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The Top Secret History of America’s Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Warfare Programs and Their Deployment Overseas
At its peak in 1967, the U.S. nuclear arsenal consisted of 31,255 nuclear weapons with an aggregate destructive power of 12,786 megatons – more than sufficient to wipe out all of humanity several hundred times over. Much less known is that hidden away in earth-covered bunkers spread throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan, over 40,000 tons of American chemical weapons were stored, as well as thousands of specially designed bombs that could be filled with even deadlier biological warfare agents.
The American WMD programs remain cloaked in secrecy, yet a substantial number of revealing documents have been quietly declassified since the late 1970s. Put together, they tell the story of how America secretly built up the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. The documents explain the role these weapons played in a series of world crises, how they shaped U.S. and NATO defense and foreign policy during the Cold War, and what incidents and nearly averted disasters happened. Moreover, they shed a light on the dreadful human and ecological legacy left by decades of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons manufacturing and testing in the U.S. and overseas.
This collection contains more than 2,300 formerly classified U.S. government documents, most of them classified Top Secret or higher. Covering the period from the end of World War II to the present day, it provides unique access to previously unpublished reports, memoranda, cables, intelligence briefs, classified articles, PowerPoint presentations, military manuals and directives, and other declassified documents. Following years of archival research and careful selection, they were brought together from the U.S. National Archives, ten U.S. presidential libraries, the NATO Archives in Brussels, the National Archives of the UK, the National Archives of Canada, and the National Archives of the Netherlands. In addition, a sizeable number of documents in this collection were obtained from the U.S. government and the Pentagon using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) requests.
This collection comes with several auxiliary aids, including a chronology and a historiographical essay with links to the documents themselves, providing context and allowing for easy navigation for both students and scholars.
Highlights:
• The papers in this collection detail how America’s stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons were developed, the staggering costs that were involved, the network of laboratories where the bombs and their components were designed and developed, new details about the dozens of secret factories spread across the U.S. where these lethal bombs and warheads were built, the sites where they were tested, and even newly released information about some of the storage depots where the weapons were deployed in the U.S. and overseas.
• This collection contains for the first time ever a comprehensive set of declassified documents which quantify the size and destructive power of the American nuclear, chemical and biological weapons stockpile throughout the Cold War era, including new details about the many different types of weapons in these arsenals, such as nuclear landmines (Atomic Demolition Munitions) and even a nuclear-capable recoilless rifle system.
• This collection contains hundreds of pages of declassified Defense Department and State Department documents concerning the secret negotiations between the U.S. government and over fifteen foreign governments concerning the deployment of nuclear and chemical weapons to their countries (complete biological weapons were never deployed overseas), as well as the even more difficult task later in the Cold War of trying to get permission to remove these weapons after they had outlived their usefulness. In some instances, the U.S. government deliberately did not inform the host nations that they had deployed nuclear and chemical weapons to their countries, as in the case of Japan, which was shocked to learn in 1969 that the U.S. was storing large numbers of nuclear and chemical weapons on the island of Okinawa without their knowledge or consent.
• Also included are over a hundred declassified documents regarding U.S. nuclear war plans, detailing how the American nuclear, chemical and biological weapons were to be used in wartime, including lists of their targets inside the USSR and the People’s Republic of China; newly declassified documents containing the details of all known nuclear, chemical and biological weapons accidents, some of which produced fatal results; and incidents involving attempts by foreign governments (Greece, Turkey and South Korea) to pressure the U.S. government by threatening to seize American nuclear weapons stored on their soil. Finally, there are recently released files concerning an attempt by a terrorist group to penetrate a U.S. nuclear weapons storage site in West Germany.
Number of documents: 2,374
Number of pages: ca. 21,212
Auxiliary aids:
• Introductory essay
• Glossary of acronyms
• Chronology
• Bibliography
• MARC21 catalog records
Sourcing archives:
• U.S. National Archives, Legislative Archives Branch, Washington, D.C.
