Modern History Collections

Collections within the library each have a letter, followed by a numerical sequence (decimal numbers are used, arranged as if after a decimal point, so for example ER.53 comes after ER.504). Each national collection has a sequence of local and regional material following the general sequence. The main areas with modern collections and their corresponding classmarks are as follows:

• Austria (since 1792): EA.293 and EA.294.
• Britain and England: B.0 Bibliographies/guides, B.2 Biography, B.78 - B.84 England 1760 - Present Day, B.999 Parliamentary Debates 1803 - Present, BC English local history.
• France (since 1789): EF.6 - EF.8.
• General history: E.1 Historiography and Methodology, E.2 Reference works, E.74 - E.78 Sources and secondary works from 1789 - Present Day.
• Germany (since 1789): EG.5 - EG.8.
• Ireland (since 1801): BI.6 and BI.7
• International Relation: IR
• Italy (since 1796): EI.5 and EI.6.
• Jewish history: EY.094 Modern Historiography, EY.095 Holocaust, and EY.4 (since 1789).
• Low Countries (since 1789): EN.54 - 46 
• Mediterranean world: EM 
• Military: W.45 Revolutionary & Napoleonic Wars, W.46 1812 – 1914, W.47 1914–1918, W.48 1918 – 1939, W.49 World War II and onwards.
• Portugal (since 1811): EP.36 and EP.38.
• Religious history: ER.107 The Modern Churches since c. 1789.
• Scandinavia: ED arranged by country 
• Scotland: BS.6 
• Spain (since 1808): ES.6 - 7. 
• Switzerland (since 1798): EH.262 and EH.263. 
• Wales (since c.1700): BW.4
• United States: UF.4 US History 1775-1861, UF.5 The American Civil War, UF.6 US History 1865-1901, UF.7 US History since 1901.

Contact us if you would like help on finding or using our collections, or if you have any comments or suggestions about the content of this guide. We are happy to help.

You can also join the library and book a help session.

Below is a selection of bibliographies and archive guides drawn from across our collections, highlighting period-wide materials, but also those specific to individual nations and subject specific areas of study.

General 

• A bibliography of modern history 
• Bibliography of modern history 
• Guide de l'étudiant en histoire moderne et contemporaine
• Bibliographie zum Studium der neueren Geschichte

National 

• The modern history of Ethiopia and the horn of Africa: a select and annotated bibliography 
• Modern Italian history: an annotated bibliography 
• Modern historians on British history, 1485-1945: a critical bibliography, 1945-1969 
• Short bibliography of modern European history (1789-1935) 
• A selected bibliography on modern French history, 1600 to the present 
• Anglo-Jewish bibliography, 1971-1990
• Annotated bibliography on land tenure in the British and British Protected Territories in South East Asia and the Pacific
• Bibliography and reference list of the history and literature relating to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States 1787-8
• The National Monuments Record : a guide to the archive
• British foreign policy, 1918-1945 : a guide to research and research materials
• Summary guide to the Modern Records Centre
• Decolonizing the Caribbean record : an archives reader

Economic and Social

• American economic history since 1860
• Economic arithmetic: a guide to the statistical sources of English commerce, industry and finance, 1700-1850
• Annotated bibliography of recent publications on Africa, south of the Sahara : with special reference to administrative, political, economic, and sociological problems
• A bibliography of female economic thought to 1940 
• The industrial revolution 1750-1850 : a select bibliography
• Bibliografia dell'economia e della società lombarda, 1900-1945
• Dokumente zur Geschichte des deutschen Zionismus 1933-1941

Military

• Imperial War Museum film catalogue 
• Air war bibliography, 1939-1945 : English-language sources
• American naval bibliography
• Annotated bibliography on disarmament and military questions
• Political leaders and military figures of the Second World War : a bibliography
• Bibliography of state participation in the civil war 1861-1866
• Catalogue of the War Office Library
• Guide to the collection of Hungarian political and military records, 1909-45

The library has substantial collections of encyclopedias, biographical dictionaries and other reference works both in print and online. 

Encyclopedias 

• Harper encyclopedia of the modern world : a concise reference history from 1760 to the present
• Modern Germany : an encyclopedia of history, people, and culture, 1871-1990
• The Penguin encyclopedia of modern warfare : 1850 to the present day 
• Encyclopedia of World War II : a political, social, and military history
• Encyclopedia of the interwar years : from 1919 to 1939
• Heads of states and governments : a worldwide encyclopedia of 2,300 leaders, 1945 through 1992

Dictionaries

• Historical dictionary of European imperialism
• A dictionary of twentieth century history : 1914-1990
• The Penguin dictionary of twentieth-century history
• A Dictionary of ninetenth-century world history
• The biographical dictionary of the Australian Senate
• Biographical dictionary of British generals of the Second World War
• Biographical dictionary of British Quakers in commerce and industry 1775-1920
• A biographical dictionary of women's movements and feminisms : Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th centuries
• Biographical dictionary of American science : the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries

Maps

• Alltag in Ostpreussen 1940-1945 : die geheimen Lageberichte der Königsberger Justiz 1940-1945
• The Times atlas of the Second World War
• General map showing European frontiers, 1914
• A prospect of the city of London from the south east in the year 1945 : shewing its architecture, the destruction caused by the King's enemies during the previous five years, and some of the means whereby the safety of the citizens was maintained ; 1939-1945
• Historical atlas of northeast Asia 1590-2010 : Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, Eastern Siberia
• Collins atlas of 20th century world history
• A historical atlas of India
• The Nystrom atlas of United States History
• L'Afrique et l'Europe : atlas du XXe siècle
• A literary & historical atlas of Africa and Australasia
• Stieler's Atlas of modern geography
• Historical atlas of modern Europe from the decline of the Roman empire : comprising also maps of parts of Asia, Africa, and the New world connected with European history
• A map history of the modern world : 1890 to the present day
• A map history of modern China 
• Davies new map of London : showing the railway stations and all modern improvements

We have quite a large collection of titles that consider developments in historiography since c. 1800. While most of the titles listed here can be found in the general historiography collection, many titles about the Annales School can be found in our French Collection.

