World History: A Guide to Library Research

The research, publications, speeches and archives of the leading international affairs think tank, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London. High level analysis and research on almost 100 years of global events and issues. Includes 'behind the doors' insight into the real movers and shakers, influencers and deal brokers. For researchers of international affairs, economics, law, and business, diplomacy, security and terrorism, environment, development, war and peace studies.

Includes more than 10,400 pages of archival materials; over 2,300 published monographs totaling more than 37,000 pages; 241 complete videos; more than 3,000 pages of reports, journal articles, and other full-text items; more than 1,000 images (most from The Getty); and nearly 700 links to vetted, important external websites.

Mostly 3-5 years & older full text. African American studies, anthropology, botany, business, ecology, economics, education, general science, geography, history, language & literature, mathematics, philosophy, political science, sociology, statistics.

Dates of coverage vary by journal title. All go back to the very first issue published, but most have a "moving wall" embargo that excludes issues from the most recent X years (where X can be anywhere from 0 up to 10 years, depending on the particular journal; most are in the 3 to 5 year embargo range).

Hint: Use documents to find useful keywords and concepts, and retrieve matching JSTOR content, via JSTOR Text Analyzer.

Includes these newspapers and collections of newspapers, which can also be searched separately:

• 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers  
• 19th Century UK Periodicals Digital Archive  
• British Library Newspapers, 1732-1950  
• Daily Mail Historical Archive  
• Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2020  
• Financial Times Historical Archive, 1888-2021  
• Illustrated London News Historical Archive (1842-2003)  
• Independent Historical Archive, 1986-2016  
• International Herald Tribune Historical Archive 1887-2013  
• Liberty Magazine Historical Archive, 1924-1950  
• Listener Historical Archive 1929-1991  
• Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers  
• Picture Post Historical Archive, 1938-1957  
• Punch Historical Archive, 1841-1992  
• Sunday Times Historical Archive, 1822-2021  
• Telegraph Historical Archive, 1855-2016  
• Times Digital Archive, 1785-2019  
• Times Educational Supplement Historical Archive, 1910-2000  
• Times Literary SupplementHistorical Archive, 1902-2014

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.

A Read Aloud button is available for text-to-speech for much of the content.

Keyword(s): United States

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.

The research, publications, speeches and archives of the leading international affairs think tank, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London. High level analysis and research on almost 100 years of global events and issues. Includes 'behind the doors' insight into the real movers and shakers, influencers and deal brokers. For researchers of international affairs, economics, law, and business, diplomacy, security and terrorism, environment, development, war and peace studies.

Includes more than 10,400 pages of archival materials; over 2,300 published monographs totaling more than 37,000 pages; 241 complete videos; more than 3,000 pages of reports, journal articles, and other full-text items; more than 1,000 images (most from The Getty); and nearly 700 links to vetted, important external websites.

Includes these collections:

• Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
• Women and Social Movements, International - 1840 to Present
• Women and Social Movements: Development and the Global South, 1919 - 2019
• Women and Social Movements in Modern Empires Since 1820

Includes these collections:

• American History in Video
   
• The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives. 1960–1974
   
• Black Thought and Culture
   
• North American Indian Thought and Culture
   
• The March of Time
   
• World Newsreels Online: 1929–1966
   
• Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
   
• Women and Social Movements, International
   
• Women and Social Movements, Modern Empires Since 1820
   
• Women and Social Movements: Development and the Global South, 1919 - 2019
   
• World History in Video
   

Contains over 300 full-text volumes, in 15 subject areas, published from 1960-2014. Volumes provide authoritative historical essays and bibliographies on topics ranging from the First World War to U.S. Foreign Relations. In addition to world history, this collection also covers the histories of subjects including language and linguistics, music, philosophy, political and social theory, religion, theater and performing arts, and warfare. All chapters may be read online or downloaded as PDFs.

The Economist Intelligence Unit has published Country Reports since 1952, covering almost 200 countries. Each report presents detailed statistics alongside expert commentary and forecasting from the EIUs analysts. This database presents the historical reports up to 1995, with all data from the statistical tables fully captured and downloadable in spreadsheet form. This is a unique archive of analysis and explanation of political, economic and commercial developments, together with historical statistical data.

Contains downloadable data drawn from and updating the 3 volume print reference work International Historical Statistics 1750-2005. IHS covers a wide range of topics including: the economy, trade, population, labor, education, migration and transportation with data spanning 260 years (1750-2010). The data is organized by regions which are presented as: The Americas, Europe, and Asia + Oceania. Tables can be downloaded as PDF or Excel documents.