• U.S. National Archives. Military Records Branch, College Park, Maryland
• U.S. National Archives, Civilian Records Branch, College Park, Maryland
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Archives, Brussels, Belgium
• National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
• National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague, The Netherlands
• National Archives of the UK, Kew, Great Britain
• Washington National Records Center, Suitland, Maryland
• Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri
• Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas
• John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts
• Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, Texas
• Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library, Yorba Linda, California
• Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta, Georgia
• Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California
• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, Houston, Texas
• William J. Clinton Presidential Library, Little Rock, Arkansas
• Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C.
• DOD FOIA Reading Room, The Pentagon, Washington, D.C.
• U.S. Army Center for Military History, Washington, D.C.
• Naval Historical Center Operational Archives, Washington, D.C.
• U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Alabama
• Department of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information, Washington, D.C.
• Douglas MacArthur Library, Norfolk, Virginia (Douglas MacArthur Papers)
• George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, Virginia (George C. Marshall Papers)
• Mudd Library, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (George W. Ball Papers)
• National Security Archive, Washington, D.C. (Chuck Hansen Collection)
• Maryland Historical Trust, Annapolis, Maryland
See also the companion collections Cold War Intelligence, U.S. Intelligence on Asia, 1945-1991, U.S. Intelligence on Europe, 1945-1995, and U.S. Intelligence on the Middle East, 1945-2009.
The American WMD programs remain cloaked in secrecy, yet a substantial number of revealing documents have been quietly declassified since the late 1970s. Put together, they tell the story of how America secretly built up the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. The documents explain the role these weapons played in a series of world crises, how they shaped U.S. and NATO defense and foreign policy during the Cold War, and what incidents and nearly averted disasters happened. Moreover, they shed a light on the dreadful human and ecological legacy left by decades of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons manufacturing and testing in the U.S. and overseas.
This collection contains more than 2,300 formerly classified U.S. government documents, most of them classified Top Secret or higher. Covering the period from the end of World War II to the present day, it provides unique access to previously unpublished reports, memoranda, cables, intelligence briefs, classified articles, PowerPoint presentations, military manuals and directives, and other declassified documents. Following years of archival research and careful selection, they were brought together from the U.S. National Archives, ten U.S. presidential libraries, the NATO Archives in Brussels, the National Archives of the UK, the National Archives of Canada, and the National Archives of the Netherlands. In addition, a sizeable number of documents in this collection were obtained from the U.S. government and the Pentagon using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) requests.
This collection comes with several auxiliary aids, including a chronology and a historiographical essay with links to the documents themselves, providing context and allowing for easy navigation for both students and scholars.
Highlights:
• The papers in this collection detail how America’s stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons were developed, the staggering costs that were involved, the network of laboratories where the bombs and their components were designed and developed, new details about the dozens of secret factories spread across the U.S. where these lethal bombs and warheads were built, the sites where they were tested, and even newly released information about some of the storage depots where the weapons were deployed in the U.S. and overseas.
• This collection contains for the first time ever a comprehensive set of declassified documents which quantify the size and destructive power of the American nuclear, chemical and biological weapons stockpile throughout the Cold War era, including new details about the many different types of weapons in these arsenals, such as nuclear landmines (Atomic Demolition Munitions) and even a nuclear-capable recoilless rifle system.
• This collection contains hundreds of pages of declassified Defense Department and State Department documents concerning the secret negotiations between the U.S. government and over fifteen foreign governments concerning the deployment of nuclear and chemical weapons to their countries (complete biological weapons were never deployed overseas), as well as the even more difficult task later in the Cold War of trying to get permission to remove these weapons after they had outlived their usefulness. In some instances, the U.S. government deliberately did not inform the host nations that they had deployed nuclear and chemical weapons to their countries, as in the case of Japan, which was shocked to learn in 1969 that the U.S. was storing large numbers of nuclear and chemical weapons on the island of Okinawa without their knowledge or consent.
