Institutional outright purchase price (2021)
EUR €4,356.00USD $5,053.00
Search Results
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 Covering the period from the end of World War II to the present day, it provides unique access to previously unpublished reports, memoranda, cables, intelligence briefs, classified articles, PowerPoint presentations, military manuals and directives, and other declassified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.
[
This collection is no longer available for purchase. For the new version see Archives of the Presbyterian Church in Cuba (IPRC) and Archives of Christian Churches and Organizations in Cuba (CCOC)]
This collection makes available for research the records of the Iglesia Presbiteriana-Reformada en Cuba (IPRC) and predecessor Presbyterian churches and missions in Cuba, including a complete run of Heraldo Cristiano, the church’s newsletter, 1919 – 2010, which provides a framework for the history of the church, its work and history. Also included are the periodicals Juprecu and Su Voz, early mission records, originally maintained in English and then in Spanish as the congregations took over management of their churches and schools from the mission workers. These include session minutes and membership/baptism/marriage/death records, as well as minutes of men’s, women’s, and youth groups, including their mission work in their communities.
Size of the collection: 52,000 scans, approx. 80,000 pages.
Languages: Spanish (main), English.
This publication was realized with the support of the Kenneth Scott Latourette Fund, Yale Divinity School Library.
Historical background
The Archives of the Presbyterian Church of Cuba Online collection consist of the records of the National Presbyterate of Cuba (1904- ), the First Havana Congregation founded in 1901 (including a group made up exclusively English-speakers), and the records of eleven other Presbyterian congregations located in or around Havana: Guanabacoa, Güines, Güira de Melena, Luyanó, Nueva Paz, Palos, Regla, San Antonio, San Nicolás, Vega, and a small church that served Havana’s Chinese population. These records are in Spanish, begin in the first decade of the twentieth century and go up to the 2010s. The collection also includes fairly complete sets of Presbyterian periodicals: Heraldo Cristiano (1919-2010), the official monthly publication of the Cuban Presbyterian Church; Juprecu (1961-2009), the bimonthly publication of the Unión Nacional de Jóvenes Presbiterianos (Presbyterian Youth Union), and a collection of quarterly Su Voz (1961-2010).
While there had been a Protestant presence on the island as far back as the early colonial era, the first formal Protestant congregations emerged only in 1871, following a short-lived declaration of religious tolerance for Spain and its colonies. These first legal non-Catholic congregations served primarily Havana’s established and floating English-speaking Protestants. At the time, tens of thousands of Cuban political exiles resided in various U.S. locations from Key West to New York City. Following the end of the Ten Years’ War (1868-1878) against Spain, Cuban Protestants returned to the island and began to spread the work of various Protestant denominations. Cuban layman Evaristo Collazo established the first Presbyterian works in Havana in 1890 but had to close them five years later, when Cubans launched yet another war of independence against Spain.
The Presbyterian Church was officially established in Cuba in December 1901, during U.S. military occupation. Three years later, Cuba’s Presbyterians founded the Presbyter of Havana. During the Republican era (1902-1958) the church experienced growth and expanded its religious, educational, and charitable work. Much reduced in numbers and freedoms, the Presbyterian church persisted during the Revolutionary period that began in 1959. In 1967, Cuba’s Presbyterian churches became independent, and formed the Iglesia Presbiteriana-Reformada en Cuba (IPRC; Presbyterian-Reformed Church in Cuba). During the 1990s and first decades of the twenty first century, this and other Protestant denominations experienced significant growth.
The bulk of Cuba’s Presbyterian Church records consist of scores of libros de actas (books of minutes) of each of the churches’ consistory meetings, regular meetings that included clergy and church elders. It also includes the minutes books of different committees and associations, among them those kept by men’s, women’s, and youth organizations, as well as Sunday Schools, Christian Education, and Benevolence groups. These books provide important information on a variety of topics ranging from clergy appointments and membership lists to budgets and the various roles played by Presbyterian women over the decades. Of great value to historians and genealogists are the records of baptism, marriage, and death. Because these records span over one hundred years, they allow scholars and other individuals to recognize and track changes over time. For example, one can trace the growth of various congregations and gather important sociodemographic data on gender, ages, and socioeconomic composition.
These records also provide insights on the participation and church activities of various ethnic and racial groups. There is a book of minutes of the consistory of an English-speaking congregation in Havana (1919-1926) and a particularly interesting set of bound volumes of the Chinese congregation in Havana. These materials are rich in information; they provide a historical sketch of these congregations, a complete list of members, records of baptism and marriage, and a revealing list that states the reasons why particular individual members left the church: “indifference,” “moved to the US,” or “joined a Pentecostal church.”
Besides books of minutes, the collection includes a wide range of historical documents and ephemera such as photo albums, church bulletins, lists of offerings pledges, and various other materials that offer information on the congregations, including the existence of a church-affiliated Boy Scout troop, lists of individuals served by church-run dispensaries, etc. These materials complement the microfilmed Princeton University Library collections of materials on religion in Cuba, among them, “Cuba Protestant Serials” and “Protestant Churches in Cuba.”
The Heraldo Cristiano magazine is particularly useful for anyone seeking a good understanding of the church’s development since 1919. Each edition consists of between fifteen and thirty-six pages of articles and regular sections. These include family devotionals, Sunday school curricula, news from around the world, and up to the mid 1930s, a section called “Cuba Seca” (dry Cuba) devoted to the subject of temperance. Both Cuban authors and US-based clergy and laypeople contributed to the magazine. The Heraldo Cristiano included information on church happenings, clergy appointments, and a social notes section announcing births, baptisms, and marriages, as well as obituaries. The monthly publication also carried photographs of clergy, church buildings, and benevolent work at orphanages and retirement homes. One particularly telling photograph showed a half-burnt Bible, victim of the intolerant zeal of a Catholic priest. The Heraldo Cristiano also carried ads for bookstores selling Christian books, Protestant schools, and other products and services.
The Heraldo Cristiano is also a valuable source to trace the relations of the denomination with various Cuban governments, particularly the revolutionary government since 1959. The February 24, 1959 issue, for example, carried a jubilant editorial entitled “La fiesta de la Patria liberada.” With the passing of time, the Presbyterian Church increased its support for the state and its official magazine included titles such as “Presencia del hombre protestante en la revolución.”
While students of Latin America demography have, for many decades, made good use of Catholic baptismal, confirmation, marriage, and burial records, few have consulted similar records generated by Protestant denominations. Such records, included in this collection, can shed much light on demographic questions and social realities. For example, the role of women in various leadership positions and as educators; and the rapid Cubanization of the clergy in the early years of the twentieth century. Genealogists and individuals putting together family trees will also find these records useful.
This collection offers multiple possibilities for those interested not only in the history of Protestantism on the island but for individuals in search of windows to Cuban culture and society. It will stimulate scholars to venture into a number of historical questions such as: Protestant positions vis-à-vis Catholicism and Afro-Cuban religions; the effects of the Cuban Revolution on Protestant churches and the impact of the consequent massive exile on church membership, attendance, and finances; and the role of the Presbyterian church during the profound economic and moral crisis of the Special Period that began in the early 1990s.
Luis Martínez-Fernández, University of Central Florida
This collection makes available for research the records of the Iglesia Presbiteriana-Reformada en Cuba (IPRC) and predecessor Presbyterian churches and missions in Cuba, including a complete run of Heraldo Cristiano, the church’s newsletter, 1919 – 2010, which provides a framework for the history of the church, its work and history. Also included are the periodicals Juprecu and Su Voz, early mission records, originally maintained in English and then in Spanish as the congregations took over management of their churches and schools from the mission workers. These include session minutes and membership/baptism/marriage/death records, as well as minutes of men’s, women’s, and youth groups, including their mission work in their communities.
Size of the collection: 52,000 scans, approx. 80,000 pages.
Languages: Spanish (main), English.
This publication was realized with the support of the Kenneth Scott Latourette Fund, Yale Divinity School Library.
Historical background
The Archives of the Presbyterian Church of Cuba Online collection consist of the records of the National Presbyterate of Cuba (1904- ), the First Havana Congregation founded in 1901 (including a group made up exclusively English-speakers), and the records of eleven other Presbyterian congregations located in or around Havana: Guanabacoa, Güines, Güira de Melena, Luyanó, Nueva Paz, Palos, Regla, San Antonio, San Nicolás, Vega, and a small church that served Havana’s Chinese population. These records are in Spanish, begin in the first decade of the twentieth century and go up to the 2010s. The collection also includes fairly complete sets of Presbyterian periodicals: Heraldo Cristiano (1919-2010), the official monthly publication of the Cuban Presbyterian Church; Juprecu (1961-2009), the bimonthly publication of the Unión Nacional de Jóvenes Presbiterianos (Presbyterian Youth Union), and a collection of quarterly Su Voz (1961-2010).
