Library Research Guides: HIST J300 Cradle of 'Globalization'? History, Economy, Society, and Diaspora in the Indian Ocean: Sources for historical research

America's Historical Newspapers
Digital archive of American newspapers published between 1690 and 1922, representing every state in the U.S.
Based on a collection of rare newspapers held by the American Antiquarian Society, with contributions from the Boston Athenaeum, the Connecticut Historical Society, the Connecticut State Library, the Library Company of Philadelphia; the Library of Congress, the libraries of universities such as Brown and Harvard, and private collections. Fully text-searchable; browseable by newspaper title.

Collections included: African American Newspapers, Series 1 ; African American Newspapers, Series 2 ; Caribbean Newspapers ; Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection ; Hispanic American Newspapers ; Early American Newspapers, Series 1-7, 11-12, and 17-19.
American Periodicals Series Online
Digital archive of the pages of American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the dawn of the 20th century.
Based on a very comprehensive microfilm collection of American magazines and journals, 1740-1940. Contains searchable full text of all extant issues of over 1000 titles, ranging from children's magazines to professional journals. Can be cross-searched with historical newspaper archives.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Digital archive of historical newspapers. Each issue of each title includes the complete paper, cover-to-cover, with full-page and article images.
British Library Newspapers
Comprehensive digital access to historic newspapers, newsbooks, ephemera and national & regional papers from British Isles.
Includes access to:

British Library Newspapers, Part I: 1800-1900:

Ranging from early tabloids like the Illustrated Police News to radical papers like the Chartist Northern Star, the 47 publications in Part I span national, regional, and local interests. Other notable papers of Part I include the Morning Chronicle, with famous contributors such as Henry Mayhew and John Stuart Mill; the Graphic, publishing both illustrations and news as well as illustrated fiction; and the Examiner, the radical reformist and leading intellectual journal.

British Library Newspapers, Part II: 1800-1900

Part II includes additional English regional newspapers with 22 additional publications. Researchers can find the newspapers of a number of towns and regions included in this collection: Nottingham, Bradford, Leicester, Sheffield, and York, as well as North Wales. The addition of two major London newspapers, The Standard and the Morning Post, captures conservative opinion in the nineteenth century, balancing the progressive, more liberal views of the newspapers that appear in Part I.

British Library Newspapers, Part III: 1741-1950

Part III includes 35 newspapers, encompassing provincial news journals like the Leeds Intelligencer and Hull Daily Mail, local interest publications such as the Northampton Mercury, and specialist titles such as the Poor Law Unions’ Gazette. Other noteworthy titles in Part III include the Westmoreland Gazette, whose early editor, Thomas De Quincy (of Confessions of an English Opium Eater) was forced to resign due to his unreliability.

British Library Newspapers, Part IV: 1732-1950

From early newspaper titles like the Stamford Mercury to what may be the oldest magazine in the world still in publication, the Scots Magazine, the 23 newspapers in Part IV offer local and regional perspectives from Aberdeen, Bath, Chester, Derby, Stamford, Liverpool, and York. In addition, Part IV includes the 1901-1950 runs of papers such as the Aberdeen Journal and Dundee Courier whose earlier newspapers are available in Part I and Part II.

British Library Newspapers, Part V: 1746-1950

With a concentration of titles from the northern part of the United Kingdom, the 36 newspapers in Part V includes titles from the Scottish localities of Fife, Elgin, Inverness, Paisley, and John O'Groats, as well as towns just below the border, such as Morpeth, Alnwick, and more. Includes access to the Coventry Herald, which features some of the earliest published writing of Mary Ann Evans (better known as George Eliot).
British Periodicals
This resource offers facsimile page images and searchable full text for nearly 500 British periodicals published from the 17th century through to the early 21st.
Includes access to four collections:
British Periodicals Collection I consists of more than 160 journals that comprise the UMI microfilm collection Early British Periodicals, the equivalent of 5,238 printed volumes containing approximately 3.1 million pages. Topics covered include literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts and the social sciences.
British Periodicals Collection II consists of more than 300 journals from the UMI microfilm collections English Literary Periodicals and British Periodicals in the Creative Arts together with additional titles, amounting to almost 3 million pages. Topics covered include literature, music, art, drama, archaeology and architecture.
British Periodicals Collection III extends the scope of the program by focusing on leading publications from the first half of the twentieth century. The titles are from the prestigious stable of illustrated periodicals known as the “Great Eight” in British periodical publishing history. They are considered to be among the foremost popular periodicals of the period and were highly influential in their mix of news/politics, miscellany, art, photography, literature and comedy/satire, while launching the careers of many leading artists/illustrators of the age.
British Periodicals Collection IV continues this expansion, offering an eclectic mix of major popular titles from the twentieth century, reflecting the age’s attitudes interests and events across culture, politics and society. Key themes covered in these publications include socialism and the labour movement, international affairs/conflict, leisure/rural life, the arts, travel/empire and childhood/youth.
Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals
Full text access to multiple 19th century periodicals published in the United Kingdom as well as 19th century colonies.
Part I: Women's, Children's, Humor, and Leisure covers the advent of commercial lifestyle publishing in Brtain, with a particular focus on the rarely documented aspects of women, children, humor, and leisure activity in the Victorian Age.
Part II: Empire covers the role of Britain as an imperial power throughout the century, and includes periodicals from Australia, Canada, Ceylon, India, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Nichols Newspapers Collection
Provides digital access to newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets and broadsheets that form the Nichols newspaper collection held at the Bodleian library in Oxford, UK.
John Nichols (1745–1826) was a London printer and avid collector of newspapers, which he used to inform his literary and historical research work. The collection includes approximately 300 primary titles of newspapers and periodicals and 300 pamphlets and broadsheets.