• Also included are over a hundred declassified documents regarding U.S. nuclear war plans, detailing how the American nuclear, chemical and biological weapons were to be used in wartime, including lists of their targets inside the USSR and the People’s Republic of China; newly declassified documents containing the details of all known nuclear, chemical and biological weapons accidents, some of which produced fatal results; and incidents involving attempts by foreign governments (Greece, Turkey and South Korea) to pressure the U.S. government by threatening to seize American nuclear weapons stored on their soil. Finally, there are recently released files concerning an attempt by a terrorist group to penetrate a U.S. nuclear weapons storage site in West Germany.
Number of documents: 2,374
Number of pages: ca. 21,212
Auxiliary aids:
• Introductory essay
• Glossary of acronyms
• Chronology
• Bibliography
• MARC21 catalog records
Sourcing archives:
• U.S. National Archives, Legislative Archives Branch, Washington, D.C.
• U.S. National Archives. Military Records Branch, College Park, Maryland
• U.S. National Archives, Civilian Records Branch, College Park, Maryland
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Archives, Brussels, Belgium
• National Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
• National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague, The Netherlands
• National Archives of the UK, Kew, Great Britain
• Washington National Records Center, Suitland, Maryland
• Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri
• Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas
• John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts
• Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, Texas
• Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library, Yorba Linda, California
• Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta, Georgia
• Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California
• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, Houston, Texas
• William J. Clinton Presidential Library, Little Rock, Arkansas
• Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C.
• DOD FOIA Reading Room, The Pentagon, Washington, D.C.
• U.S. Army Center for Military History, Washington, D.C.
• Naval Historical Center Operational Archives, Washington, D.C.
• U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Alabama
• Department of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information, Washington, D.C.
• Douglas MacArthur Library, Norfolk, Virginia (Douglas MacArthur Papers)
• George C. Marshall Library, Lexington, Virginia (George C. Marshall Papers)
• Mudd Library, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (George W. Ball Papers)
• National Security Archive, Washington, D.C. (Chuck Hansen Collection)
• Maryland Historical Trust, Annapolis, Maryland
See also the companion collections Cold War Intelligence, U.S. Intelligence on Asia, 1945-1991, U.S. Intelligence on Europe, 1945-1995, and U.S. Intelligence on the Middle East, 1945-2009.
1920s-1940s
• Number of titles: 19
• Languages used: Russian
• Title list available
• MARC records available
• Location of originals: K.D. Ushinski State Scientifi c Pedagogical Library, Moscow National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg
The material gathered here offers a unique insight into one of the most important and characteristic areas of socializing the young in early Soviet Russia, and a window into the mentality of the `first Soviet generations’ as well. This so-called movement for ‘socialisation through play’ and ‘rational leisure’ was documented in many hundreds of publications, both in periodicals (for example, Doshkol’noe obrazovanie [Pre-School Education], Prosveshchenie na transporte [Education in Railway Schools], Na putik novoi shkole [On the Road to the New School], and Pedologiya), and in separate short books and brochures. The selection here, taken from materials held in the Russian State Library and in the Ushinsky Pedagogical Library in Moscow, gives a representative overview of the different trends in children leisure activities and games and runs chronologically from 1917 to the late 1930s.
• Languages used: Russian
• Title list available
• MARC records available
• Location of originals: K.D. Ushinski State Scientifi c Pedagogical Library, Moscow National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg
The material gathered here offers a unique insight into one of the most important and characteristic areas of socializing the young in early Soviet Russia, and a window into the mentality of the `first Soviet generations’ as well. This so-called movement for ‘socialisation through play’ and ‘rational leisure’ was documented in many hundreds of publications, both in periodicals (for example, Doshkol’noe obrazovanie [Pre-School Education], Prosveshchenie na transporte [Education in Railway Schools], Na putik novoi shkole [On the Road to the New School], and Pedologiya), and in separate short books and brochures. The selection here, taken from materials held in the Russian State Library and in the Ushinsky Pedagogical Library in Moscow, gives a representative overview of the different trends in children leisure activities and games and runs chronologically from 1917 to the late 1930s.