While there had been a Protestant presence on the island as far back as the early colonial era, the first formal Protestant congregations emerged only in 1871, following a short-lived declaration of religious tolerance for Spain and its colonies. These first legal non-Catholic congregations served primarily Havana’s established and floating English-speaking Protestants. At the time, tens of thousands of Cuban political exiles resided in various U.S. locations from Key West to New York City. Following the end of the Ten Years’ War (1868-1878) against Spain, Cuban Protestants returned to the island and began to spread the work of various Protestant denominations. Cuban layman Evaristo Collazo established the first Presbyterian works in Havana in 1890 but had to close them five years later, when Cubans launched yet another war of independence against Spain.
The Presbyterian Church was officially established in Cuba in December 1901, during U.S. military occupation. Three years later, Cuba’s Presbyterians founded the Presbyter of Havana. During the Republican era (1902-1958) the church experienced growth and expanded its religious, educational, and charitable work. Much reduced in numbers and freedoms, the Presbyterian church persisted during the Revolutionary period that began in 1959. In 1967, Cuba’s Presbyterian churches became independent, and formed the Iglesia Presbiteriana-Reformada en Cuba (IPRC; Presbyterian-Reformed Church in Cuba). During the 1990s and first decades of the twenty first century, this and other Protestant denominations experienced significant growth.
The bulk of Cuba’s Presbyterian Church records consist of scores of libros de actas (books of minutes) of each of the churches’ consistory meetings, regular meetings that included clergy and church elders. It also includes the minutes books of different committees and associations, among them those kept by men’s, women’s, and youth organizations, as well as Sunday Schools, Christian Education, and Benevolence groups. These books provide important information on a variety of topics ranging from clergy appointments and membership lists to budgets and the various roles played by Presbyterian women over the decades. Of great value to historians and genealogists are the records of baptism, marriage, and death. Because these records span over one hundred years, they allow scholars and other individuals to recognize and track changes over time. For example, one can trace the growth of various congregations and gather important sociodemographic data on gender, ages, and socioeconomic composition.
These records also provide insights on the participation and church activities of various ethnic and racial groups. There is a book of minutes of the consistory of an English-speaking congregation in Havana (1919-1926) and a particularly interesting set of bound volumes of the Chinese congregation in Havana. These materials are rich in information; they provide a historical sketch of these congregations, a complete list of members, records of baptism and marriage, and a revealing list that states the reasons why particular individual members left the church: “indifference,” “moved to the US,” or “joined a Pentecostal church.”
Besides books of minutes, the collection includes a wide range of historical documents and ephemera such as photo albums, church bulletins, lists of offerings pledges, and various other materials that offer information on the congregations, including the existence of a church-affiliated Boy Scout troop, lists of individuals served by church-run dispensaries, etc. These materials complement the microfilmed Princeton University Library collections of materials on religion in Cuba, among them, “Cuba Protestant Serials” and “Protestant Churches in Cuba.”
The Heraldo Cristiano magazine is particularly useful for anyone seeking a good understanding of the church’s development since 1919. Each edition consists of between fifteen and thirty-six pages of articles and regular sections. These include family devotionals, Sunday school curricula, news from around the world, and up to the mid 1930s, a section called “Cuba Seca” (dry Cuba) devoted to the subject of temperance. Both Cuban authors and US-based clergy and laypeople contributed to the magazine. The Heraldo Cristiano included information on church happenings, clergy appointments, and a social notes section announcing births, baptisms, and marriages, as well as obituaries. The monthly publication also carried photographs of clergy, church buildings, and benevolent work at orphanages and retirement homes. One particularly telling photograph showed a half-burnt Bible, victim of the intolerant zeal of a Catholic priest. The Heraldo Cristiano also carried ads for bookstores selling Christian books, Protestant schools, and other products and services.
The Heraldo Cristiano is also a valuable source to trace the relations of the denomination with various Cuban governments, particularly the revolutionary government since 1959. The February 24, 1959 issue, for example, carried a jubilant editorial entitled “La fiesta de la Patria liberada.” With the passing of time, the Presbyterian Church increased its support for the state and its official magazine included titles such as “Presencia del hombre protestante en la revolución.”
While students of Latin America demography have, for many decades, made good use of Catholic baptismal, confirmation, marriage, and burial records, few have consulted similar records generated by Protestant denominations. Such records, included in this collection, can shed much light on demographic questions and social realities. For example, the role of women in various leadership positions and as educators; and the rapid Cubanization of the clergy in the early years of the twentieth century. Genealogists and individuals putting together family trees will also find these records useful.
This collection offers multiple possibilities for those interested not only in the history of Protestantism on the island but for individuals in search of windows to Cuban culture and society. It will stimulate scholars to venture into a number of historical questions such as: Protestant positions vis-à-vis Catholicism and Afro-Cuban religions; the effects of the Cuban Revolution on Protestant churches and the impact of the consequent massive exile on church membership, attendance, and finances; and the role of the Presbyterian church during the profound economic and moral crisis of the Special Period that began in the early 1990s.
Luis Martínez-Fernández, University of Central Florida
Online Reference Tool for the History of Culture
http://arkyves.org/
Arkyves is both a unique database of images and texts and a meeting place for everyone who wants to study imagery and publish about it. All visual and textual sources are made accessible with the help of the multilingual vocabulary for cultural content of the Iconclass system. By using this system it has been made possible to find and retrieve images and texts from various sources on a specific topic.
By using Arkyves it is currently possible to access almost 900.000 images, texts, etc. from libraries and museums in many countries among them the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD), the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, and the university libraries of Milan, Utrecht and Glasgow . More collections will follow in the near future. The database contains a link to the images which are available in open access.
Arkyves is both a research tool for art historians and book historians, as well as a tool to facilitate the process of describing images.
Some of Arkyves’ features:
• Completely rewritten front-end: responsive design in a modern web application.
• New user interface: clear and easy to use, centered around pre-selected themes.
• Iconclass controlled vocabulary for improved powerful retrieval options.
• Iconclass searches currently possible in 9 different languages (English, Dutch, French, German, Finnish, Polish, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese)
• For partners: possibility to create dedicated Iconclass retrieval browsers, for easy inclusion in their website.
• Arkyves is now open as a platform to assist institutions and individual researchers to catalogue and publish their own datasets of images in hybrid Open Access.
• Updated back-end search, based on industry-leading ElasticSearch.
Partner Institutions:
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek; Biblia Sacra project; Bibliothèques Virtuelles Humanistes; Byvanck Illuminated Manuscript project; Cardiff University; Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden; Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington; Getty Research Institute & Provenance Index; Glasgow University Library; Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel; Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague; The Leiden Collection, New York; Museum Meermanno; RKD, Netherlands Institute for Art History; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig; University Library, Amsterdam; University Library, Utrecht; University of Milan, Marengo; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
To enquire about this product, or arrange a free 30-day institutional trial, please contact our Sales Department at sales-nl@brill.com (outside the Americas) or sales-us@brill.com (the Americas).
1) Arkyves demo: Product information Information about 'Arkyves, Reference Tool for the History of Culture': what is it, how can you use it, the different tools, future developments, and more. Watch it here
2) Arkyves demo: Searching for content in Arkyves Examples of the different kinds of search possibilities in Arkyves. Watch it here
Arkyves is both a unique database of images and texts and a meeting place for everyone who wants to study imagery and publish about it. All visual and textual sources are made accessible with the help of the multilingual vocabulary for cultural content of the Iconclass system. By using this system it has been made possible to find and retrieve images and texts from various sources on a specific topic.
By using Arkyves it is currently possible to access almost 900.000 images, texts, etc. from libraries and museums in many countries among them the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD), the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, and the university libraries of Milan, Utrecht and Glasgow . More collections will follow in the near future. The database contains a link to the images which are available in open access.
Arkyves is both a research tool for art historians and book historians, as well as a tool to facilitate the process of describing images.
Some of Arkyves’ features:
• Completely rewritten front-end: responsive design in a modern web application.
• New user interface: clear and easy to use, centered around pre-selected themes.
• Iconclass controlled vocabulary for improved powerful retrieval options.
• Iconclass searches currently possible in 9 different languages (English, Dutch, French, German, Finnish, Polish, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese)
• For partners: possibility to create dedicated Iconclass retrieval browsers, for easy inclusion in their website.
