World History: A Guide to Library Research

Search results can include content that is freely accessible as well as content that requires a fee: be sure to check Journal Finder to see if the Thompson Library provides access to a source before paying a fee for it. Articles related to a single story within a given time period are grouped together to allow users to see a broad perspective on the topics they are searching. In addition to seeing results ranked by relevancy, users can also see a historical overview of the results by browsing an automatically generated timeline.

World Newspaper Archive is a fully-searchable, digital collection of historical newspapers from around the world. It includes a gradually expanding digitized backfiles of 19th and 20th century newspapers from Africa (1800-1922), East Europe (1835-1922), Latin America and Latin America Series 2 (1805-1922) and South Asia (1864-1922). As the project expands, it will grow to include newspapers from the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Tips for using this collection are available in the Adam Matthew Digital Help Centre.

Includes these collections:
 

• African American Communities
   
• Age of Exploration
   
• America in World War Two
   
• American History
   
• American Indian Histories and Cultures
   
• American West
   
• Apartheid South Africa, 1948 - 1980
   
• Central Asia, Persia and Afghanistan, 1834-1922
   
• Children's Literature and Culture
   
• China, America and the Pacific
   
• China: Culture and Society
   
• China: Trade, Politics and Culture
   
• Church Missionary Society
   
• Colonial America
   
• Confidential Print: Africa
   
• Confidential Print: Latin America
   
• Confidential Print: North America
   
• Defining Gender
   
• Early Modern England
   
• East India Company
   
• Eighteenth Century Drama
   
• Eighteenth Century Journals
   
• Empire Online
   
• Everyday Life and Women in America
   
• First World War
   
• Food and Drink
   
• Foreign Office Files for China
   
• Foreign Office Files for India
   
• Foreign Office Files for Japan
   
• Foreign Office Files for South East Asia
   
• Foreign Office Files for the Middle East
   
• Frontier Life
   
• Gender Identity and Social Change
   
• Gilded Age
   
• Global Commodities
   
• India, Raj and Empire
   
• J Walter Thompson: Advertising America
   
• Jewish Life in America c.1654-1954
   
• Leisure, Travel & Mass Culture
   
• Life at Sea
   
• Literary Manuscripts Berg
   
• Literary Manuscripts Leeds
   
• Literary Print Culture
   
• London Low Life
   
• Macmillan Cabinet Papers
   
• Market Research and American Business
   
• Mass Observation Online
   
• Medical Services and Warfare
   
• Medieval Family Life
   
• Medieval Travel
   
• Meiji Japan
   
• Migration to New Worlds
   
• Nineteenth Century Literary Society: The John Murray Publishing Archive
   
• Perdita Manuscripts
   
• Popular Medicine in America, 1800-1900
   
• Race Relations in America
   
• Research Source - AS:China and Southeast Asia
   
• Research Source - AS:India
   
• Research Source - AS:Japan
   
• Research Source - Business, Economic and Labour History
   
• Research Source - CMS
   
• Research Source - Empire
   
• Research Source - Literary Studies
   
• Research Source - Medieval and Early Modern Studies
   
• Research Source - Missionary Studies
   
• Research Source - Women's Studies
   
• Research Source - World War Two Studies
   
• Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape
   
• Service Newspapers of World War 2
   
• Shakespeare In Performance
   
• Shakespeare's Globe Archive
   
• Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice
   
• Socialism on Film: The Cold War
   
• The Grand Tour
   
• The Nixon Years
   
• Trade Catalogues and the American Home
   
• Travel Writing
   
• Victorian Popular Culture
   
• Victorians on Film
   
• Virginia Company Archives
   
• Women in the National Archives
   
• Worlds Fairs

Contains nearly a million collection descriptions contributed by thousands of libraries, museums, and archives. A combination of brief descriptions derived from catalog records in the RLG Union Catalog, and more detailed archival finding aids harvested from the Internet, including those that conform to the EAD (Encoded Archival Description) format standard.

Includes four parts: 

• Part I) Debates over Slavery & Abolition
• Part II) Slave Trade in the Atlantic World
• Part III) The Institution of Slavery
• Part IV) The Age of Emancipation

Contains records of nearly 35,000 separate slaving voyages between 1514 and 1866, gleaned from original documents and historical publications located in archives, libraries, and other institutions throughout the world. Data from these historical records were collected over many decades and will continue to be updated as new documents are discovered. Individuals will be able to contribute their own research to this collaborative resource. Each record in the Voyages Database offers information on a single slaving voyage; some of the details include the country of origin, the individual(s) who sponsored it, the voyage itself (its itinerary, dates of travel, and outcome), captains, numbers of slaves transported, and the sources providing this voyage information.

From the website: “The SlaveVoyages website is a collaborative digital initiative that compiles and makes publicly accessible records of the largest slave trades in history. Search these records to learn about the broad origins and forced relocations of more than 12 million African people who were sent across the Atlantic in slave ships, and hundreds of thousands more who were trafficked within the Americas. Explore where they were taken, the numerous rebellions that occurred, the horrific loss of life during the voyages, the identities and nationalities of the perpetrators, and much more.”