• Modern historiography : an introduction
• A global history of modern historiography
• Across cultural borders : historiography in global perspective
• Global practice in world history : advances worldwide
• The houses of history : a critical reader in twentieth-century history and theory
• Historians and nationalism : East-Central Europe in the nineteenth century
• Writing the nation : a global perspective
• The historical imagination in nineteenth-century Britain and the Low Countries
• Volksgeschichten im Europa der Zwischenkriegszeit
• Maurice Agulhon, aux carrefours de l'histoire vagabonde
• Yves Person, un historien de l'Afrique engagé dans son temps : actes du colloque international tenu à Paris les 20-21 juin 2013
• Contemporary history : Practice and method

Marxist Historiography and Historians

• The education of desire : Marxists and the writing of history
• Marxism and historical practice
• Marxism and history
• Marxism and history : a critical introduction
• Marxist history-writing for the twenty-first century
• La tradición marxista y la encrucijada postmoderna : notas para una historia social y cultural en el siglo XXI
• The British Marxist historians : an introductory analysis
• E.P. Thompson and English radicalism
• Eric Hobsbawm : a life in history
• Talking history (interviews with Romila Thapar)

The Annales School

• The Annales school : an intellectual history
• The birth of Annales history : the letters of Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch to Henri Pirenne, 1921-1935
• L'école des Annales : une histoire intellectuelle
• The French historical revolution : the Annales school, 1929-2014
• Ein Historiker im 20. Jahrhundert : Marc Bloch
• Lucien Febvre, lecteur et critique
• Fernand Braudel, ambition et inquiétude d'un historien
• Histoire, écologie et anthropologie : trois générations face à l'oeuvre d'Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
• Opponents of the Annales School

Postmodernism

• Postmodernism and history
• Postmodernism for historians
• Deconstructing history
• Meaning, truth, and reference in historical representation
• On the future of history : the postmodernist challenge and its aftermath
• Possible worlds of fiction and history : the postmodern stage
• Re-thinking history
• The content of the form : narrative discourse and historical representation

The library microform collection includes materials from Windsor Castle, the Bodleian Library, Longleat House, Harvard, Yale and the Huntington Library as well as substantial parts of Complete State Papers Domestic.

Microforms are included on the catalogue(IHR classmarks beginning X). Microforms for Historians helps to locate indexes and finding aids.

• Politics in the age of revolution, 1715-1848. Pt 1, The papers of Edmund Burke, 1729-1797, from Sheffield Archives
• Papers of Sir James Graham, Home Secretary, statesman and reformer, from Cumbria Record Office.
• Cabinet reports by Prime Ministers to the Crown 1837-1867; [&] 1868-1916
• Changes of government, cabinet reconstructions and political crises, 1837-1901
• Correspondence of Sir Robert Peel, 1841-46. (Prime Minister's Correspondence with the Crown)
• The Melbourne papers
• Papers of Queen Victoria on foreign affairs, parts 1-6

The library holds University of London history theses from the early 20th century to the early 21st which can be found on our online catalogue. Many titles are also increasingly available online via EThos. Below are a small selection of titles available in our collection.

• Kornell, Karel, Some aspects of the industrial revolution in the Czech lands of the Austrian empire in the 19th century. 
• Dixon, Simon Mark, Church, state and society in late Imperial Russia: the Diocese of St. Petersburg, 1880-1914. 
• Kendle, J E, The colonial and imperial conferences 1887-1911: a study in imperial organisation and politics 
• Anene, Joseph Christopher Okuredi, The establishment and consolidation of imperial government in Southern Nigeria 1891-1904 
• De Kiewiet, Marie Jeanne, History of the Imperial British East Africa Company, 1876-1895 
• Dimond, Jennifer Mary, The peasantry in the Russian revolution of 1905-1906: with special reference to the all-Russian peasant union 
• Pedaliu, Efstathia-Effie, Britain, Italy and the early Cold War: aspects of British foreign policy towards Italy, 1946-1949 
• Cribb, R. B, Jakarta in the Indonesian Revolution, 1945-1949 
• Pinchbeck, Ivy, The work of women in agriculture in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the influence of the agrarian revolution thereon 

The most recent years of most of our journals are on open shelves in the Current Periodicals room. Earlier issues can be ordered from the stack. Many are also available online within the building via the links on the catalogue. Bibliography of British and Irish Historyand JSTOR are examples of the online databases that can be used to locate journal articles.

• Modern intellectual history 
• Journal of modern African studies. 
• Cold war history. 
• Modern age: a quarterly review. 
• Nineteenth-century contexts. 
• Journal of postcolonial writing. 
• Journal of modern history. 
• Journal of modern Italian studies. 
• Victorian studies. 
• Postcolonial studies: culture, politics, economy. 
• Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth history. 
• Soviet studies: a quarterly review of the social and economic institutions of the USSR. 

You can access many of the digital resources listed here when in the building on IHR library computers or via the UoL Libraries wifi. Offsite access is mostly limited to SAS students and staff due to licence restrictions. Electronic resources in CD format are on the catalogue and can be requested.

However a growing number of resources are freely available to everyone. In the lists below any resource that is freely available will be marked as "Freely Available" and any that can only be accessed from within the library by the majority of our readers will be marked "Onsite only".

Also listed in the next section below are a number of portals and finding aids which list freely available online sources, ebooks and journals.

Below is a selection of resources both freely available and accessible from within the IHR Library. For full lists check the Free Resources portal and our list of online resources.

Below is a selection of resources both freely available and accessible from within the IHR Library. For full lists check the Free Resources portal and our list of online resources.

Below is a selection of resources both freely available and accessible from within the IHR Library. For full lists check the Free Resources portal and our list of online resources.

The colonial collection covers general exploration and European colonisation and includes a significant number of travel journals. The collection of sources for the colonial history of North America is one of the best in the UK.

• The Ashgate research companion to modern imperial histories 
• Arguing about empire: imperial rhetoric in Britain and France, 1882-1956 
• The Longman companion to the formation of the European empires, 1488-1920 
• De la colonisation chez les peuples modernes 
• Atlas des empires maritimes 
• Atlas du millénaire: la mort des empires 1900-2015 

Below is a geographic overview of holdings related to colonial history in Africa during the modern period. The IHR has significant holdings on the history of Africa, in particular works relating to the colonies held by European states.