• Arkyves is now open as a platform to assist institutions and individual researchers to catalogue and publish their own datasets of images in hybrid Open Access.
• Updated back-end search, based on industry-leading ElasticSearch.
Partner Institutions:
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek; Biblia Sacra project; Bibliothèques Virtuelles Humanistes; Byvanck Illuminated Manuscript project; Cardiff University; Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden; Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington; Getty Research Institute & Provenance Index; Glasgow University Library; Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel; Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague; The Leiden Collection, New York; Museum Meermanno; RKD, Netherlands Institute for Art History; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig; University Library, Amsterdam; University Library, Utrecht; University of Milan, Marengo; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
To enquire about this product, or arrange a free 30-day institutional trial, please contact our Sales Department at sales-nl@brill.com (outside the Americas) or sales-us@brill.com (the Americas).
1) Arkyves demo: Product information Information about 'Arkyves, Reference Tool for the History of Culture': what is it, how can you use it, the different tools, future developments, and more. Watch it here
2) Arkyves demo: Searching for content in Arkyves Examples of the different kinds of search possibilities in Arkyves. Watch it here
• 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
• 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.
The
Compilation of Chinese Medicine Periodicals Online, 1897-1952 is a collection of 49 periodicals on Chinese medicine published in the late Qing and Republican periods in China. This collection includes 212 books in 5 parts of more than 120,000 pages. The late Qing and Republican eras are crucial periods to the development of medicine and science in China. Considered one of the best sources for observing the changing nature of medical practice and education during the late Qing and Republican eras in China, this collection provides unique insight into not only the modern transformation of Chinese medicine, but also the larger role of medicine in Chinese society. This collection includes published documents authored by prominent figures both in support of, and opposed to, Chinese medicine. The periodicals included in this collection are among the oldest, most influential and authoritative of all scholarship on Chinese medicine from the late Qing and Republican periods. The content has important reference value and unique academic significance for research on Chinese medicine as well as Chinese culture, history and society. The periodicals included are both aged and rare. The editorial team worked with over 50 libraries to compile them all together in this work. The print version of this collection was jointly published in Chinese by Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House in 2012. Brill was granted the exclusive rights in 2017 to distribute the online version of this collection.
Key features - Chinese material plus English overviews; - A massive primary source collection that includes 212 volumes in 5 parts of approximately 120,000 pages; - Two extensive, full-text searchable Indexes: Index by Author and Index by Category; - Both print and online versions are available.
Published from Tokyo under Japanese editorship before, during, and after WWII (1932-1970),
Contemporary Japan is now seen as a beacon of rationality, especially during the ‘devil’s decade’ of the 1930s. While consistently presenting the Japanese case,
Contemporary Japan spoke from the shrinking middle ground of the public sphere. Run by the semi-official Foreign Affairs Association of Japan,
Contemporary Japan published informed, critical, long-form journalism by leading Japanese and Western commentators on East Asia. Disillusioned Pan-Asianists compete with anti-Western rhetoric on the road to war against China. Post-war, new voices bemoan the 'reverse course' of 1947-1952. This lively Primary Source offers a window into Japan’s most rational and yet most engaged debates of the day.
Contemporary Japan ceased publication in 1970 and Brill has secured the entire run from Vol.1 1932 to Vol. 29, 1970, (with considerable gaps from 1954 - 1970, see full list of issues) but limits this first series to the period 1932-1954.
Note: virtually complete for the important years 1932 - 1954 (lacking two volumes: volume 9, no. 3 (1941) and volume 12, no. 1 (1943). Not complete for the years up to 1970. Should currently missing volumes emerge, these will be included at no extra cost to purchasers.
Note: virtually complete for the important years 1932 - 1954 (lacking two volumes: volume 9, no. 3 (1941) and volume 12, no. 1 (1943). Not complete for the years up to 1970. Should currently missing volumes emerge, these will be included at no extra cost to purchasers.
Shanghai, 1904-1941
This fully text-searchable holding of the
complete
Israel’s Messenger (in Chinese
Youtai Yuebao), 1904-1941, is a core resource for Asian Studies, with a particular emphasis on the Jewish community in Shanghai. Shanghai Jewry occupied near-outsider status within the Foreign Settlement. Influential commercial and political circles around the Sassoon and the Ezra families were closely attuned to the political agenda of nationalist China and well-entrenched in key committees of the Foreign Settlements. Nevertheless, in July 1933, following Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations,
Israel’s Messenger championed Japan as the leader of Greater Asia, and the founder-editor of
Israel’s Messenger, N.E.B. Ezra called on the Japanese Minister to Shanghai to say so. Here significant personalities in Shanghai Jewry, such as George Sokolsky and Ezra himself, and the Sassoon family organised and campaigned for the greater safety and political recognition of Shanghai and worldwide Jewry, and of the Zionist cause. Note: Publication was suspended from February 1910 - September 1918. This edition is therefore the complete edition.
The English-language
Japan Chronicle Weekly (1900–1940) is the newspaper of record for Japan’s engagement with modernity and its emergence, through war, political and social upheaval and seismic social change in East Asia, onto the world stage in the first half of the twentieth century. Historians of East Asia have long seen the Japan Chronicle as a uniquely valuable resource. This well-informed, controversial but always readable source of news and opinion on Japan and East Asia offers an intriguing and lively Japanese complement to the
North China Herald Online. This collection includes the
Kobe Weekly Chronicle (1900-1901), the predecessor of the Japan Chronicle Weekly.
Founded and based in Kobe, a port city that saw enormous expansion during the Chronicle’s lifetime, and edited by representative figures in this treaty port, the Chronicle provides a unique perspective not only on the settler communities in Japan and East Asia but also to the historical development of East Asia as it happened. This supremely important and uniquely valuable resource, covering the years 1900-1941, is now exclusively available in Brill’s East Asia Archive Online, with the weekly Commercial Supplement.
• Number of titles: 1 (The Japan Chronicle, including the Commercial Supplement). • Number of pages: approx. 80.000. • Languages used: English • MARC record available • Location of Originals: School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, London) and the British Library (London)
Founded and based in Kobe, a port city that saw enormous expansion during the Chronicle’s lifetime, and edited by representative figures in this treaty port, the Chronicle provides a unique perspective not only on the settler communities in Japan and East Asia but also to the historical development of East Asia as it happened. This supremely important and uniquely valuable resource, covering the years 1900-1941, is now exclusively available in Brill’s East Asia Archive Online, with the weekly Commercial Supplement.
• Number of titles: 1 (The Japan Chronicle, including the Commercial Supplement). • Number of pages: approx. 80.000. • Languages used: English • MARC record available • Location of Originals: School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, London) and the British Library (London)
Japan News-Week was the last independent, foreign-owned English-language newspaper published in Japan before the Pacific War. Brill’s exclusive holding runs from the first issue of November 1938 to within 6 months of the newspaper’s closedown on November 30 1941. A week later, on the eve of Pearl Harbor, the 8th November issue was scrapped and publisher W.R. “Bud” Wills and editor Phyllis Argall were arrested by Special Higher Police (Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu) on espionage charges.
Each issue, published on Saturdays, ran for 8 pages across 7 columns, with the weekly schedule giving Wills and his team time to commission features excavating issues rather than simply reporting news, journalism desperately needed between the breakout of all-out war in China in July 1937 and the competing drumbeats of the press on both sides of the Pacific in the run-up to Pearl Harbor. The weekly edition carried a conventional mix of news reports and interpretative features, arts reviews, cartoons, light entertainment columns, radio schedules and advertising. Besides its editorial priority on balanced coverage from all sides, almost all Japan News-Week features carried by-lines and the newspaper declared that it was entirely “written by foreigners”.
• Impartial but US-tinged perspectives from Tokyo in run-up to Pacific War 1938-1941
• Last independent English-language newspaper published in Tokyo before Pearl Harbor
• 1368 pages
• Full-color 300 ppi pages from high-quality originals
• Fully text-searchable
• Sourced largely from founding family’s original holdings in USA
• Brill exclusive: there are no other holdings of comparable duration and quality
Each issue, published on Saturdays, ran for 8 pages across 7 columns, with the weekly schedule giving Wills and his team time to commission features excavating issues rather than simply reporting news, journalism desperately needed between the breakout of all-out war in China in July 1937 and the competing drumbeats of the press on both sides of the Pacific in the run-up to Pearl Harbor. The weekly edition carried a conventional mix of news reports and interpretative features, arts reviews, cartoons, light entertainment columns, radio schedules and advertising. Besides its editorial priority on balanced coverage from all sides, almost all Japan News-Week features carried by-lines and the newspaper declared that it was entirely “written by foreigners”.