• Dates: (inclusive): 1946-1985
• Languages used: Chinese
• EAD finding aids are available
Produced mostly by the Central Newsreel and Documentary Film Studio of China, documentary films and newsreels were two of the major mass media and communication channels in China from the 1950’s through the 1970’s. They covered all aspects of social activities, though the emphasis was on developments and achievements in the building of a socialist country. In order to reach even broader public audiences, government agents produced and printed the transcripts and shot lists for the films and sent them to cities and rural areas. The bulk of the items in the collection are transcripts for the documentary films and newsreels from the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976. Few of these printed materials have survived due to the poor quality of the paper upon which they were printed. All documents in the collection are in Chinese.
Location of originals: Duke University Library, Durham
• Languages used: Chinese
• EAD finding aids are available
Produced mostly by the Central Newsreel and Documentary Film Studio of China, documentary films and newsreels were two of the major mass media and communication channels in China from the 1950’s through the 1970’s. They covered all aspects of social activities, though the emphasis was on developments and achievements in the building of a socialist country. In order to reach even broader public audiences, government agents produced and printed the transcripts and shot lists for the films and sent them to cities and rural areas. The bulk of the items in the collection are transcripts for the documentary films and newsreels from the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976. Few of these printed materials have survived due to the poor quality of the paper upon which they were printed. All documents in the collection are in Chinese.
Location of originals: Duke University Library, Durham
The Secret War Between the U.S. and the USSR, 1945-1991
This unique collection of well over 2,300 formerly classified U.S. government documents (most of them classified Top Secret or higher) provides readers for the first time with the documentary record of the successes and failures of the U.S. intelligence community in its efforts to spy on the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This document collection covers the period from the end of World War II in 1945 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but also includes a number of formerly classified historical reports and articles written by U.S. intelligence historians since the end of the Cold War.
CIA Parachute Drops Inside the USSR
This collection contains thousands of pages of previously unpublished intelligence reports, including for the first time declassified documents concerning the abortive attempts by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to parachute agents into the USSR between 1949 and 1954; new details of dozens of previously classified aerial reconnaissance overflights of the Soviet Union conducted by U.S. aircraft between 1949 and 1960; dozens of formerly Top Secret documents concerning Soviet attacks on U.S. military and civilian aircraft between 1945 and 1983; and over fifty formerly secret CIA intelligence estimates on the Soviet Union covering a wide range of topics ranging from Soviet military capabilities to the Kremlin’s domestic and economic policies.
Thirty years of research
This documentary collection, obtained over the course of thirty years of research at the U.S. National Archives in Washington, D.C. and other archival repositories, is essential reading for students and researchers seeking to better understand how secret intelligence informed and shaped U.S. and NATO defense and foreign policy towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Number of documents: 2,360
Number of pages: 21,700
Auxiliary aids:
- Introductory essay
- Glossary of acronyms
- Glossary of organizations
- Glossary of personalities
- Cold War chronology
- Bibliography
Sourcing archives:
- National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park, Maryland
- CIA-CREST database
- Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri
- Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas
- John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts
- Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, Texas
- Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library, Yorba Linda, California
- Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta, Georgia
- Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California
- Hoover Institution Archives, Palo Alto, California
- Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C.
- George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia
- General Douglas MacArthur Memorial Library, Norfolk, Virginia
- National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew, England
See also the companion collections: U.S. Intelligence on Europe, 1945-1995, U.S. Intelligence on Asia, 1945-1991, U.S. Intelligence on the Middle East, 1945-2009, and Weapons of Mass Destruction.
CIA Parachute Drops Inside the USSR
This collection contains thousands of pages of previously unpublished intelligence reports, including for the first time declassified documents concerning the abortive attempts by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to parachute agents into the USSR between 1949 and 1954; new details of dozens of previously classified aerial reconnaissance overflights of the Soviet Union conducted by U.S. aircraft between 1949 and 1960; dozens of formerly Top Secret documents concerning Soviet attacks on U.S. military and civilian aircraft between 1945 and 1983; and over fifty formerly secret CIA intelligence estimates on the Soviet Union covering a wide range of topics ranging from Soviet military capabilities to the Kremlin’s domestic and economic policies.