For more detail on the history of enslavement in Africa, please consult the collection guide for the History of Slavery. 

British Territories: South Africa 

• The South African Constitution 
• Selections from the Smuts papers 
• Letters of the American missionaries, 1835-1838 
• Selections from the correspondence of J. X. Merriman 
• From protest to challenge: a documentary history of African politics in South Africa, 1882-1964 

British Territories: Central Africa 

• The beginnings of Nyasaland and North-eastern Rhodesia, 1859-95 
• The Matabele journals of Robert Moffat, 1829-1860 
• The lake regions of Central Africa : a picture of exploration 
• David Livingstone's Shire journal 1861-1864 
• The handbook of Nyasaland : comprising historical, statistical and general information concerning the Nyasaland Protectorate 
• The Nyasaland elections of 1961 
• Voices from the Chilembwe rising : witness testimonies made to the Nyasaland Rising Commission of Inquiry, 1915 
• Trade and travel in early Barotseland : the diaries of George Westbeech, 1885-1888 
• Official year book of the colony of Southern Rhodesia. 
• Gubulawayo and beyond : letters and journals of the early Jesuit missionaries to Zambesia (1879-1887) 

British Territories: East Africa 

• The East African coast : select documents from the first to the earlier nineteenth century 
• East Africa through contemporary records. 
• Travels, researches, and missionary labours during an eighteen years' residence in Eastern Africa 
• Darfur and the British : a sourcebook 
• The Europeans in the Sudan, 1834-1878 : some manuscripts, mostly unpublished 
• Mau mau author in detention (Translation of: Mwandĩki wa Mau Mau ithaamĩrio-inĩ) 
• Kenya's freedom struggle : the Dedan Kimathi papers 
• Law reports / East Africa Protectorate 
• Guidance (Uwongozi) by Sheikh al-Amin Mazrui : selections from the first Swahili Islamic newspaper 
• The handbook of Uganda 
• Makerere College register, 1922-53 

British Territories: West Africa 

• British policy towards West Africa : select documents 
• The Berlin West African conference, 1884-1885 
• A narrative of the expedition sent by Her Majesty's Government to the River Niger in 1841 under the command of Captain H. D. Trotter 
• Journal of an African cruiser: comprising sketches of the Canaries 
• Records relating to the Gold Coast settlements from 1750 to 1874 
• The life and letters of Philip Quaque, the first African Anglican missionary 
• Annual reports of Bende Division, South Eastern Nigeria, 1905-1912 
• The principles of native administration in Nigeria : selected documents, 1900-1947 

Belgian Territories 

• Rapports du Père Planque, de Mgr. Lavigerie et de Mgr. Comboni sur l'Association internationale africaine. 
• La révolte des Batetela en 1895 : textes in édits 
• L'administration et le sacré : discours religieux et parcours politiques en Afrique centrale (1921-1957) 
• Reconnaissance menée aux sources du Yé-Yi (avril-mai 1903) : journal de route de Charles Lemaire 
• La Grande chronique de l'Ubangi 
• Deuxième Congrès colonial belge, Bruxelles, 6 et 7 février 1926 : Comptes rendus et rapports 
• Mémoires, politiques et diplomatiques : comment fut fondé le Congo belge 
• The colonial occupation of Katanga : the personal correspondence of Clément Brasseur, 1893-1897 
• Le Congo belge pendant la Première Guerre mondiale : les rapports du ministre des Colonies Jules Renkin au roi Albert Ier, 1914-1918 

French Territories 

• Les traités de protectorat conclus par la France en Afrique, 1870-1895 
• Brazza, commissaire général : le Congo français, 1886-1897 
• Le Père Duparquet, missionnaire ou explorateur : lettres et écrits 
• L'Algerie : chroniques d'une guerre oubliee : memoire d'une generation sacrifiee : Correspondence algeriennes de juillet a decembre 1962 
• Correspondance du Maréchal Clauzel : gouverneur général des possessions françaises dans le nord de l'Afrique, 1835-1837 
• L'expedition d'Alger (1830) : lettres d'un témoin 
• Documents d'histoire économique et sociale marocaine au XIX siècle. 
• Annuaire du gouvernement générale de l'Afrique occidentale française : 1915-1916. 
• Tombouctou : la vie d'un jeune officier de l'artillerie coloniale, 1926-1928 
• La fondation de Dakar, 1845-1857-1869 : documents 
• L'expédition de Madagascar en 1895 : opérations prélimenaires 
• Lettres d'une coloniale : Comores 1934-1968 

German Territories 

• Memoirs of an Arabian princess from Zanzibar 
• 'Nicht als Abentheuer bin ich heirergekommen...' : 100Jahre Entwicklungs - 'Hilfe': Tagebücher und Briefe aus Deutsch-Ostrafrika, 1896-1902 
• Tagebücher, 1837-1860 = Diaries : a missionary in Nama- and Damaraland 
• An African family archive : the Lawsons of little Popo/Aneho (Togo) 1841-1938 

Italian Territories 

• Posti al sole : diari e memorie di vita e di lavoro dalle colonie d'Africa 
• Lettere tigrine : documenti etiopici del Fondo Ellero 
• Francesco Crispi: la prima guerra d'Africa : Documenti e memorie dell'archivio Crispi ordinati 
• Réveiller l'archive d'une guerre coloniale : photographies et écrits de Gaston Chérau, correspondant de guerre lors du conflit italo-turc pour la Libye (1911-1912) 
• Le fonti inedite della storia della Tripolitania 
• Viaggio nella Somalia italiana : la visita del Principe Umberto di Savoia nelle fotografie ritrovate di Carlo Pedrini 