• Impartial but US-tinged perspectives from Tokyo in run-up to Pacific War 1938-1941
• Last independent English-language newspaper published in Tokyo before Pearl Harbor
• 1368 pages
• Full-color 300 ppi pages from high-quality originals
• Fully text-searchable
• Sourced largely from founding family’s original holdings in USA
• Brill exclusive: there are no other holdings of comparable duration and quality
As flagship pictorial organs of Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
The Japan Times Weekly (November 1938 – December 1942) and its successor
Nippon Times Weekly, were priceless investments in the expression of Japan’s master narrative (i.a., the victimization of China and Southeast Asia by Western interests) and therefore published in colour at a time of extreme newsprint shortages. As an optional, limited giveaway with the main newspaper
Japan (Nippon) Times, these weeklies are now extraordinarily rare. This Primary Source from Brill therefore focuses on the wartime holdings, 1938-1944, of these consecutive titles showcasing Japan’s martial and geopolitical achievements in the all-out war in China and then in the Pacific War. Of the seven years of the wartime holdings, this Primary Source offers almost five years of the total.
Completeness: Of the Japan Times Weekly, this Primary Source runs from the 2nd issue (September 1938) to November 1942, close to the end of the title. The Nippon Times Weekly runs from the first issue of 1st January 1943 to the end of January 1944. Should any further issues emerge after all, these will be added to this PSO at no extra cost to customers. In addition to the Weekly magazine, both the parent newspapers the Japan Times and its 1943 successor the Nippon Times established publishing arms bringing out books and booklets broadcasting the defining mission of the Daily and the Weekly editions. Brill has collected a good holding of these issues, which we will publish with this Primary Source with its own dedicated tab. Also in addition, the material here comes with useful Index issues and extremely rare Supplements, including the Nippon Times Supplement: News and View of Greater East Asia. Some issues of this consecutive title are available elsewhere in scattered form, but none are available in such a full run, and none have been digitised in full-text-searchable format
Completeness: Of the Japan Times Weekly, this Primary Source runs from the 2nd issue (September 1938) to November 1942, close to the end of the title. The Nippon Times Weekly runs from the first issue of 1st January 1943 to the end of January 1944. Should any further issues emerge after all, these will be added to this PSO at no extra cost to customers. In addition to the Weekly magazine, both the parent newspapers the Japan Times and its 1943 successor the Nippon Times established publishing arms bringing out books and booklets broadcasting the defining mission of the Daily and the Weekly editions. Brill has collected a good holding of these issues, which we will publish with this Primary Source with its own dedicated tab. Also in addition, the material here comes with useful Index issues and extremely rare Supplements, including the Nippon Times Supplement: News and View of Greater East Asia. Some issues of this consecutive title are available elsewhere in scattered form, but none are available in such a full run, and none have been digitised in full-text-searchable format
Published from the beginning of the war with China right up to the outbreak of the Korean War (1931 - 1952), the
Japan Year Books present Japan’s news and statistics throughout the period. In its densely detailed fashion this is the name-rich, comprehensive Japanese view of the nation, reflecting its endeavours both during and after the war(s).
Essential, partial, yet accurate, these politically loaded historical sources will prove to be indispensable for any serious researcher of the period. A useful contrast to the China Year Books and Chinese Year Books published in Tianjin, Shanghai and elsewhere from 1915-1945.
Essential, partial, yet accurate, these politically loaded historical sources will prove to be indispensable for any serious researcher of the period. A useful contrast to the China Year Books and Chinese Year Books published in Tianjin, Shanghai and elsewhere from 1915-1945.
The
Manchuria Collection offers scholars of Japan’s modern history an unparalleled inside view of Japan’s agenda in Manchuria and its plans for domination in Asia. Founded in 1908 in the wake of Japan’s victory in the war against Russia, the
Manchuria Daily News set up in Dalian (Darien) at the headquarters of the South Manchuria Railway Company (Minami Manshū Tetsudō Kabushiki-gaisha) (SMR).
Lavishly funded from Tokyo, and with the full resources of the SMR Research Department behind them, the Manchuria Daily News and the associated titles offered here constitute a formidable record of Japanese policy on Manchuria and the Manchoukuo project. From 1908-1940 this compact, feisty daily and its associated titles responded to the exigencies of the day, taking requests from a variety of official and often competing propaganda bureaux. In the Manchuria Daily News and in these associated publications, the SMR presented a powerful case for the Japanese leadership of Asia, after 1932 using Manchoukuo as a showcase for Japan’s technological, cultural and political advancement.
Apart from the early 1908-1912 holdings, and the October 1919 to February 1921 gap when publication was suspended , the 1912-1940 run published here is virtually complete and exclusive to Brill Primary Sources Online.
Brill has sourced an exciting range of associated English-language magazines published in tandem with the Manchuria Daily News. Here for the first time are extensive holdings from the irregular publications Manchuria Magazine, Manchuria Month, Contemporary Manchuria and the Manchuria Information Bulletin.
Lavishly funded from Tokyo, and with the full resources of the SMR Research Department behind them, the Manchuria Daily News and the associated titles offered here constitute a formidable record of Japanese policy on Manchuria and the Manchoukuo project. From 1908-1940 this compact, feisty daily and its associated titles responded to the exigencies of the day, taking requests from a variety of official and often competing propaganda bureaux. In the Manchuria Daily News and in these associated publications, the SMR presented a powerful case for the Japanese leadership of Asia, after 1932 using Manchoukuo as a showcase for Japan’s technological, cultural and political advancement.
Apart from the early 1908-1912 holdings, and the October 1919 to February 1921 gap when publication was suspended , the 1912-1940 run published here is virtually complete and exclusive to Brill Primary Sources Online.
Brill has sourced an exciting range of associated English-language magazines published in tandem with the Manchuria Daily News. Here for the first time are extensive holdings from the irregular publications Manchuria Magazine, Manchuria Month, Contemporary Manchuria and the Manchuria Information Bulletin.
"
Brill’s North-China Daily News database is extremely impressive. It presents very clear scanned images of newspapers on a user-friendly operating system.” -- Xiang Fen Ph.D., Associate Researcher,
Journalism and Communication Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
" An invaluable primary source for historical research on the modern period, especially China … This new Online Primary Source will enable far-reaching historical research and encourage the spirit of scholarly enquiry among historians of modern East Asia.” -- Liu Wennan Ph.D., Associate Researcher, Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
" This expanded collection is an essential source for scholars of the history of international relations in pre- and immediate post-war East Asia … This database set provides not only the daily edition, but also substantial holdings of the weekend magazines, supplements, the Municipal Gazette and books and pamphlets from the newspaper’s imprint.” -- Professor Dr. Sven Saaler, Sophia University, Japan
" An excellent additional resource. Its great value lies in the more ephemeral material not included in the Herald: in particular advertisements (of all kinds), and announcements … What you get is much more depth and texture, and also a much firmer sense of key events unfolding.” -- Professor Robert Bickers, University of Bristol
Brill’s relaunched and expanded North-China Daily News is great news for scholars of China and East Asia from the 1860s to the mid-19th century. Except for a wartime break, 1941-45, this was the most influential and informative English-language daily in East Asia. Even though it serves as a catalogue of the sins of the West in the ‘century of national humiliation’, ca.1839-1949, it is the unwitting journal of record for China’s recovery of full nationhood as it struggled against foreign incursions, warlordism, chaos, invasion and civil war to the unification of October 1949.
Extra content
North-China Daily News has a greatly expanded run of the Daily edition from 1869-1949 and some terrific extras, including unique colour holdings of the Sunday Magazine and Special Supplements, a significant run of the Municipal Gazette, organ of the Shanghai Municipal Council from 1908-1940, and a terrific selection of rare books and pamphlets from the imprint of the North-China Daily News and its parent publisher, the North-China Herald.
Uniquely broad and outspoken news coverage
The North-China Daily News is far more than an expanded form of the North-China Herald. This busy daily published around 70 percent more news than the Herald, 70 per cent more pictorial and advertising content, and around 40 percent more textual content overall. But the North-China Daily News was far more than an expanded version of the North-China Herald, because a great deal of the North-China Daily News material was unique and not republished in the Herald.