Thirty years of research
This documentary collection, obtained over the course of thirty years of research at the U.S. National Archives in Washington, D.C. and other archival repositories, is essential reading for students and researchers seeking to better understand how secret intelligence informed and shaped U.S. and NATO defense and foreign policy towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Number of documents: 2,360
Number of pages: 21,700
Auxiliary aids:
- Introductory essay
- Glossary of acronyms
- Glossary of organizations
- Glossary of personalities
- Cold War chronology
- Bibliography
Sourcing archives:
- National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park, Maryland
- CIA-CREST database
- Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri
- Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas
- John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts
- Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, Texas
- Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library, Yorba Linda, California
- Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta, Georgia
- Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California
- Hoover Institution Archives, Palo Alto, California
- Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C.
- George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia
- General Douglas MacArthur Memorial Library, Norfolk, Virginia
- National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew, England
See also the companion collections: U.S. Intelligence on Europe, 1945-1995, U.S. Intelligence on Asia, 1945-1991, U.S. Intelligence on the Middle East, 1945-2009, and Weapons of Mass Destruction.
• Number of titles: 269
• Languages used: Korean, Japanese, English
• Title list available
• MARC records are available
• Location of originals: C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University, New York
Here is a unique collection of rare documents relating to the Japanese occupation of Korea, from the late nineteenth century up to 1945, representing a highly significant period in Korean history, and vital for a true understanding of many reflexes in the Koreas today. In 1876, Japan “opened” Korea to outside contact for the first time. What followed was a period of sparring with the Chinese over the right of influence in Korea, a rivalry which culminated in the Sino- Japanese war of 1894-95. Following victory, Japan steadily increased its presence and interference in Korean matters until the outright annexation of the country in 1910. Korea would remain a Japanese colony until the end of the Pacific War in 1945. Drawn from the holdings of the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University, New York, the collection includes more than 62,000 pages in Japanese language, 18,000 pages of Western (in most cases English) early impressions of Korea, and Korean texts (16,000 pages). This true treasure-trove, preserved through our online service, now presents the texts conveniently on your desktop.
• Languages used: Korean, Japanese, English
• Title list available
• MARC records are available
• Location of originals: C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University, New York
Here is a unique collection of rare documents relating to the Japanese occupation of Korea, from the late nineteenth century up to 1945, representing a highly significant period in Korean history, and vital for a true understanding of many reflexes in the Koreas today. In 1876, Japan “opened” Korea to outside contact for the first time. What followed was a period of sparring with the Chinese over the right of influence in Korea, a rivalry which culminated in the Sino- Japanese war of 1894-95. Following victory, Japan steadily increased its presence and interference in Korean matters until the outright annexation of the country in 1910. Korea would remain a Japanese colony until the end of the Pacific War in 1945. Drawn from the holdings of the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University, New York, the collection includes more than 62,000 pages in Japanese language, 18,000 pages of Western (in most cases English) early impressions of Korea, and Korean texts (16,000 pages). This true treasure-trove, preserved through our online service, now presents the texts conveniently on your desktop.
The Vertical Archive of the Casa de las Américas, Part 2: Writers
• More than 63,800 digital files
• Records on 1,046 writers and artists
• Full-text search functionality
• Including MARC21 catalog records
Founded in Havana in 1959, only a few months after the Revolution, Casa de las Américas quickly developed into one of the most prestigious cultural centers in Latin America and the Caribbean. To a large extent its success and survival are the result of its capacity to establish a remarkable intellectual network around a common vision. When during the early years of the Revolution many foreign embassies closed their doors, Casa de las Américas offered a space for progressive minds to exchange information and discuss new ideas. Here, writers and artists from Latin America, the Caribbean and other parts of the world met and gave lectures, organized concerts and exhibitions, staged theater shows, conducted research, and found a place to publish their writings. The record of their activities, which continue to this day, are preserved in Casa de las Américas’ archive, presented here in digital format for the first time.