Portuguese Territories 

• Treatise on the rivers of Cuama : (Tratado dos rios de Cuama) 
• Viagens na Cimbebásia : versão e prefácio de Gastão de Sousa Dias 
• Diário de um sargento : memórias de Angola (1896-1898) 
• Angola : apontamentos sôbre a ocupącão e início do estabelecimento dos portugueses no Congo, Angola e Benguela; extraídos de documentos históricos 
• Estatuto político-administrativo da província de Angola 
• De Lamego ao Lubango : memórias dos últimos dias da guerra colonial 
• The Wiriyamu massacre : an oral history, 1960-1974 
• A journey from Tete to Zumbo (Uma viagem de Tete ao Zumbo) 
• Censo da população não indigena em 2 de Maio de 1935 (Mozambique) 
• Delfim José de Oliveira : diário da viagem da colónia militar de Lisboa a Tete, 1859-1860 

Independent Territories 

• Al-Jabartī's chronicle of the first seven months of the French occupation of Egypt : Muḥarram-Rajab 1213, 15 June-December 1798 ; Tārīkh muddat al-Faransīs bi-Miṣr 
• The Nile projects 
• The Suez Canal : a selection of documents relating to the international status of the Suez Canal and the position of the Suez Canal Company, November 30, 1854-July 26, 1956. 
• The government of Ethiopia (Including The Constitution of 1931) 
• Uebi Scebeli : diario di tenda e cammino della spedizione del Duca degli Abruzzi in Etiopia, 1928-1929 
• Selected letters of Edward Wilmot Blyden 
• Slaves no more : letters from Liberia, 1833-1869 

Below is a geographic overview of the aspects of our Asian collection within the larger Colonial collection. The collection is strongest for material relating to the early history of the British Empire in India. There is related material in other collections, for example on emigration of people from Asia to other parts of the world.

The adjacent School of Oriental and African Studies(Opens in new window) (SOAS) library holds material on Asian history more generally.

Middle East 

• Americans and the Holy Land through British eyes, 1820-1917 : a documentary history 
• Tidings from Zion : Helen Bentwich's letters from Jerusalem, 1919-1931 
• Palestine posts : an eyewitness account of the birth of Israel : based on the letters of Mordecai S. Chertoff 
• The end of the British mandate for Palestine, 1948 : the diary of Sir Henry Gurney 
• Palestine papers : 1917-1922 : seeds of conflict 
• An oral history of the Palestinian Nakba 
• A vision of Yemen : the travels of a European Orientalist and his native guide : a translation of Hayyim Habshush's travelogue 
• The Iraq directory : a general and commercial directory of Iraq, with a supplement for the neighbouring countries 
• The memoirs of Keikhosrow Shahrokh 
• Sir Anthony Sherley and his Persian adventure : including some contemporary narratives relating thereto 
• On the banks of the Tigris-- : memoirs of an Armenian boy exiled to the Mesopotamian Desert 

India 

• India in the years ... : a statement prepared for presentation to Parliament. 
• Vicereine : the Indian journal of Mary Minto 
• The evolution of India and Pakistan, 1858 to 1947 : select documents 
• Narrating South Asian partition : oral history, literature, cinema 
• Report of the Indian statutory commission. 
• The Code of Civil Procedure 1882 
• Selections from educational records of the government of India. 
• Memoirs of a Bengal civilian 
• "By grace of the Lord of the Realm" : the medal roll for the Delhi Durbar 1903 

China 

• Chinese sources for the Taiping Rebellion, 1850-1864 
• Journal d'un soldat français en Chine, 1900-1901 
• Death throes of a dynasty : letters and diaries of Charles and Bessie Ewing, missionaries to China 
• China directory for 1863 
• Memoirs of the viceroy Li Hung Chang 
• The undaunted women of Nanking : the wartime diaries of Minnie Vautrin and Tsen Shui-Fang 
• The Manchoukuo year book, 1934 

Taiwan, Tibet, Mongolia and Korea 

• Taiwan di yi ling shi guan : yang ren, Dagou, Yingguo ling shi guan = The story of the British Consulate at Takow, Formosa 
• Korea and her neighbours : a narrative of travel, with an account of the recent vicissitudes and present position of the country 
• Lhasa and its mysteries : with a record of the expedition of 1903-1904 
• Naval surgeon in Yi Korea : the journal of George W. Woods 

Japan 

• Narrative of my captivity in Japan during the years 1811, 1812 and 1813 ; with observations on the country and the people 
• History of Japan compiled from records of the English East India Company at the instance of the Court of Directors 
• A pioneer in Yokohama : a Dutchman's adventures in the new treaty port : from Ontmoetingen ter zee en te land 
• The opening of Japan : a diary of discovery in the Far East, 1853-1856 

French Indochina 

• Le royaume du Cambodge 
• La relation sur le Tonkin et la Cochinchine / de M. De la Bissachère, missionnaire français (1807) 
• La correspondance générale de la Cochinchine (1785-1791) 
• Annuaire statistique de l'Indochine 
• A la conquête des coeurs, le pays des millions d'éléphants et du parasol blanc, les "Pavillons noirs," Déo-van-Tri 

British Ruled South-East Asia 

• The journals of J. W. W. Birch, first British resident to Perak, 1874-1875 
• Handbook to British Malaya 
• The Malayan civil list, 1926 
• Memoir of the life and public services of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles 
• The Straits Settlements civil service list (as on April 30th, 1920) : showing the civil establishments, names and designations of the civil servants of government 
• An anecdotal history of old times in Singapore, from the foundation of the settlement under the honourable the East India company 
• The British in West Sumatra (1685-1825) : a selection of documents, mainly from the East India Company records preserved in the India Office Library, Commonwealth Relations Office, London 
• The British in Java, 1811-1816 : a Javanese account 
• Report on Brunei in 1904 

The Philippines 

• The Philippine Insurrection against the United States : a compilation of documents with notes and introduction 
• Gregorio Aglípay y los orígenes de la Iglesia Filipina Independiente (1898-1917) 
• Census of the Philippine Islands : taken under the direction of the Philippine Commission in the year 1903 

Australia 

• An account of the English colony in New South Wales 
• An historical journal of events at Sydney and at sea, 1787-1792 
• Some letters of Rev. Richard Johnson, B.A. : first chaplain of New South Wales 
• Journal d'un patriote exilé en Australie, 1839-1845 
• The City of Sydney directory for MDCCCXLIV-V : containing names, places of business, & residences of the principal inhabitants 
• Voting for the Queensland legislative assembly, 1890-1964 
• Proposal to his majesty's government for founding a colony on the southern coast of Australia 
• Clyde Company Papers 
• Friendly mission : the Tasmanian journals and papers, 1829-1834 
• The correspondence of John Cotton : Victorian pioneer, 1842-1849 
• Census of Victoria, 1881 
• Records of the Port Phillip expedition 

