histoire de la colonisation du Belge http://www.cobelco.info/
Congo Decolonization (US State Department Historian) https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/congo-decolonization
Rwanda Radio Transcripts, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies
http://www.concordia.ca/research/migs/resources/rwanda-radio-transcripts.html
Genocide Archive of Rwanda http://www.genocidearchiverwanda.org.rw/index.php/Welcome_to_Genocide_Archive_Rwanda
The US and the Rwandan Genocide (National Security Archive at GWU) https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB53/index.html
Sudan (United Nations documents) https://peacekeeping.un.org/mission/past/unmis/
Human Rights Watch (search "Sudan") in Reports https://www.hrw.org/publications
Asia
Vietnam War (Wilson Center) https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/87/vietnam-war
Vietnam Virtual Archive (Texas Tech) https://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/
Cambodia Genocide Program (Yale: documents, photos, database) https://gsp.yale.edu/case-studies/cambodian-genocide-program
China's Cultural Revolution (Wilson Center Digital Archive) https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/211/china-s-cultural-revolution-1966-1976
Europe: Ireland and The Troubles
Times of London Digital Archive is an invaluable source for information on specific events during the period of the troubles. It may be interesting to compare coverage in the Boston Globe, whose audience may have been more sympathetic to the IRA.
UK National Archives: selected documents on Northern Ireland from the Prime Minister's cabinet
Europe: Yugoslav/Kosovo War 1991-1995
Insider's Guide to the criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at the Hague (book, available at the NU School of Law)
International Criminal Tribunal Court Records (a huge archive, searchable in English; see this article for an overview of the materials.)
To End A War, diplomat Richard Holbrooke's account of brokering the Dayton Accords. (book available at Snell Library)
Latin America
See Primary source collections on Latin American history : documents, photographs, maps, statistics, and other resources in English and vernacular languages.
Middle East
1948 Arab-Israeli Conflict (Mass Humanities) key documents http://masshumanities.org/ph_key-documents-for-understanding-the-arab-israeli-conflict/
Key documents from 1922 forward on Palestine (Yale Law) http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/mideast.asp
Nashriya: Digital Iranian History (University of Manchester-in Farsi) http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/search-resources/manchester-digital-collections/digitisation-services/projects/nashriyah-digital-iranian-history//
The Speeches of Ayatollah Khomeini http://www.bbc.com/persian/revolution/khomeini.shtml
National Archives selected documents on Iran Hostage Crisis https://www.archives.gov/research/foreign-policy/iran-hostage-crisis
Russia
Soviet Afghan War (Wilson Center ) https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/76/soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan
Afghanistan Materials (University of Nebraska) includes Afghan Times http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/afghanenglish/
Russian Revolution (EuroDocs BYU) https://eudocs.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Russian_Revolution,_Civil_War_and_USSR_1917-1991
South and Southeast Asia
The Road to Partition (UK National Archives) http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/the-road-to-partition/