The Vertical Archive
Casa de las Américas is home to a large library specializing in Latin American and Caribbean humanities and social sciences. Throughout its almost six decades of existence, this library has amassed and preserved an unparalleled archival collection known as “the Vertical Archive.” Organized in five parts, the present part, Writers, offers a unique insight into the activities of the more than a thousand writers and artists who visited La Casa.
Writers
Famous writers from the twentieth century form the core of the collection. Here one encounters such luminaries as Jorge Amado, Mario Benedetti, Roberto Bolaño, María Luisa Bombal, Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Aimé Césaire, Julio Cortázar, Roque Dalton and Gabriel García Márquez, to name but a few. Some of the leading writers from the nineteenth century are also represented, including José Martí and the pioneer Brazilian novelist Machado de Assis. These world-renowned figures are accompanied by hundreds of their arguably less illustrious peers, who are nevertheless equally essential to illustrate the cultural climate and history of the era.
Artists
In addition to writers, the archive includes files on painters, such as Roberto Matta and David Alfaro Siqueiros, filmmakers, such as Santiago Álvarez and Glauber Rocha, and musicians, such as Chilean singer-songwriter and political activist Víctor Jara.
International avant-garde
The intellectual climate of Havana and the Casa de las Américas attracted thinkers and artists from all over the world. As a result, the documents in the Vertical Archive allow students and researchers to discover new information on various members of the international intellectual and cultural avant-garde, such as Rafael Alberti, Vicente Aleixandre, Max Aub, Luis Buñuel, Italo Calvino, Allen Ginsberg and Jean-Paul Sartre.
Materials
A large part of the collection consists of press clippings, sent to Casa de las Américas by donors and librarians from abroad or hand-delivered by visitors. The institution’s own researchers added to the collection by preserving all sorts of records; to a large extent, this concerns ephemeral documentation that is virtually impossible to find elsewhere, as much of it derives from non-indexed sources or even cable wires and never appeared in the press.
The Writers section of the Vertical Archive bears testimony to a vibrant culture, seen through the eyes of its protagonists. This online edition offers the user unprecedented access to the primary sources documenting a pivotal time in Cuban cultural history.
Jorge Fornet, Havana
• Records on 1,046 writers and artists
• Full-text search functionality
• Including MARC21 catalog records
Founded in Havana in 1959, only a few months after the Revolution, Casa de las Américas quickly developed into one of the most prestigious cultural centers in Latin America and the Caribbean. To a large extent its success and survival are the result of its capacity to establish a remarkable intellectual network around a common vision. When during the early years of the Revolution many foreign embassies closed their doors, Casa de las Américas offered a space for progressive minds to exchange information and discuss new ideas. Here, writers and artists from Latin America, the Caribbean and other parts of the world met and gave lectures, organized concerts and exhibitions, staged theater shows, conducted research, and found a place to publish their writings. The record of their activities, which continue to this day, are preserved in Casa de las Américas’ archive, presented here in digital format for the first time.
The Vertical Archive
Casa de las Américas is home to a large library specializing in Latin American and Caribbean humanities and social sciences. Throughout its almost six decades of existence, this library has amassed and preserved an unparalleled archival collection known as “the Vertical Archive.” Organized in five parts, the present part, Writers, offers a unique insight into the activities of the more than a thousand writers and artists who visited La Casa.
Writers
Famous writers from the twentieth century form the core of the collection. Here one encounters such luminaries as Jorge Amado, Mario Benedetti, Roberto Bolaño, María Luisa Bombal, Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Aimé Césaire, Julio Cortázar, Roque Dalton and Gabriel García Márquez, to name but a few. Some of the leading writers from the nineteenth century are also represented, including José Martí and the pioneer Brazilian novelist Machado de Assis. These world-renowned figures are accompanied by hundreds of their arguably less illustrious peers, who are nevertheless equally essential to illustrate the cultural climate and history of the era.