New Zealand 

• The journal of Henry Sewell, 1853-7 
• Constitution and government of New Zealand, 1896 
• Charles Brasch : journals, 1938-1945 
• New Zealand foreign policy: statements and documents 1943-1957 

Pacific Islands 

• Documents and correspondence on New Guinea's boundaries 
• Review of the Australian administration in Papua from 1907 to 1920 
• German New Guinea : the draft annual report for 1913-14 
• The diaries and correspondence of David Cargill, 1832-1843 
• Colony of Fiji : Civil list and record of officers, etc. 1927, 1928 
• Zehn Jahre auf den Inseln der Südsee 1887-1897 : aus dem Tagebuch der Paula David 
• Regards pacifiques : campagne de Polynésie (1913-1915) : lettres inédites du cdt Destremau, défenseur de Tahiti, à son épouse 
• The journals of Addison Pratt : being a narrative of Yankee whaling in the eighteen twenties, a Mormon mission to the Society Islands, and of early California and Utah in the eighteen forties and fifties 
• Reports concerning the Mariana Islands : the memorias of 1844-1852 

General

• Officiële bescheiden betreffende de Nederlands-Indonesische betrekkingen 1945-1950
• Voices of decolonization : a brief history with documents
• The transfer of power in Africa : decolonization, 1940-1960
• Pan-African Congress
• The Longman companion to European decolonisation in the twentieth century

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)

• The Haitian revolution : a documentary history
• Catalogue of the unpublished papers of Generals Leclerc and Rochambeau during the war of independence in Haiti, 1802-3
• A calendar of Rochambeau papers at the University of Florida Libraries
• African Americans and the Haitian revolution : selected essays and historical documents
• Facing racial revolution : eyewitness accounts of the Haitian Insurrection
• Mémoires du général Toussaint Louverture
• Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire d'Haïti
• Journal des opérations militaires de l'armée française à Saint-Domingue : 1802-1803
• The Haitian journal of Lieutenant Howard, York Hussars, 1796-1798

Latin American Wars of Independence (1806-1830)

• El Libertador : writings of Simón Bolívar
• America y el Libertador
• Fuentes documentales para la historia de la independencia de América
• La emancipación hispanoamericana en los informes episcopales a Pio VII : copias y extractos del Archivo vaticano
• Documentos en honor del gran mariscal de Ayacucho
• Diplomatic correspondence of the United States concerning the independence of the Latin-American nations
• Crónicas de la Independencia
• Britain and the independence of Latin America, 1812-1830 : select documents from the Foreign office archives
• Archivo del General Miranda

Indian Independence Movement (1857-1947)

• The diary of an Indian cavalry officer, 1843-63 : before, during, and after the Mutiny
• The Graham Indian Mutiny papers
• A history of the Indian mutiny : reviewed and illustrated from original documents 
• The diary of a medical officer during the great Indian mutiny of 1857
• 'The world of the rebels of 1857' : proclamations, tracts and documents, 1857-1859
• Report of the commissioners appointed by the Punjab Sub-Committee of the Indian National Congress (1920)
• Speeches and documents on the Indian Constitution, 1921-47 
• The transfer of power 1942-7 
• Jawaharlal Nehru, An autobiography 
• The Bhagat Singh reader
• Conservative politics in national and imperial crisis : letters from Britain to the Viceroy of India 1926-31
• Mahatma Gandhi, An autobiography : or the story of my experiments with truth
• Gandhi and civil disobedience : documents in the India Office records, 1922-1946

Mau Mau Uprising (1952-1960)

• Mau Mau, the revolutionary, anti-imperialist force from Kenya, 1948-63
• Kenya's freedom struggle : the Dedan Kimathi papers
• Gakaara wa Wanjaũ, Mau mau author in detention
• How Kenya is governed
• The Kenya papers of General Sir George Erskine 1953-1955

Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962)

• Women fight, women write : texts on the Algerian War
• To be a moudjahida in independent Algeria : itineraries and memories of the women veterans of the Algerian war
• Hoarding memory : covering the wounds of the Algerian War
• L'Algerie : chroniques d'une guerre oubliee : memoire d'une generation sacrifiee : Correspondence algeriennes de juillet a decembre 1962
• La Guerre d'Algérie par les documents. Tome premier, L'avertissement 1943-1946
• Je vous écris d Algérie : lettres de deux appelés (1957-1958)
• Le procès du général Raoul Salan : sténographie complète des audiences : réquisitoire, plaidoiries, verdict : note liminaire des avocats.

Global Abolitionist Movements

• British and American abolitionists : an episode in transatlantic understanding
• The Black abolitionist papers, Five Volumes
• The life and writings of Frederick Douglass
• Northern labor and antislavery : a documentary history
• William Lloyd Garrison and the fight against slavery : selections from The Liberator
• Guide des sources de la traite négrière, de l'esclavage et de leurs abolitions

• The American Revolution: writings from the pamphlet debate 
• The briefs of the American Revolution: constitutional arguments between Thomas Hutchinson, Governor of Massachusetts Bay, and James Bowdoin for the Council and John Adams for the House of Representatives 
• Documents of the American Revolution, 1770-1783  
• Diary of the American Revolution : from newspapers and original documents 
• Campaigns of the American Revolution: an atlas of manuscript maps 
• Aids and secretaries to Gen. George Washington, commander in chief of the Continental army 
• British pamphlets on the American Revolution, 1763-1785 
• Correspondence of Charles, first Marquis Cornwallis 
• Correspondence of General Washington and Comte de Grasse, 1781, August 17-November 4 
• The diaries of George Washington 
• The Heath papers. 
• In the words of women : the Revolutionary War and the birth of the nation, 1765-1799 
• The letters of Lafayette to Washington, 1777-1799 
• The Olive branch petition of the American Congress to George III, 1775, and letters of the American envoys, August-September 1775 
• Political sermons of the American founding era, 1730-1805 
• Proceedings and debates of the British Parliaments respecting North America, 1754-1783 
• The treaties of 1778, and allied documents 
• The writings of Christopher Gadsden, 1746-1805 

Within the French collections, there is a classmark dedicated to volumes covering the period of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars (EF.6) which includes a variety of primary source materials pertaining to politics, governance, law, religion, culture and administration across France during the time. 

