Primary sources
What are Primary Sources?
Created by witnesses or recorders who experience first-hand the events or conditions being documented, primary sources are first-hand testimonies that provide direct evidence from a particular period of history. Primary sources may be everyday items produced whilst an event or phase is occurring, such as photographs, letters, periodicals and manuscripts, but can also include artefacts compiled later, such as memoirs and oral histories.
Primary Sources
- Empire Online (Adam Matthew Digital)Documents relating to Empire Studies, sourced from libraries and archives around the world. Primarily British Empire.
- Foreign Office files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980 (Adam Matthew Digital)This collection covers the years from 1947 to 1980, encompassing files on all the countries of South Asia: principally India and Pakistan, but also Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ceylon/Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and the Maldives. The collection is split into three, chronologically based parts: Section I: Independence, Partition and the Nehru Era, 1947-64; Section II: South Asian Conflicts and Independence for Bangladesh, 1965-71; Section III: Afghanistan and the Cold War, Emergency Rule in India, and the Resumption of Civilian Rule in Pakistan, 1972-80
- India, Raj and Empire (Adam Matthew Digital)Manuscript collection pertaining to the history of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947
- Slavery, Abolition and Social Justice, 1490-2007 (Adam Matthew Digital)Covers primary source mterial from global archives relating to the history of slavery. Document types include manuscripts, government publications, court records, pamphlets, books, maps, images, testimonials, and voyage logs. Note: Coverage 1490-2007
- China : Trade, Politics and Culture, 1793-1980 (Adam Matthew Digital)Contains the Macartney and Amherst Embassies, the Opium War, Arrow War, Boxer Rebellion, Taiping Rebellion, the opening of treaty ports, the Chinese Maritime Customs Service and the birth of the People's Republic. Includes maps, drawings and photographs, and personal accounts.
- China : Culture and Society (Adam Matthew Digital)Digitisation of Cornell University Library's Charles W. Wason Collection (c1750-1929), including additional secondary resources, including academic essays, an interactive chronology and guides.
- China, America and the Pacific (Adam Matthew Digital)Archival material relating to the trade and cultural relationships between America, China and the Pacific region between the 18th century and early 20th century.
- Global commodities : trade, exploration and cultural exchange (Adam Matthew Digital)This original will help scholars to explore the history of fifteen major commodities and to examine the ways that these have changed the world.
- Foreign Office files for China, 1919-1980 (Adam Matthew Digital)Makes available the complete British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan during the period 1919-1980. The archival materials in the database consist of diplomatic dispatches, letters, newspaper cuttings, maps, reports of court cases, biographies of leading personalities, summaries of events and diverse other materials.
- Gale Primary SourcesAn interface that allows searching across any combination, or all, of Griffith University's Gale Primary Sources holdings. These 27 primary source databases can be searched individually or using this interface: Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Nineteenth Century Collections Online, The Making of Modern Law, Archives of Sexuality and Gender, British Library Newspapers, Women's Studies Archive, Refugees, Relief and Resettlement, American Civil Liberties Union Papers, The Times Digital Archive, Archives Unbound, China and the Modern World, Financial Times Historical Archive, Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals, Slavery and Anti-slavery, The Times Literary Supplement, Brazilian and Portuguese History and Culture, Crime Punishment and Popular Culture, Indigenous Peoples of North America, Political Extremism and Radicalism, The Economist Historical Archive and the Making of the Modern World.
Public Domain Primary Sources
- Daiber Collection Database, The Arabic Manuscripts in the Daiber Collection, Institute of Oriental Culture, University of TokyoThis collection is the corpus of manuscripts mainly focused on Arabic, collected by Dr. Hans Daiber, a professor of Islamic studies in Germany, over many years. Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo purchased the collection, its first part in 1986-1987 and its second part in 1994
- Digitized Arabic manuscripts at the AUB Libraries (Beirut)Selection of fully digitised Arabic manuscripts from the collections of the American University of Beirut. Includes descriptive entry with each digitised manuscript.
- Islamic Manuscripts, Cambridge Digital LibraryThe Cambridge Digital Library presents several examples of Qur'anic manuscripts, including a complete and beautifully illustrated Qur'an and a number of very early fragments dating back to the first centuries of the Islamic calendar. From the rich literature encompassing the Islamic tradition, the collection includes the only extant copy of Kitāb al-tawḥīd, the famous theological work by by al-Maturidi, alongside works on science and some richly illustrated examples of Persian Literature
- Islamic Heritage Project, Harvard UniversityDating from the 10th to the 20th centuries CE, these Islamic manuscripts constitute a record of the diverse artistic traditions, literary cultures, learning traditions, and religious interpretations of the pre-modern Islamic world.
- Yemeni Manuscript Digitisation InitiativeThe private manuscript libraries of Yemen, estimated at 50,000 codices, constitutes the largest and most important set of unexamined Arabic manuscripts in the world today. The Yemeni Manuscript Digitization Initiative presents, for the first time, access to manuscripts from three private libraries in Sanaa, Yemen, and virtually conjoins them to additional Yemeni manuscripts held by the Princeton University Library and Staatsbibliothek, Berlin.
- Islamic Manuscripts from MaliIslamic Manuscripts from Mali features 32 manuscripts from the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library and the Library of Cheick Zayni Baye of Boujbeha, both in Timbuktu, Mali. The manuscripts presented online are displayed in their entirety and are an exemplary grouping that showcase the wide variety of subjects covered by the written traditions of Timbuktu, Mali, and West Africa.
Bibliographies
- Open Access Islamic Manuscripts CollectionsA list of open access manuscript collections relating to the Middle East and Islam.
- Digital Islamic Humanities Project - Brown UniversityList of resources covering text databases, manuscript and image databases, tools and tutorials, dictionaries, blogs and bibliographies.