Artists
In addition to writers, the archive includes files on painters, such as Roberto Matta and David Alfaro Siqueiros, filmmakers, such as Santiago Álvarez and Glauber Rocha, and musicians, such as Chilean singer-songwriter and political activist Víctor Jara.
International avant-garde
The intellectual climate of Havana and the Casa de las Américas attracted thinkers and artists from all over the world. As a result, the documents in the Vertical Archive allow students and researchers to discover new information on various members of the international intellectual and cultural avant-garde, such as Rafael Alberti, Vicente Aleixandre, Max Aub, Luis Buñuel, Italo Calvino, Allen Ginsberg and Jean-Paul Sartre.
Materials
A large part of the collection consists of press clippings, sent to Casa de las Américas by donors and librarians from abroad or hand-delivered by visitors. The institution’s own researchers added to the collection by preserving all sorts of records; to a large extent, this concerns ephemeral documentation that is virtually impossible to find elsewhere, as much of it derives from non-indexed sources or even cable wires and never appeared in the press.
The Writers section of the Vertical Archive bears testimony to a vibrant culture, seen through the eyes of its protagonists. This online edition offers the user unprecedented access to the primary sources documenting a pivotal time in Cuban cultural history.
Jorge Fornet, Havana
• Number of titles: 13
• Languages used: Russian
• Title list available
• MARC records available
• Location of originals: National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg
This collection comprises unique material on sports and physical culture in Russia, 1891-1919 and is particularly significant because sports provided opportunities for transitions from tradition to modernity: athletic competition broke down class barriers, brought women into public spaces, and encouraged new modes of behavior and self-presentation. Sports are essential to the evolution of the modern personality in terms of health, competitiveness and team play. The collection offers extraordinary sources for researchers into a variety of topics. Tourism, an important growth field in academic studies, relates directly to sports. Most significantly, contemporary interest in sexuality is informed by sports periodicals. Not only are gender roles transformed through sports, but the visuals in these publications illustrate emergent feminine and masculine ideals.
• Languages used: Russian
• Title list available
• MARC records available
• Location of originals: National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg
This collection comprises unique material on sports and physical culture in Russia, 1891-1919 and is particularly significant because sports provided opportunities for transitions from tradition to modernity: athletic competition broke down class barriers, brought women into public spaces, and encouraged new modes of behavior and self-presentation. Sports are essential to the evolution of the modern personality in terms of health, competitiveness and team play. The collection offers extraordinary sources for researchers into a variety of topics. Tourism, an important growth field in academic studies, relates directly to sports. Most significantly, contemporary interest in sexuality is informed by sports periodicals. Not only are gender roles transformed through sports, but the visuals in these publications illustrate emergent feminine and masculine ideals.
The Trial of King Louis XVI, 1792-1793
• Number of titles: 7
• Languages used: French
• Title list available
• MARC records are available
• Location of originals: Zentralbibliothek Zürich
The present collection presents the entire corpus of all public interventions by representatives in the National Convention during the trial of King Louis XVI from November 1792 to January 1793. A six-volume compilation of speeches and interventions during the trial constitutes the nucleus of the collection. It contains some 300 original writings which originally appeared separately. Two other important items in the collection are contemporary source collections, published during and immediately after Louis’s trial: the eight volumes of the Histoire impartiale du procès de Louis XVI by Jean-François Jauffret (Paris: C.-F. Perlet, 1792-1793), and the very rare seven volumes of Le Pour et le Contre. Recueil complet des opinions prononcées à l’Assemblée conventionelle dans le procès de Louis XVI (Paris: Buisson, Chaudé, 1793). Two important speeches in the King’s defense, by Jacques Necker (1792) and Lally-Tolendal (Paris-London, 1793), make for a remarkable and representative compilation of contemporary documents on the King’s trial.