General Period  

• Le mouvement religieux à Paris pendant la Révolution (1789-1801) 
• Chouan et espion du roi
• A collection of state papers relative to the war against France : now carrying on by Great Britain and several other European powers
• Le comte de Mercy-Argenteau et Blumendorf : dépêches inédites tirées des Archives impériales de Vienne, 5 janvier-23 septembre 1792
• The intellectual background of the French Revolution : original texts of "les Idéologues," 1789-1825, with an interpretive commentary
• Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du jacobinisme : revus et corrigés par l'auteur en 1818
• Sophie de Grouchy's letters on sympathy
• Women in revolutionary Paris, 1789-1795 : selected documents 

1789-91 

• Letters written in France in the summer 1790 to a friend in England: containing various anecdotes relative to the French Revolution 
• Desmoulins, Camille, Révolutions de France et de Brabant 
• Œuvres de Robespierre 
• 18 fructidor : Documents pour la plupart inédits recueillis et pub. pour la Société d'histoire contemporaine 
• Cahiers de doléances de la colonie de Saint-Dominigue pour les États généraux de 1789 
• Marie-Antoinette et Barnave : correspondance secrète (juillet 1791-janvier 1792) 

1792-94 

• The Trial at large of Louis XVI, late King of France 
• Le comte de Mercy-Argenteau et Blumendorf : dépêches inédites tirées des Archives impériales de Vienne, 5 janvier-23 septembre 1792 
• Actes de la Commune de Paris pendant la Révolution (du 9 octobre 1790 au 10 août 1792). 
• Les actes du gouvernement révolutionnaire (23 août 1793-27 juillet 1794) : recueil de documents 
• Les pamphlets de Marat 

1795-1799 

• Negotiations with France 1796-9 
• Journal de Perlet 
• Procès-verbal des séances du Conseil des Cinq-Cents : Brumaire, an 4 - Brumaire, an 8. [Oct. 1795 - Oct. 1799] 

The IHR boasts a large collection of civil war records largely pertaining to the military history of the period between 1861 and 1865. The core of the IHR’s Civil War history collection is the Papers of the War of Rebellion series (the official account of the war published by the federal government following the conflict). Other items include the personal papers of Jefferson Davis (president of the Confederacy), Ulysses S. Grant, and other leading figures during the war.

General Sources and Research Aids

• American Civil War Source Book
• The War of the Rebellion : a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies#
• Supplemental report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War
• A calendar of Confederate papers, with a bibliography of some Confederate publications
• Union pamphlets of the Civil War, 1861-1865

Diaries, Letters and Other Writings

• Abraham Lincoln : His speeches and writings
• The Civil War diary of Gideon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy
• A young Virginia boatman navigates the Civil War : the journals of George Randolph Wood
• A woman doctor's Civil War : Esther Hill Hawks' diary
• Private and official correspondence of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler
• The Sherman letters : correspondence between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891
• The Lincoln mailbag : letters to the president, 1861-1865
• The Civil War papers of Lt. Colonel Newton T. Colby, New York Infantry
• Faith, valor, and devotion : the Civil War letters of William Porcher DuBose
• Reminiscences of Confederate service, 1861-1865 
• Last order of the lost cause : the Civil War memoirs of a Jewish family from the "Old South" 
• Wanted, correspondence : women's letters to a Union soldier

Foreign Response

• A Mexican view of America in the 1860s : a foreign diplomat describes the Civil War and reconstruction
• The American Civil War through British Eyes : Dispatches from British diplomats
• Voyage en Amérique : 1861-1862 : un prince français dans la guerre de sécession
• A Prussian observes the American Civil War : the military studies of Justus Scheibert
• Wales and the American Civil War
• Brothers 'til death : the Civil War letters of William, Thomas, and Maggie Jones, 1861-1865 : Irish soldiers in the 48th New York volunteer regiment

The library holds some important texts from the period of the Russian Revolution, including several contemporary foreign responses. 

General Sources 

• Апрельские тезисы. (The April theses) 
• The Trotsky papers, 1917-1922 
• Arkhiv russkoĭ revoli︠u︡t︠s︡īi 
• The Kerensky memoirs: Russia and history's turning point 
• Out of my past : the memoirs of Count Kokovtsov, Russian minister of finance, 1904-1914, chairman of the Council of ministers, 1911-1914 
• The Red archives : Russian state papers and other documents relating to the years 1915-1918 

Foreign Response 

• La Révolution russe vue par une française 
• The German revolution and the debate on Soviet power : documents, 1918-1919 : preparing the founding congress 
• La Révolution russe vue par une française 
• Moskauer Tagebuch 1918 
• A Michigan polar bear confronts the Bolsheviks : a war memoir: the 337th field hospital in Norther Russia, 1918-1919 
• Hē historia henos stratiōtē : mia synklonistikē martyria gia tis hellēnikes ekstrateies, 1918-1922 

The IHR's collection of primary source material and guides to sources covers all aspects of the First World War from several countries. One of the strengths of the collection are the wide-ranging personal accounts, some of which can be found below. For a more detailed guide to this collection, refer to the First World War Collections Guide. 