Originally bound in 96 volumes, of which number 14 (July 1705-July 1708) and 90 (Jan-April 1736) no longer exist, the collection was later re-bound into the present 296 volumes by splitting each volume in three or four parts labelled A through D. The newspapers cover the political history between the reign of Charles II and the Age of Walpole, and cover a variety of subjects.
World Newspaper Archive
A collection of historical newspapers from around the globe.
World Newspaper Archive is a fully-searchable collection of historical newspapers from around the globe. It was created in partnership with the Center for Research Libraries- one of the world's largest and most important newspaper repositories.

Indian Ocean regional publications

African Newspapers
Covers the people, issues, and events that shaped Africa during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Featuring titles from Algeria to Angola, Zambia to Zimbabwe, this resource chronicles the evolution of Africa through eyewitness reporting, editorials, legislative information, letters, poetry, advertisements, obituaries, and other items.
Includes access to Series 1 and 2:
African Newspapers, Series 1, 1800-1922:
Features English- and foreign-language titles from Angola, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Covers such events/topics as the repercussions of the Atlantic slave trade, life under colonial rule and the results of the Berlin Conference, the emergence of Black journalism, the Zulu Wars and the rejection of Western imperialism.
African Newspapers, Series 2, 1835-1925
Features English- and foreign-language titles. Includes notable publications, such as the Demain (Algeria), Africa’s Luminary (Liberia), France Orientale (Madagascar), Al-Moghreb Al-Aksa (Morocco); O Moçambique (Mozambique), Voortrekker (Namibia), Nigerian Times (Nigeria), Munno (Uganda) and many widely sought South African titles from Cape Town, Grahamstown, Port Elizabeth, Pietermaritzburg and Johannesburg. Among the South African titles are Black Man, British Settler, Cape Times, Johannesburg Times, and South African Spectator.
African Newspapers: The British Library Collection
Digital access to 64 newspapers from throughout Africa, all published before 1901.
Includes the following titles: Egyptian Gazette (Cairo), Journal Franco-Ethiopien (Djibouti); Central African Times (Blantyre, Malawi), Commercial Gazette (Port Louis, Mauritius), Times of Marocco (Morocco), St. Helena Guardian (Jamestown, St. Helena) and Express en Oranjevrijstaatsch Advertentieblad (Bloemfontein, South Africa).
South Asian Newspapers
Searchable 19th and 20th century newspapers from South Asia featuring titles from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka presented in original page images.
Fully searchable historical newspapers from South Asia; part of the World Newspaper Archive, created in partnership with the Center for Research Libraries. Features English-, Gujarati- and Bengali-language papers published in India, in the regions of the Subcontinent that now comprise Pakistan, and in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Titles include such key publications as: Amrita Bazar Patrika (Calcutta), Bankura Darpana (Bankura, India), Madras Mail (Madras), Tribune (Lahore, Pakistan) and the Ceylon Observer (Sri Lanka).
Times of India (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)
Digitized full text of the world's most widely circulated English daily newspaper, originally published for English residents in India.
The Times of India offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue for the following titles: The Bombay times and journal of commerce (1838-1859), The Bombay times and standard (1860-1861), and The times of India (1861-2008). New content is added annually.

Each of these databases contain primary sources that relate to areas bordering the Indian Ocean. Note, however, that many of the documents come from colonial government archives and Indigenous voices are often absent.