• Languages used: French
• Title list available
• MARC records are available
• Location of originals: Zentralbibliothek Zürich
The present collection presents the entire corpus of all public interventions by representatives in the National Convention during the trial of King Louis XVI from November 1792 to January 1793. A six-volume compilation of speeches and interventions during the trial constitutes the nucleus of the collection. It contains some 300 original writings which originally appeared separately. Two other important items in the collection are contemporary source collections, published during and immediately after Louis’s trial: the eight volumes of the Histoire impartiale du procès de Louis XVI by Jean-François Jauffret (Paris: C.-F. Perlet, 1792-1793), and the very rare seven volumes of Le Pour et le Contre. Recueil complet des opinions prononcées à l’Assemblée conventionelle dans le procès de Louis XVI (Paris: Buisson, Chaudé, 1793). Two important speeches in the King’s defense, by Jacques Necker (1792) and Lally-Tolendal (Paris-London, 1793), make for a remarkable and representative compilation of contemporary documents on the King’s trial.
c. 1880-1940
This collection contains the periodicals that were accumulated by the Austrian anarchist, historian and collector Max Nettlau (1865-1944), together with a number of later additions, held at the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam. It contains numerous rare and, in many cases, unique titles. The collection of the IISH provides a richness of documentation pertaining explicitly to the formative anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist episode (1890-1920) in the history of Latin American labor movements. Included are the Argentine periodicals La Protesta, La Vanguardia and Acción Obrera; the Brazilian O Exempio. Jornal do Povo and Battaglia; the Chilean Voz del Mar; and the Mexican Ariete, Redención Obrera, Revolución Social and El Sindicalista. This collection consists of 971 Latin American anarchist and labor periodicals. The periodicals in this collection have been organized by country. In addition, each series has been subdivided into periodicals with and periodicals without a known (corporate) author. The arrangement is alphabetical throughout.
An EAD finding aid is available. In addition, a set of 971 MARC21 records is available which provides a detailed description of each individual periodical in this collection. These MARC21 records have been created at the University of Michigan University Library, Harvard College Library, Cornell University Library and The General Libraries of The University of Texas at Austin.
Also available on microfilm (180 reels).
An EAD finding aid is available. In addition, a set of 971 MARC21 records is available which provides a detailed description of each individual periodical in this collection. These MARC21 records have been created at the University of Michigan University Library, Harvard College Library, Cornell University Library and The General Libraries of The University of Texas at Austin.
Also available on microfilm (180 reels).
Newspapers, magazines and books from the 1900s-1950s
Mobilizing East Asia offers a carefully selected collection of extremely rare, many times even unique English-language newspapers, magazines and pamphlets published inside Asia, following the descent into war in East and South-East Asia from the turn of the twentieth century to the 1950s.
This exciting collection of newspapers and illustrated magazines, often in colour, is now available online for the first time, exclusively from Brill. The Collection offers access to unique primary source material which can be used to pursue research topics in modern history, Asian studies, politics and war studies.
Features and Benefits:
- English-language newspapers and magazines published in East Asia
- Approx. 100,000 pages of over 1,200 print items
- All content fully searchable
- Reproduced in 300 dpi full colour
- Sourced from extremely rare, often even unique originals
- Brill has the exclusive online rights to this material for years to come
- Represents the most complete holdings available of these sources
- Updates included, at no additional cost
For a detailed list of the contents, please see the links below (online edition)
This exciting collection of newspapers and illustrated magazines, often in colour, is now available online for the first time, exclusively from Brill. The Collection offers access to unique primary source material which can be used to pursue research topics in modern history, Asian studies, politics and war studies.
Features and Benefits:
- English-language newspapers and magazines published in East Asia
- Approx. 100,000 pages of over 1,200 print items
- All content fully searchable
- Reproduced in 300 dpi full colour
- Sourced from extremely rare, often even unique originals
- Brill has the exclusive online rights to this material for years to come
- Represents the most complete holdings available of these sources
- Updates included, at no additional cost
For a detailed list of the contents, please see the links below (online edition)
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