Research Subject Guides: HIST 2301 ~ Civil Wars, Insurgencies & Violent Non-State Actors in Contemporary World History: Primary sources

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 This link opens in a new window
Objects, documents, manuscripts, relating to imperialism and empire, especially British.
View nature and scope information.
Digital National Security Archive (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Northeastern users have access to 44 collections, each with thousands of documents and maps covering critical world events, countries, and U.S. foreign policy from post-World War II to the present. Information in the DNSA subscription database is updated by materials on the National Security Archive website at George Washington University, which includes the latest FOIA released documents, and documents released pursuant to lawsuits.
History Vault (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
Useful for resources where US government involvement, such as military and public policy, is involved. Examples: civil rights in the United States, woman suffrage
Collections include: Immigration Records from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Papers, Women's Rights Collections with documents from organizations like the Women's Party and League of Women Voters. From the ProQuest University Publications of America (UPA) Collection.
Roper Center Public Opinion Archives (with iPOLL) This link opens in a new window
A great source for public opinion research, mostly US-based, from 1930's to present
To learn more, view Roper's video tutorials.
Sixties : Primary Documents and Personal Narratives 1960-1974 This link opens in a new window
The 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/

HIST 2301 ~ Civil Wars, Insurgencies & Violent Non-State Actors in Contemporary World History : Primary sources

About Primary Sources

Primary sources online relating to civil wars and insurrections