Britain

• British documents on the origins of the war, 1898-1914, Eleven Volumes 
• Why we are at war: Great Britain's case  by members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History 
• Lord Riddell's war diary, 1914-18 
• The Official Army List for the quarter ending Dec. 1910. 
• Army service records of the First World War 
• A bibliography of the First World War in the Far East and Southeast Asia 
• The British Army and signals intelligence during the First World War 
• Naval and military despatches relating to operations in the War (Eight Volumes) 
• Commitment and sacrifice : personal diaries of the Great War 
• The Soldiers' Press : Trench Journals in the First World War 

France

• Répertoire numérique des journaux des marches et opérations 1914-1918
• 1914: comment les Français sont entrés dans la guerre : contribution à l'étude de l'opinion publique printemps-été 1914
• Au bord du gouffre août-septembre 1914
• De la guerre à la paix : souvenirs et documents
• G.Q.G. Secteur 1. Trois ans au Grand quartier général par le rédacteur de "communique"
• Lettres à un ami : souvenirs de ma vie politique
• Le temps de nous aimer : Robert, Denise et Victor, courriers de guerre 1914-1918

Germany

• Documents allemands relatifs à l'origine de la guerre : collection complète des documents officiels 
• L'aveu, la bataille de Verdun et l'opinion allemande 
• L'Allemagne et les problèmes de la paix pendant le Première Guerre Mondiale 
• The march on Paris and the battle of the Marne, 1914  by Alexander von Kluck...with portraits and maps and notes by the Historical section (Military branch) of the Committee of imperial defence. 

United States

• An annotated bibliography of the United States Marine Corps in the First World War 
• United States military intelligence [1917-1927] 

Post War

• Documents and statements relating to peace proposals & war aims (December 1916-November 1918) 
• The deliberations of the Council of Four (March 24-June 28, 1919) 
• Ekspertyzy i materiały delegacji polskiej na konferencję wersalską 1919 roku 
• Die Friedensversuche der kriegsführenden Mächte im Sommer und Herbst 1917 : quellenkritische Untersuchungen, Akten und Vernehmungsprotokolle 
• George Saunders on Germany, 1919-20 : correspondence and memoranda 
• Peace and bread in time of war 

• A City in war: American views on Barcelona and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39 
• Alvah Bessie's Spanish Civil War notebooks 
• International repercussions of the Spanish civil war, 1936-39 
• Memory and cultural history of the Spanish Civil War: realms of oblivion 
• Women's voices from the Spanish Civil War 
• The life and death of the Spanish Republic: a witness to the Spanish Civil War 
• Mac-Pap: memoir of a Canadian in the Spanish Civil War 
• My mother, that stranger : letters from the Spanish Civil War 
• La guerra civil española, fuentes : archivos, bibliografía y filmografía 
• Atlas de la Guerra Civil española : antecedentes, operaciones y secuelas militares (1931-1945) 
• Mis memorias : la Guerra Civil Española : 20 meses prisionero 
• Memorias de Santiago Robert : recuerdos agridulces de la República, la guerra y la postguerra en Aragón 

Britain and Commonwealth 

• Biographical dictionary of British generals of the Second World War 
• Documents relating to New Zealand's participation in the Second World War, 1939-45. 
• Defeating Hitler : Whitehall's secret report on why Hitler lost the war
• The war diaries of Oliver Harvey, 1941-1945

France 

• Gaulle, Charles de, Mémoires de guerre 
• C'était un semblant de guerre : 1939-1945
• Documents diplomatiques français 1944-1954
• Dossier : les prisonniers de guerre, Vichy et la Résistance (1940-1945) 
• Heures tragiques de 1940 : la défaite
• Léon Blum, Lettres de Buchenwald 

Germany 

• Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels 
• Briefe an Hitler : ein Volk schreibt seinem Führer : unbekannte Dokumente aus Moskauer Archiven, zum ersten Mal veröffentlicht 
• The diary of Eva Braun 
• A German of the resistance : the last letters of Count Helmuth James von Moltke 
• Lageberichte rheinischer Gestapostellen 
• "This is Berlin" : radio broadcasts from Nazi Germany 

United States 

• The end of the war in the Pacific : Surrender documents in facsimile 
• Federal records of World War II.
• Washington despatches, 1941-1945 : weekly political reports from the British Embassy
   

USSR 

• Soviet foreign policy during the patriotic war: documents and materials 
• Winter warfare : Red Army orders and experiences 
• Deutsche Berichte aus dem Osten 1942-1943

Post War 

• Trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946 

The library holds a significant amount of material pertaining to the Cold War period within our International Relations collections. For a more detailed overview, refer to our Cold War Collections Guide. 

Diplomatic Correspondence and Papers

• Through the history of the Cold War: the Kennan-Lukacs correspondence
• Defending the West: the Truman-Churchill correspondence, 1945 – 1960
• The Wilson-Johnson correspondence, 1964-69
• My dear Mr. Stalin: the complete correspondence between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph V. Stalin
• Diplomatic despatches from a son to his mother
• On the front lines of the Cold War: an American correspondent’s journal from the Chinese Civil War to the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam

Memoirs

• The CIA and the Cold War: a memoir
• From Moscow to Cuba and beyond: a diplomatic memoir of the Cold War
• The Memoirs of Ambassador Henry F. Grady: from the Great War to the Cold War
• New world disorder: the UN after the Cold War: an insider’s view
• Operation overflight: the U-2 spy pilot tells his story for the first time

For a more detailed guide to our collections, search our catalogue for  Literacy, Schools, Educational law and legislation or refer to the Social Policy Collections Guide. 

Education and Literacy

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a greater democratisation of education across a large part of the world. The Wohl library holds a selection of documents including reports, registers and handbooks pertaining to the development of schooling, higher education and general literacy in Britain and Europe. This collection also includes several important sources regarding the education of women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

Britain

• Education and the state from 1833
• Final report of the School Board for London, 1870-1904
• Mavor's first spelling book : an easy introduction to the spelling and reading of the English language
• List of primary and secondary schools in England and Wales recognised as efficient under Rules 16 on 31st December, 1951
• Some sources for the history of English grammar schools
• Sources for the history of English primary schools
• Parish registers and illiteracy in East Yorkshire  
• Inside the ivory tower : narratives of women of colour surviving and thriving in British academia
• The higher education of women, 1866
• Schools for girls and colleges for women : a handbook of female education chiefly designed for the use of persons of the upper middle class
• The place of university education in the life of women : an address delivered at the Women's Institute on November 23rd, 1897
• The Education papers : women's quest for equality in Britain, 1850-1912