The social economy
The “Old Lady of the Bund”, as it was known to Shanghai residents, tracked all key news developments and commercial news both in China and throughout East Asia. It recorded the social life of the foreign settlements in photographs and editorial comment. It records the frenetic economy of Shanghai and the ‘Outports’ with hard-working classified ads and Personal and Wanted Notices. It advised its readers on their book choices, ushering in the moves and modern music in the Cinema and entertainment pages. There were Woman’s Pages on Mondays and Thursdays. The full-colour illustrated North China Sunday News Magazines are a unique record of settler China at ease. The Correspondence pages ran excitable and heated reader’s exchanges, most written anonymously.
Published here in full colour 300 ppi scans from original issues and grayscale, this collection also offers the only complete run of the works of “Sapajou”, arguably the greatest of all Shanghai’s topical artists, during his tenure at the North-China Daily News, 1923-1941.
Sources: Waseda University, British Library, and private collection
" An invaluable primary source for historical research on the modern period, especially China … This new Online Primary Source will enable far-reaching historical research and encourage the spirit of scholarly enquiry among historians of modern East Asia.” -- Liu Wennan Ph.D., Associate Researcher, Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
" This expanded collection is an essential source for scholars of the history of international relations in pre- and immediate post-war East Asia … This database set provides not only the daily edition, but also substantial holdings of the weekend magazines, supplements, the Municipal Gazette and books and pamphlets from the newspaper’s imprint.” -- Professor Dr. Sven Saaler, Sophia University, Japan
" An excellent additional resource. Its great value lies in the more ephemeral material not included in the Herald: in particular advertisements (of all kinds), and announcements … What you get is much more depth and texture, and also a much firmer sense of key events unfolding.” -- Professor Robert Bickers, University of Bristol
Brill’s relaunched and expanded North-China Daily News is great news for scholars of China and East Asia from the 1860s to the mid-19th century. Except for a wartime break, 1941-45, this was the most influential and informative English-language daily in East Asia. Even though it serves as a catalogue of the sins of the West in the ‘century of national humiliation’, ca.1839-1949, it is the unwitting journal of record for China’s recovery of full nationhood as it struggled against foreign incursions, warlordism, chaos, invasion and civil war to the unification of October 1949.
Extra content
North-China Daily News has a greatly expanded run of the Daily edition from 1869-1949 and some terrific extras, including unique colour holdings of the Sunday Magazine and Special Supplements, a significant run of the Municipal Gazette, organ of the Shanghai Municipal Council from 1908-1940, and a terrific selection of rare books and pamphlets from the imprint of the North-China Daily News and its parent publisher, the North-China Herald.
Uniquely broad and outspoken news coverage
The North-China Daily News is far more than an expanded form of the North-China Herald. This busy daily published around 70 percent more news than the Herald, 70 per cent more pictorial and advertising content, and around 40 percent more textual content overall. But the North-China Daily News was far more than an expanded version of the North-China Herald, because a great deal of the North-China Daily News material was unique and not republished in the Herald.
The social economy
The “Old Lady of the Bund”, as it was known to Shanghai residents, tracked all key news developments and commercial news both in China and throughout East Asia. It recorded the social life of the foreign settlements in photographs and editorial comment. It records the frenetic economy of Shanghai and the ‘Outports’ with hard-working classified ads and Personal and Wanted Notices. It advised its readers on their book choices, ushering in the moves and modern music in the Cinema and entertainment pages. There were Woman’s Pages on Mondays and Thursdays. The full-colour illustrated North China Sunday News Magazines are a unique record of settler China at ease. The Correspondence pages ran excitable and heated reader’s exchanges, most written anonymously.
Published here in full colour 300 ppi scans from original issues and grayscale, this collection also offers the only complete run of the works of “Sapajou”, arguably the greatest of all Shanghai’s topical artists, during his tenure at the North-China Daily News, 1923-1941.
Sources: Waseda University, British Library, and private collection
In Japan’s network of newspapers presenting the national case for expansion and leadership in Asia, the
North China Standard (in Chinese,
Huabei zheng bao) stands alongside the
Japan Times & Mail as a real newspaper, distributing real news written by real journalists. Derided as a propaganda rag when it first began publication in December 1919, the
Standard read better, and investigated and reported better quality news to a steadily growing readership in post-WW1 China and Japan. It was also a representative newspaper chosen for international conferences and delivered
gratis to all delegates.
The North China Standard was founded in December 1919 by John Russell Kennedy (1861-1928), Anglo-Irish master architect of Japan’s modern propaganda programmes. Its most immediate functions, in the wake of propaganda failures at the Paris Conference and the Treaty of Versailles granting Japan continuing rights in Shandong Province, was to argue Japan’s claim to special rights and advisory powers in Chinese affairs, to question the ability of the Chinese to govern China, and to maintain British support for the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Throughout the 1920s it served as one of Japan’s representative newspapers at international conferences, delivered gratis to all delegates.
Sticking to Japan’s propaganda mission would have made for a dull read, and the Standard made a slow start under Satoh Kenri, (known as Henry), in 1919. However, the paper improved under the British journalist, John S. Willes in the 1920s. It took the gifted and imaginative Liverpudlian (1888-1956) George Gorman to turn the North China Standard around and make it into a real newspaper. Both Satoh and Gorman were seasoned publicists in the cause of Japan. However, Gorman’s long experience in this role convinced him that the best way to advance Japan’s cause was through polemic and debate. Under Gorman, the North China Standard served Chinese and foreign readerships intelligently and conscientiously, making this title a valuable primary source for scholars of Japan and China.
The North China Standard was founded in December 1919 by John Russell Kennedy (1861-1928), Anglo-Irish master architect of Japan’s modern propaganda programmes. Its most immediate functions, in the wake of propaganda failures at the Paris Conference and the Treaty of Versailles granting Japan continuing rights in Shandong Province, was to argue Japan’s claim to special rights and advisory powers in Chinese affairs, to question the ability of the Chinese to govern China, and to maintain British support for the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Throughout the 1920s it served as one of Japan’s representative newspapers at international conferences, delivered gratis to all delegates.
Sticking to Japan’s propaganda mission would have made for a dull read, and the Standard made a slow start under Satoh Kenri, (known as Henry), in 1919. However, the paper improved under the British journalist, John S. Willes in the 1920s. It took the gifted and imaginative Liverpudlian (1888-1956) George Gorman to turn the North China Standard around and make it into a real newspaper. Both Satoh and Gorman were seasoned publicists in the cause of Japan. However, Gorman’s long experience in this role convinced him that the best way to advance Japan’s cause was through polemic and debate. Under Gorman, the North China Standard served Chinese and foreign readerships intelligently and conscientiously, making this title a valuable primary source for scholars of Japan and China.
• Dates (inclusive): 1651-1917
• Dates (bulk): 1850-1917
• Languages used: Russian and French, also German and English, Chinese, Latin, Dutch, Japanese, Arabic, Turkish, Italian, Greek, Persian, Korean, Mongolian and Norwegian
• EAD finding aids are available
• Location of Originals: Rossiĭ skiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ voennoistoricheskiĭ arkhiv (RGVIA), Moscow. Fonds 444-451
The 19th century was a time of rapid Russian expansion in Asia. While its western borders were largely fixed in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, the Romanov autocracy still found many outlets for its imperial energies in the East. Imperial Russia’s Asian march coincided with a revolution in intelligence. Gathering and analyzing such intelligence also became much more comprehensive, almost encyclopedic. It entailed not only the armed forces and the terrain of all potential adversaries, but also political, economic, ethnographic, and much other data.
The collection Archive series, 1651-1917 contains the following parts:
1. A threat from the Far East (China, Japan, Korea)
2. The Eastern question (Turkey, Palestine, Arabia & Syria)
3. The Great Game in Central Asia (Persia (Iran), Afghanistan)
• Dates (bulk): 1850-1917
• Languages used: Russian and French, also German and English, Chinese, Latin, Dutch, Japanese, Arabic, Turkish, Italian, Greek, Persian, Korean, Mongolian and Norwegian
• EAD finding aids are available
• Location of Originals: Rossiĭ skiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ voennoistoricheskiĭ arkhiv (RGVIA), Moscow. Fonds 444-451
The 19th century was a time of rapid Russian expansion in Asia. While its western borders were largely fixed in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, the Romanov autocracy still found many outlets for its imperial energies in the East. Imperial Russia’s Asian march coincided with a revolution in intelligence. Gathering and analyzing such intelligence also became much more comprehensive, almost encyclopedic. It entailed not only the armed forces and the terrain of all potential adversaries, but also political, economic, ethnographic, and much other data.
