Asia and Oceania - Primary Sources - History - Library Research Guides at Wellesley College

Wilson Center Digital Archive
Declassified foreign government documents on 20th century international relations & diplomacy. See in particular the Chinese Foreign Policy Database, the Modern Korean History Portal, and the Database on Inter-Korean Relations.
East Asian History Sourcebook
Links to primary texts, image sources, educational websites, and more on East Asian history from antiquity to the present.
Asia Since 1900 Sourcebook
Primary sources from India, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and others.
National Library of Australia Digital Collections
"Trove helps you find and use resources relating to Australia. It’s more than a search engine. Trove brings together content from libraries, museums, archives, repositories and other research and collecting organisations big and small."

Migration to New Worlds This link opens in a new window
Migration to New Worlds: The Modern Era begins with the activities of the New Zealand Company during the 1840s and presents thousands of unique original sources focusing on the growth of colonisation companies during the nineteenth century, the activities of immigration and welfare societies, and the plight of refugees and displaced persons throughout the twentieth century as migrants fled their homelands to escape global conflict.

Vietnam: Freedom Archives
This collection features a variety of sources focusing on the Vietnam anti-war movement and the Vietnamese liberation struggle. Our collection includes voices of a movement that sought to end the war in Viet Nam and support the Vietnamese struggle for self-determination against French and United States imperialism. Includes audio, newspaper, and other print sources.
Cultural Japan
"Discover digital resources on Japanese Culture from all over the world. More than a million items are collected for this platform to inspire novel applications."

China, America and the Pacific This link opens in a new window
Manuscript sources, rare printed texts, visual images, objects and maps connected to the trading and cultural relationships that emerged between China, America and the Pacific region between the 18th and early 20th centuries.

Confidential Print: China, 1919-1980
The six parts of this collection make available all British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan between 1919 and 1980.
China: Trade, Politics & Culture
"With documents encompassing events from the earliest English embassy to the birth and early years of the People’s Republic, this resource collects sources from nine archives to give an incredible insight into the changes in China during this period."
Confidential Print: Japan, 1919-1952
Published in three parts, this collection makes available extensive coverage of British Foreign Office files dealing with Japan between 1919 and 1952.

Japanese Imperialism and the War in the Pacific, 1931-1945
Occupation of Japan, 1946-1952
Japan and Great Power Status, 1919-1930
Meiji Japan
A Westerner's documents, notably from an ethnological expedition as as a professor of zoology in Tokyo.

"The supersedence of Japan’s feudal culture by western modernization is documented in the journal kept by Morse during his 1882 ethnological expedition to the Orient. His copious notes and abundant sketches were used to produce books on Japanese architecture and customs, the most notable being his 1917 publication Japan Day By Day."
Church Missionary Society Periodicals
"Forming a prominent feature of British religious philanthropy from the late eighteenth century onwards, missionary societies served as employer and community to missionaries far from home." Missions went to the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Asia.
Medieval Slavery
Sources on slavery in the Medieval period across the world, browsable by region and century. Includes digitized resources on the site as well as a bibliography of sources found elsewhere.

China: Culture and Society
"Spanning three centuries (c1750-1929), this resource makes available for the first time extremely rare pamphlets from Cornell University Library’s Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia. The resource is full-text searchable, allowing for the collection to be comprehensively explored and studied."
Japanese Historical Text Initiative
"The Japanese Historical Text Initiative (JHTI) is a rapidly expanding database made up of historical texts dating back more than 1200 years. The original version of every paragraph in every text is cross-tagged with its English translation, making it possible for any researcher to see, on the same screen, both the original and English translation of any word or phrase appearing in any JHTI text."

Includes ancient chronicles, gazetteers, religio-civil code, medieval chronicles and tales, and modern texts.
Korean Historical Texts
This is a book series of Korean historical texts in translation available at Clapp and online.

Service Newspapers of World War Two
"This digital resource reveals the story of war as told by the newspapers that brought information, entertainment and camaraderie to the forces at home and overseas. Explore over 200 titles from key nations across the globe that took part in the world-changing conflict."

Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) This link opens in a new window
Broadcasts, news agency transmissions, and government statements from around the globe translated into English, 1941-1996.

Kroch Asia Rare Materials Archive
Images from across Asia with particular strengths in China and Indonesia, 1854-1950.
Center for Geographic Analysis, Harvard
Includes a critical collection of historical Chinese and general Asian geographic information.
Asian Maps Collection
"The Asian Maps Collection brings together a range of graphic representations of East and Southeast Asia, its features, localities and history."
Chinese Cultural Revolution Posters
"Propaganda posters created by various Chinese agencies, 1968-1989."
Colonial Film
"Welcome to Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire. This website holds detailed information on over 6000 films showing images of life in the British colonies. Over 150 films are available for viewing online." Asian and Oceanian films include Burma, Malaysia, Brunei, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa, Australia, and New Zealand.
Historical Photographs of China
"This project locates, digitalizes, archives, and disseminates online photographs from the substantial holdings of images of modern China."
Hoover Institution Political Poster Collection
Over 30,000 political and cultural posters primarily from the mid-20th century, including hundreds of Japanese and Chinese posters, and more.

Primary Sources - History: Asia and Oceania