Europe

• L'Histoire de l'enseignement, XIXe-XXe siècles : guide du chercheur
• L'enseignement du français à l'école primaire : textes officiels concernant l'enseignement primaire de la Révolution à nos jours
• Liberte D'Enseignement : Rapports aux Chambres (1880)
• Les statuts et privilèges des universités françaises depuis leur fondation jusqu'en 1789
• Mobility, elites, and education in French society of the second empire (Includes statistical appendix)
• Die Schule in Staat und Gesellschaft : Dokumente zur deutschen Schulgeschichte im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert
• Schule und Absolutismus in Preussen : Akten zum preussischen Elementarschulwesen bis 1806
• Hochschulen 1933-1945

Americas

• Sarah Jane Foster, teacher of the freedmen : a diary and letters
• Obra educativa de Santander
• Livro de tombo do Colégio de Jesus do Rio de Janeiro

Periodicals, Newspapers and Mass Media

• Dictionary of nineteenth-century journalism in Great Britain and Ireland
• The Routledge handbook to nineteenth-century British periodicals and newspapers
• I am sure I speak for many others Edited collection of broadcasting complaint letters
• C.P. Scott, 1846-1932 : the making of the 'Manchester Guardian'
• 'The Observer' and J.L. Garvin, 1908-1914 : a study in a great editorship
• An account of the London daily newspapers, and the manner in which they are conducted (1811)
• The newspaper press : its origin, progress and present position (1871)
• The Periodical press of Great Britain and Ireland: or, An inquiry into the state of the public journals, chiefly as regards their moral and political influence (1824)

Newspaper Collections

• The London Gazette, (1665-1899) 
• Journal de Perlet, (1795-1796)
• Moniteur universel, (1811-1871) 
• Tables du Journal "Le Temps" : 1861-1900, 1940-1942
• American Newspaper Directory 
• The Times
• British Newspapers, (1600-1950)

Nineteenth Century Periodicals

• Gentleman's Magazine
• Edinburgh Review
• Quarterly Review
• Notes and Queries
• Nineteenth Century

• The Post-Office London directory for 1828
• R.R. Angerstein's Illustrated Travel Diary, 1753-1755 : Industry in England and Wales from a Swedish perspective
• Atlas of industrializing Britain, 1780-1914
• Industrial Great Britain : a commercial review of leading firms selected from important towns of England / with illustrations of England's prominent edifices. Historical, statistical, biographical.
• Official descriptive and illustrated catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works and Industry of all Nations and The illustrated catalogue of the industrial department (1862)
• Focal aspects of the Industrial Revolution, 1825-1842: five pamphlets
• British Employers' Confederation Archive: Lists & indexes
• Industry pamphlets guide : Pamphlets on industry in the British Library of Political and Economic Science
• Aspects of agriculture and industry : a collection of examples from original sources in the Kent Archives Office, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century
• De l'industrie française
• Industrial relations in Germany, 1914-1939 : annotated bibliography of materials in the Hoover library on war, revolution, and peace and the Stanford university library
• Kilder til industrikortlægning : bibliografi over industrihistorisk litteratur og kildemateriale

The library holds a selection of directories, maps and guides outlining the development of transport networks across Britain and Europe. See also Transport History Collections and map collection guide.

Britain and Ireland

• London Transport records at the Public Record Office
• British Transport Commission historical records, canal, dock, harbour, navigation and steamship companies class list
• Original sources for transport pioneers
• Bradshaw's canals and navigable rivers of England and Wales 
• Priestley's navigable rivers and canals : a reprint of the Historical account of the navigable rivers, canals and railways throughout Great Britain 
• Bradshaw's railway manual, shareholders' guide, and directory, 1869. 
• 'Paterson's roads' : Daniel Paterson, his maps and itineraries 1738-1825 
• The directory of British tramways : every passenger-carrying tramway, past and present 
• Whishaw's railways of Great Britain and Ireland, (1842) 
• The directory of railway stations : details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present
• Chronology of the railways of Lancashire and Cheshire : dates of incorporation, opening, amalgamation, etc. of all the lines in the Counties
• Road passenger transport, Statistical Data (1912)
• London water supply : including a history and description of the London waterworks, statistical tables, and maps

Europe

• Guide des sources de l'histoire des transports publics urbains à Paris et en Ile-de-France XIXe-XXe siècles
• Archives, objets, et images des constructions de l'eau du Moyen âge à l'ère industrielle
• Le Unità ausiliarie dell'Esercito italiano nella guerra di liberazione
• General-Inspektion des Militär-Verkehrswesens
• Atlas zur Verkehrsgeschichte Schleswig-Holsteins im 19. Jahrhundert
• Wasserinfrastrukturen und Macht von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart

Americas

• Report of the Industrial Commission on transportation : including review of evidence, topical digest of evidence, and testimony so far as taken May 1, 1900
• The Public Service Commission's correspondence with the receiver of the Third Avenue Railroad (New York, 1910)
• Water and American government [electronic resource] : the Reclamation Bureau, national water policy, and the West, 1902-1935
• Aeropuerto Francisco Carlé de Jauja : aportes y documentos para su historia

Other

• The Nile projects (1919)

The library holds some copies of modern scientific treatise, as well as the memoirs and correspondence of notable scientists. The collection also includes finding material such as the Directory of British scientific instrument makers, 1550-1851 and The corresponding societies of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1883-1929 : a survey of historical records, archives and publications. 

• A treatise on electricity and magnatism 
• Theory of heat 
• The forces of matter 
• On growth and form 
• Obras de Caldas 
• The correspondence of Charles Darwin 
• The papers of Thomas A. Edison 
• Correspondance de Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827) 
• Lettres : Marie Curie et ses filles 
• Discorso storico della mia vita naturale e civile dal 1745 al 1825 
• The Linnaean correspondence 
• Science for the people : documents from America's movement of radical scientists 
• Personal recollections from early life to old age of Mary Somerville with selections from her correspondence 
• Memoir and scientific correspondence of the late Sir George Gabriel Stokes 
• Experimental biology in the Vienna Prater : on the history of the Institute for Experimental Biology 1902 to 1945 

Scientific Periodicals 

• Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 
• Bulletin of the South Carolina Academy of Science 
• Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London 
• The Saturday magazine