The collection Archive series, 1651-1917 contains the following parts:
1. A threat from the Far East (China, Japan, Korea)
2. The Eastern question (Turkey, Palestine, Arabia & Syria)
3. The Great Game in Central Asia (Persia (Iran), Afghanistan)
• Publication Dates: 1883-1914
• Languages used: Materials in Russian
• EAD finding aids are available
• Location of Originals: National Library of Russia, Saint Petersburg
One of the most remarkable pre-revolutionary Orientological publications is the little-known, classified “Collection of Geographical, Topographical and Geographical Materials on Asia” (Sbornik geografi cheskikh, topografi cheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii). Issued by the Russian General Staff between 1883 and 1914 in 87 thick volumes and 9 supplements (averaging about 300 pages each), the journal’s purpose was to disseminate to senior tsarist military commanders important scholarship about the continent written by Russian and Western explorers, officers, and academics. The bulk of the Secret Prints consists of first-hand accounts composed by contemporary travelers to lesser-known reaches of Asia. Most were Russian army officers, many of whom had extensive training in geography and related disciplines. Among the more illustrious authors are Nikolai Przhevalskii, Aleksei Kuropatkin, Nikolai Ermolov, Gustav Mannerheim, Lavr Kornilov, and Andrei Snesarev. Other articles range from attaché and diplomatic dispatches to histories of tsarist plans for the invasion of India, the siege of Herat, and European campaigns against China. Together, they comprise a unique and largely untapped source for 19th-century Asia.
• Languages used: Materials in Russian
• EAD finding aids are available
• Location of Originals: National Library of Russia, Saint Petersburg
One of the most remarkable pre-revolutionary Orientological publications is the little-known, classified “Collection of Geographical, Topographical and Geographical Materials on Asia” (Sbornik geografi cheskikh, topografi cheskikh i statisticheskikh materialov po Azii). Issued by the Russian General Staff between 1883 and 1914 in 87 thick volumes and 9 supplements (averaging about 300 pages each), the journal’s purpose was to disseminate to senior tsarist military commanders important scholarship about the continent written by Russian and Western explorers, officers, and academics. The bulk of the Secret Prints consists of first-hand accounts composed by contemporary travelers to lesser-known reaches of Asia. Most were Russian army officers, many of whom had extensive training in geography and related disciplines. Among the more illustrious authors are Nikolai Przhevalskii, Aleksei Kuropatkin, Nikolai Ermolov, Gustav Mannerheim, Lavr Kornilov, and Andrei Snesarev. Other articles range from attaché and diplomatic dispatches to histories of tsarist plans for the invasion of India, the siege of Herat, and European campaigns against China. Together, they comprise a unique and largely untapped source for 19th-century Asia.
The Chinese Students’ Monthly is the first magazine published by Chinese students in the United States from 1906-1931. This publication became the official organ of the enlarged Chinese student organization: The Chinese Students’ Alliance in the U.S. Many important historical figures among Chinese students in the U.S. during the early 20th century, such as Sao-Ke Alfred Sze, Wellington Koo, Hu Shi, Chao Yuanren, Xie Bingxin, contributed their articles to this magazine. The magazine was a most influential publication among the Chinese students in the U.S. at that time. The overseas Chinese has been an emerging area of scholarly research. This magazine includes valuable information for scholars in this particular field. During its publication, the periodical discussed important movements in China during that period of time: education, social, industrial, agricultural, political, and economical, etc. In addition, the period (1906-1931) during which the magazine was published happened to be an important turning period for modern Chinese history.
The Chinese Students' Monthly Online, a full-text searchable online product, makes this primary source available to scholars and interested readers on modern China.
This online product is a result of collaboration between Cornell University Library and Brill. It is, to the best of our knowledge, the most comprehensive collection of the magazine so far. This online collection of The Chinese Students’ Monthly includes 25 volumes from Volume 2 to Volume 26 as we have not found any reference on Volume 1. In addition, we were not able to get a copy of Issue 8 in Volume 12, Issues 3, 4, 5 and 6 in Volume 17, Issues 7 and 8 in Volume 25 and Issues 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8 in Volume 26. If any individual or library has a copy of any of these issues, either on paper or microfilm or any format, please let us know so that we could make this collection more complete.
This online product is a result of collaboration between Cornell University Library and Brill. It is, to the best of our knowledge, the most comprehensive collection of the magazine so far. This online collection of The Chinese Students’ Monthly includes 25 volumes from Volume 2 to Volume 26 as we have not found any reference on Volume 1. In addition, we were not able to get a copy of Issue 8 in Volume 12, Issues 3, 4, 5 and 6 in Volume 17, Issues 7 and 8 in Volume 25 and Issues 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8 in Volume 26. If any individual or library has a copy of any of these issues, either on paper or microfilm or any format, please let us know so that we could make this collection more complete.
Printed on the abandoned presses of the South China Morning Post,
The Hongkong News offers scholars the undiluted voice and mindset of the Japanese administration of Occupied Hongkong. This significant Japanese Occupation holding of
The Hongkong News started publication on 31st December 1941, six days after the Christmas Day surrender of the British Crown Colony, and lasted until August 17, 1945, the day that the Shōwa Emperor’s Rescript ordered Japanese forces to surrender to the Allies.
The Hongkong News traces Japan’s progress from the Colony's Imperial overlord to abject surrender, through large-scale internment and assurances of certain victory. In essence, 'A close, unvarnished, daily view of the recolonizing mind-set of the new masters of East Asia'.
• Japan's perspective on East Asian and world news published from Occupied Hongkong (1941 - 1945)
• The complete Occupied Hongkong holding, December 31 1941 - 17 August 1945
• English-language
• 5000+ pages
• high-quality originals
• full-text-searchable
• not available elsewhere in full-text searchable format – exclusive to Brill
• holdings of the School of African and Asian Studies (SOAS), University of London
A NOTE ON COVERAGE:
This collection begins with volume 30 of The Hongkong News. The first 29 volumes of The Hongkong News in all probability do not exist anymore, or never even existed in the first place. Like other newspapers in other Asian regions, The Hongkong News first functioned as a 'shell publication' installed in readiness for the actual imminent Japanese occupation, in September 1941.
• Japan's perspective on East Asian and world news published from Occupied Hongkong (1941 - 1945)
• The complete Occupied Hongkong holding, December 31 1941 - 17 August 1945
• English-language
• 5000+ pages
• high-quality originals
• full-text-searchable
• not available elsewhere in full-text searchable format – exclusive to Brill
• holdings of the School of African and Asian Studies (SOAS), University of London
A NOTE ON COVERAGE:
This collection begins with volume 30 of The Hongkong News. The first 29 volumes of The Hongkong News in all probability do not exist anymore, or never even existed in the first place. Like other newspapers in other Asian regions, The Hongkong News first functioned as a 'shell publication' installed in readiness for the actual imminent Japanese occupation, in September 1941.
The English-language
North China Herald is the prime printed source in any language for the history of the foreign presence in China from around 1850 to 1940s. During this so-called ‘treaty century’ (1842-1943) the Western Powers established a strong presence in China through their protected enclaves in major cities. It was published weekly in Shanghai, at the heart of China’s encounter with the Euro-American world in a city at the forefront of developments in Chinese politics, culture, education and the economy. As the official journal for British consular notifications, and announcements of the Shanghai Municipal Council, it is the first -- and sometimes only -- point of reference for information and comment on a range of foreign and Chinese activities. Regularly it also features translations of Chinese official notifications and news. The
Herald had correspondents across the whole of China. These supplied a constant stream of news on an extensive range of topics, as well as news and gossip, such as, -- apart from news and gossip reflecting the social, cultural and political life of the foreign settlements--, trade statistics, stock prices, Chinese news, essays on Chinese culture and language, law reports from foreign courts in the settlements, company reports, news on foreign social, cultural and political life, maps, cartoons, photographs, stock prices and law and company reports, advertisements, tables of tea, silk and cotton exports, or long-forgotten facts about missionaries, birth, marriage, and death announcements. Its coverage extends well beyond British communities, and includes other foreign nationals - the French, Danish, Italian, German, Dutch…, etc., etc. Although a thriving treaty port press developed over the century of the foreign presence, no other newspaper existed over such an extended period, and covers it in such incredible depth and variety. The dense unindexed columns of the
Herald offer therefore an indispensable, still largely unexplored treasure-trove for any scholar of modern Chinese history. War, revolution and politics have conspired to destroy library holdings or frustrate access to publications from China’s treaty century. The
fully text-searchable North China Herald Online will be one of the primary resources on a period which continues to shape much of China’s world and worldview.
Translations of the Peking Gazette Online is a comprehensive database of approximately 8,500 pages of English-language renderings of official edicts and memorials from the Qing dynasty that cover China’s long nineteenth century from the Macartney Mission in 1793 to the abdication of the last emperor in 1912. As the mouthpiece of the government, the
Peking Gazette is the authoritative source for information about the Manchu state and its Han subjects as they collectively grappled with imperial decline, re-engaged with the wider world, and began mapping the path to China’s contemporary rise.
The Peking Gazette was a unique publication that allows contemporary readers to explore the contours, boundaries, and geographies of modern Chinese history. Contained within its pages are the voices of Manchu emperors, Han officials, gentry leaders, and peasant spokesmen as they discussed and debated the most important political, social, and cultural movements, trends, and events of their day. As such, the Gazette helps us understand the policies and attitudes of the emperors, the ideas and perspectives of the officials, and the mentality and worldviews of several hundred million Han, Mongol, Manchu, Muslim, and Tibetan subjects of the Great Qing Empire.
The dozens of British scholars, missionaries, and consular officials who created this treasure trove of translated Qing documents did so for variety of different reasons. Robert Morrison (1782-1834), the first Protestant missionary to China, honed his classical Chinese by translating the Gazette in preparation for his rendering of the Bible; Sir John Francis Davis (1795-1890), the future governor of Hong Kong, translated the Gazette for the East India Company in Canton during the height of the opium trade; the missionaries Walter Henry Medhurst and William C. Milne, by contrast, sought to understand the Christian-inspired Taiping Civil War (1851-64) by studying and translating the Gazette; the majority of the translators, however, served on the staff of the British consulate in Beijing and followed the lead of Sir Thomas Francis Wade (1818-1895), who decoded the Gazette as a form of intelligence gathering for the British government and published them for the global reading public. However, nineteenth century British scholars, missionaries, and officials did not translate the entirety of the gazette into English.
Culled from a variety of publications, including the Indo-Chinese Gleaner, the Canton Register, the Chinese Repository, and the North China Herald, this full-text searchable database is the largest, most comprehensive collection of English translations of the Peking Gazette in the world. It contains vital information on a wide range of topics, including the Opium War and other military conflicts between China and the West, the Taiping Rebellion and other peasant insurrections, the Self-Strengthening Movement and other Qing reform efforts, and thousands upon thousands of official documents that contain information about the mundane details of everyday life in nineteenth-century China and thrilling accounts of unprecedented events in late imperial times. There is no better source for readers who want to understand the interplay of complex political themes, social movements, and cultural ideas in late imperial China.
This database has been compiled by Dr. Lane J. Harris, Furman University. Dr. Harris would like to thank the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland for permission to reproduce the translations by John Francis Davis; the British Library for permission to include portions of their copy of The Cycle: A Political and Literary Review; and the Center for Research Libraries for their assistance in acquiring microfilm versions of the North China Herald, the Canton Register, and the China Mail.
As a special feature of this database, it is accompanied by a primary sourcebook, available through separate purchase, entitled The Peking Gazette: A Reader in Nineteenth-Century Chinese History by Dr. Harris. The reader contains scholarly introductions to thematic chapters organized around the most important events and themes in modern Chinese history for use in undergraduate and graduate classes.
The Peking Gazette was a unique publication that allows contemporary readers to explore the contours, boundaries, and geographies of modern Chinese history. Contained within its pages are the voices of Manchu emperors, Han officials, gentry leaders, and peasant spokesmen as they discussed and debated the most important political, social, and cultural movements, trends, and events of their day. As such, the Gazette helps us understand the policies and attitudes of the emperors, the ideas and perspectives of the officials, and the mentality and worldviews of several hundred million Han, Mongol, Manchu, Muslim, and Tibetan subjects of the Great Qing Empire.
The dozens of British scholars, missionaries, and consular officials who created this treasure trove of translated Qing documents did so for variety of different reasons. Robert Morrison (1782-1834), the first Protestant missionary to China, honed his classical Chinese by translating the Gazette in preparation for his rendering of the Bible; Sir John Francis Davis (1795-1890), the future governor of Hong Kong, translated the Gazette for the East India Company in Canton during the height of the opium trade; the missionaries Walter Henry Medhurst and William C. Milne, by contrast, sought to understand the Christian-inspired Taiping Civil War (1851-64) by studying and translating the Gazette; the majority of the translators, however, served on the staff of the British consulate in Beijing and followed the lead of Sir Thomas Francis Wade (1818-1895), who decoded the Gazette as a form of intelligence gathering for the British government and published them for the global reading public. However, nineteenth century British scholars, missionaries, and officials did not translate the entirety of the gazette into English.
Culled from a variety of publications, including the Indo-Chinese Gleaner, the Canton Register, the Chinese Repository, and the North China Herald, this full-text searchable database is the largest, most comprehensive collection of English translations of the Peking Gazette in the world. It contains vital information on a wide range of topics, including the Opium War and other military conflicts between China and the West, the Taiping Rebellion and other peasant insurrections, the Self-Strengthening Movement and other Qing reform efforts, and thousands upon thousands of official documents that contain information about the mundane details of everyday life in nineteenth-century China and thrilling accounts of unprecedented events in late imperial times. There is no better source for readers who want to understand the interplay of complex political themes, social movements, and cultural ideas in late imperial China.
This database has been compiled by Dr. Lane J. Harris, Furman University. Dr. Harris would like to thank the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland for permission to reproduce the translations by John Francis Davis; the British Library for permission to include portions of their copy of The Cycle: A Political and Literary Review; and the Center for Research Libraries for their assistance in acquiring microfilm versions of the North China Herald, the Canton Register, and the China Mail.
As a special feature of this database, it is accompanied by a primary sourcebook, available through separate purchase, entitled The Peking Gazette: A Reader in Nineteenth-Century Chinese History by Dr. Harris. The reader contains scholarly introductions to thematic chapters organized around the most important events and themes in modern Chinese history for use in undergraduate and graduate classes.
The purpose of this unique online collection is to provide students and researchers with the declassified documentary record about the successes and failures of the U.S. intelligence community in the Far East during the Cold War (1945-1991). Particular emphasis is given to America’s principal antagonists in Asia during the Cold War era: the People’s Republic of China, North Korea and North Vietnam. However, countries such as Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia are covered as well.
Number of documents: 4,285
Number of pages: ca. 23,500
Auxiliary aids:
- Introductory essay
- Glossary of acronyms
- Chronology
- Bibliography
- MARC21 catalog records
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
- Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C.
- U.S. Army Center for Military History, Washington, D.C.
- U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Alabama
- Naval Historical Center Operational Archives, Washington, D.C.
- Douglas MacArthur Library, Norfolk, Virginia
- National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew, UK
- National Archives of Australia, Canberra, Australia
- Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas
- Archives of the National Defense University, Washington, D.C.
- Archives of the Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
See also the companion collections: Cold War Intelligence, U.S. Intelligence on the Middle East, 1945-2009, U.S. Intelligence on Europe, 1945-1995, and Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Number of documents: 4,285
Number of pages: ca. 23,500
Auxiliary aids:
- Introductory essay
- Glossary of acronyms
- Chronology
- Bibliography
- MARC21 catalog records
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
- Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C.
- U.S. Army Center for Military History, Washington, D.C.
- U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Alabama
- Naval Historical Center Operational Archives, Washington, D.C.
- Douglas MacArthur Library, Norfolk, Virginia
- National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew, UK
- National Archives of Australia, Canberra, Australia
- Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas
- Archives of the National Defense University, Washington, D.C.
- Archives of the Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
See also the companion collections: Cold War Intelligence, U.S. Intelligence on the Middle East, 1945-2009, U.S. Intelligence on Europe, 1945-1995, and Weapons of Mass Destruction.
• Number of titles: 654 • Languages used: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Russian, Dutch, German and Portuguese • Title list and printed guide are available •
Location of originals: Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London This new online collection comprises a descriptive, annotated bibliography of 654 early Western books on Imperial China up to 1850, all to be found in the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. The collection is based on the book Western Books on China published up to 1850 by John Lust. The material is of unique historical interest, containing a scrutiny of China by Western societies.. The books, in a variety of Western languages, testify to the formidable difficulties encountered by Westerners, who attempted to extend their own familiar historical, linguistic and religious perceptions to the Chinese context.
World War II Era Records of the World Council of Churches
Historical background
The documents in this collection form a subset of the World Council of Churches archives dating from 1932 to 1957. They were assembled hurriedly and in a very provisional form during the “dark days” of the war by an administration just being born and still in the making. Under such chaotic conditions, some elements were inevitably lost and the original order of the records was difficult to reconstruct. Yet a dramatic story is revealed here, the story of the fledgling ecumenical movement’s thought, policy, and activities in the face of the power of Nazi Germany.
The ecumenical movement represents the effort of churches divided for centuries to re-establish contact with each other, to rediscover their common heritage, to explore possibilities for collaboration, to react in situations of crisis, and to find a new place within society by participating in the foundation of a new world community. To achieve these ends, the churches founded many organizations, including the International Missionary Council in 1910, the Life and Work movement in 1925, and the Faith and Order movement in 1927. In 1938, the Life and Work and Faith and Order movements came together to form the World Council of Churches, which was officially inaugurated in Amsterdam in 1948. Today the World Council of Churches is a worldwide fellowship of churches from different traditions: Orthodox (Oriental and Eastern Orthodox), Anglican, Old Catholic, most mainline Protestant churches (Moravian, Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist), the historic peace churches (Mennonite, Quakers, Church of the Brethren), and some evangelical churches (like Baptist and Pentecostal). Although the Roman Catholic Church is not a member, it participates as a member of the Commission on Faith and Order and sends official observers to all major meetings, such as the general assemblies.
During the Second World War, the World Council of Churches in Process of Formation was instrumental in smuggling several hundred Jews across the borders into Switzerland, actively helped by courageous and inventive young French workers affiliated with CIMADE (Comité Inter-Movement Auprès Des Evacués). Reflecting on this era, Dr. W. A. Visser ‘t Hooft, then General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, wrote "… as I look back on these attempts to help the Jews during the war years, I feel far from proud. I know that I should have done a great deal more."
Not all the sources testifying to this period have been preserved, but what remains is gathered in this collection.
Sections
In 2013 the WCC Archives moved in the newly arranged "Espace Archives", located in the west wing of the former Library premises in the backyard of the Ecumenical Centre, Geneva. The WCC Library united its collections at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, near Geneva. The WCC archives are divided into many different sections, reflecting the various bodies that have been active in the ecumenical scene during the 20th century. The records of the International Missionary Council and the General Correspondence Archives of the World Council of Churches’ General Secretariat, previously published on microfiche by BRILL/IDC Publishers, are examples of such sections.
The present collection is the first collection from the WCC that is made available electronically. Originally on microfiche, the collection covers the period from 1932 to 1957. The documents consist of newspapers, press clippings, press releases, telegrams, correspondence, minutes, manuscripts, and personal notes. The boxes are organized by 16 countries, mostly European (Austria, Czechoslovakia, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Yugoslavia), but also the United States of America, Colombia, and Israel, as well as China and Indonesia. Records relating to Germany account alone for thirty boxes.
Scholarly relevance
These archives have been studied by historians of the Bergier Commission, a commission set up to investigate the role of Switzerland during the Second World War, and many individual scholars. The collection includes correspondence and personal letters of such notable individuals as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, George Bell, Hans Schönfeld, Karl Barth, James McDonald, Georges Casalis, Adolf Freudenberg, Martin Niemöller, Otto Dibelius, Gerhart Riegner, Marc Boegner, and Willem Adolf Visser 't Hooft. The archives document not only the issues and events of the War, but also the beginning years of the World Council of Churches.
The material in this collection is of high value for researchers from different disciplines, such as political and historical sciences as well as church history, theology, ethics, and ecumenical studies. Churches from different parts of the world, like China, Israel, or Colombia, might find material here that help to interpret their own history, by original documents from their own offices and individuals as well as by documented views from other churches and ecumenical bodies.
As Dr. Visser 't Hooft wrote: "The war came. And at first it seemed as if it would at least mean that the clock of ecumenical history would be definitely set back. The staff became smaller and smaller. Many plans had to be cancelled. But right in the midst of war the tide turned. What new contacts between the churches lost in frequency, they gained in intensity and depth. The war did not weaken the council. On the contrary."
Pierre Beffa (former Director of the World Council of Churches Library), revised by Fernando Enns, Professor of (Peace-) Theology and Ecumenical Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
See also: World Council of Churches Online: Relations with the Roman Catholic Church
This publication came about with support from the Kenneth Scott Latourette Fund, Yale Divinity School Library.
Historical background
The documents in this collection form a subset of the World Council of Churches archives dating from 1932 to 1957. They were assembled hurriedly and in a very provisional form during the “dark days” of the war by an administration just being born and still in the making. Under such chaotic conditions, some elements were inevitably lost and the original order of the records was difficult to reconstruct. Yet a dramatic story is revealed here, the story of the fledgling ecumenical movement’s thought, policy, and activities in the face of the power of Nazi Germany.
The ecumenical movement represents the effort of churches divided for centuries to re-establish contact with each other, to rediscover their common heritage, to explore possibilities for collaboration, to react in situations of crisis, and to find a new place within society by participating in the foundation of a new world community. To achieve these ends, the churches founded many organizations, including the International Missionary Council in 1910, the Life and Work movement in 1925, and the Faith and Order movement in 1927. In 1938, the Life and Work and Faith and Order movements came together to form the World Council of Churches, which was officially inaugurated in Amsterdam in 1948. Today the World Council of Churches is a worldwide fellowship of churches from different traditions: Orthodox (Oriental and Eastern Orthodox), Anglican, Old Catholic, most mainline Protestant churches (Moravian, Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist), the historic peace churches (Mennonite, Quakers, Church of the Brethren), and some evangelical churches (like Baptist and Pentecostal). Although the Roman Catholic Church is not a member, it participates as a member of the Commission on Faith and Order and sends official observers to all major meetings, such as the general assemblies.
During the Second World War, the World Council of Churches in Process of Formation was instrumental in smuggling several hundred Jews across the borders into Switzerland, actively helped by courageous and inventive young French workers affiliated with CIMADE (Comité Inter-Movement Auprès Des Evacués). Reflecting on this era, Dr. W. A. Visser ‘t Hooft, then General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, wrote "… as I look back on these attempts to help the Jews during the war years, I feel far from proud. I know that I should have done a great deal more."
Not all the sources testifying to this period have been preserved, but what remains is gathered in this collection.
Sections
In 2013 the WCC Archives moved in the newly arranged "Espace Archives", located in the west wing of the former Library premises in the backyard of the Ecumenical Centre, Geneva. The WCC Library united its collections at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, near Geneva. The WCC archives are divided into many different sections, reflecting the various bodies that have been active in the ecumenical scene during the 20th century. The records of the International Missionary Council and the General Correspondence Archives of the World Council of Churches’ General Secretariat, previously published on microfiche by BRILL/IDC Publishers, are examples of such sections.
The present collection is the first collection from the WCC that is made available electronically. Originally on microfiche, the collection covers the period from 1932 to 1957. The documents consist of newspapers, press clippings, press releases, telegrams, correspondence, minutes, manuscripts, and personal notes. The boxes are organized by 16 countries, mostly European (Austria, Czechoslovakia, England, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Yugoslavia), but also the United States of America, Colombia, and Israel, as well as China and Indonesia. Records relating to Germany account alone for thirty boxes.
Scholarly relevance
These archives have been studied by historians of the Bergier Commission, a commission set up to investigate the role of Switzerland during the Second World War, and many individual scholars. The collection includes correspondence and personal letters of such notable individuals as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, George Bell, Hans Schönfeld, Karl Barth, James McDonald, Georges Casalis, Adolf Freudenberg, Martin Niemöller, Otto Dibelius, Gerhart Riegner, Marc Boegner, and Willem Adolf Visser 't Hooft. The archives document not only the issues and events of the War, but also the beginning years of the World Council of Churches.
The material in this collection is of high value for researchers from different disciplines, such as political and historical sciences as well as church history, theology, ethics, and ecumenical studies. Churches from different parts of the world, like China, Israel, or Colombia, might find material here that help to interpret their own history, by original documents from their own offices and individuals as well as by documented views from other churches and ecumenical bodies.
As Dr. Visser 't Hooft wrote: "The war came. And at first it seemed as if it would at least mean that the clock of ecumenical history would be definitely set back. The staff became smaller and smaller. Many plans had to be cancelled. But right in the midst of war the tide turned. What new contacts between the churches lost in frequency, they gained in intensity and depth. The war did not weaken the council. On the contrary."
Pierre Beffa (former Director of the World Council of Churches Library), revised by Fernando Enns, Professor of (Peace-) Theology and Ecumenical Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
See also: World Council of Churches Online: Relations with the Roman Catholic Church
This publication came about with support from the Kenneth Scott Latourette Fund, Yale Divinity School Library.