Apartheid South Africa 1948-1994
Apartheid South Africa makes available British government files from the Foreign, Colonial, Dominion and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices spanning the period 1948 to 1980. Includes access to sections I through IV.
Includes letters, diplomatic dispatches, reports, trial papers, activists’ biographies and first-hand accounts.
Confidential Print: Africa, 1834-1966
Official British government correspondence concerning Africa from the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office.
Includes correspondence, some one-page letters or telegrams, others large volumes or texts of treaties. All items marked Confidential Print were printed and circulated immediately to leading officials in the Foreign Office, to the Cabinet and to heads of British missions abroad. All documents are fully text-searchable, and the set includes collection of 300 maps separated from their parent print.
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969
Covers a broad sweep of history from c. 1839 to 1969, taking in the countries of the Arabian peninsula, the Levant, Iraq, Turkey and former Ottoman lands in Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt and Sudan. Materials include reports, dispatches, correspondence, descriptions of leading personalities, political summaries, and economic analyses.
Beginning with the Egyptian reforms of Muhammad Ali Pasha in the 1830s, the documents trace the events of the following 150 years, including the Middle East Conference of 1921, the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia, the partition of Palestine, the 1956 Suez Crisis and post-Suez Western foreign policy, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
East India Company
Collection of India Office Records from the British Library, London. Includes royal charters, correspondence, trading diaries, minutes of council meetings and reports of expeditions, among other document types. Charts the history of British trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent and beyond from 1600 to 1947. Includes access to modules I-VI.
From sixteenth century origins as a trading venture to the East Indies, through to its rise a powerful company and de facto ruler of India, to its demise amid allegations of greed and corruption, the East India Company was an extraordinary force in global history for three centuries.
Empire Online
Contains over 70,000 images of original manuscripts (including biographies and chronologies) and printed materials covering Africa, the Americas, Australasia, Oceana, and South Asia.
Includes interactive maps and original documents linked to essays by leading scholars in the field of Empire Studies. The sections cover Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class and Colonialism, c1783-1969. The images are sources from the British Library, including the Oriental and India Office Collections at the British Library; the University of Birmingham Library; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; and the Public Record Office and the State Records, New South Wales, Australia.
Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980
This collection of files from the Foreign Office (later the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) and Dominions Office focuses on the political and social history of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Consists of the complete run of documents in the series DO 133, DO 134 and FCO 37, as well as all documents covering the Indian subcontinent in the FO 371 series. Events covered include independence and partition, the Indian annexation of Hyderabad and Goa, war between India and Pakistan, tensions and war between India and China, the consolidation of power of the Congress Party in India, military rule in Pakistan, the turbulent independence of Bangladesh and the development of nuclear weapons in the region.

The files address these events from the standpoint of British officialdom. In addition to high politics, they deal with such issues as economic and industrial development, trade, migration, visits to South Asia by British politicians and by South Asian politicians to Britain and elsewhere, education, administrative reorganisation, conflict over language, aid, political parties, agriculture and irrigation, and television and the press. Together they form a resource of fundamental value to scholars and students of modern South Asia.
French Colonialism in Africa: From Algeria to Madagascar, 1910-1930
Primary source documents related to French colonial activities and policies in Africa, 1910-1930. Includes correspondence, studies and reports, cables, and maps.
U.S. Consulates were listening posts reporting on the activities of the French colonial government and the activities of the native peoples. Highlights of the collection include the beginning of an anti-colonial movement and problems along the Moroccan-Algerian border.
India, Raj and Empire
Primary source materials documenting the history of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan.
Digital facsimiles from the manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland. Includes diaries and journals, official and private papers, letters, sketches, paintings and original Indian documents containing histories and literary works. The collection documents the relationship between Britain and India in an empire where the Scots played a central role as traders, generals, missionaries, viceroys, governor-generals and East India Company officials. The dates of the documents range from 1710 to 1937.
India From Crown Rule To Republic, 1945-1949: Records Of The US State Department
Collection of U.S. State Department Central Classified Files relating to the internal affairs of India and U.S. relations with India.
Independent India's first years were marked with turbulent events - partition, a massive exchange of population with Pakistan, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 and the integration of over 500 princely states to form a united nation. This collection identifies the key issues, individuals, and events in the history of the Subcontinent between 1945 and 1949, and places them in the context of the complex and dynamic regional strategic, political, and economic processes that have fashioned India in the postwar period.
Indian Army and Colonial Warfare on the Frontiers of India, 1914-1920
Collection documenting the military history of South Asia and the history of the British military experience in India.
For generations of British and Indian Officers and men, the North-West Frontier was the scene of repeated skirmishes and major campaigns against the trans-border Pathan tribes who inhabited the mountainous no-man’s land between India and Afghanistan. This collection contains Army Lists; Orders; Instructions; Regulations; Acts; Manuals; Strength Returns; Orders of Battle; Administration Summaries; organization, commissions, committees, reports, maneuvers; departments of the Indian Army; and regimental narratives.
Italian Colonies in North Africa and Aggression in East Africa, 1930-1939
Primary source documents related to Italian colonial activities and policies, 1930-1939.
Italian colonial policy during the period 1930-1939 was shaped by Fascism. Fascist tenets related to governance and social policy was used in the administration and treatment of the African population in Libya, Eritrea, Somalia, and Italian East Africa. This collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities. U.S. Consulates were listening posts reporting on the activities of the Italian colonial governments and later the mandate authorities, and the activities of the native peoples.

Freely available primary sources

Endangered Archives
"The Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) facilitates the digitisation of archives around the world that are in danger of destruction, neglect or physical deterioration. Thanks to generous funding from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, we have provided grants to more than 370 projects in 90 countries worldwide, in over 100 languages and scripts.
Since 2004, the Programme has digitised over seven million images and 25 thousand sound tracks. Archive types digitised so far include: rare printed sources; manuscripts, visual materials, audio recordings. This continually expanding online collection is available freely through local archival partners, this website and it is discoverable via the British Library catalogue, for research, inspiration and enjoyment."
Proceedings of the Old Bailey
A digital archive containing the records of 197,745 criminal trials held at the Old Bailey, London’s central criminal court. This fully searchable database also includes the biographical details of roughly 2,500 men and women executed at Tyburn.
Treasures From the 17th and 18th Century VOC Archive
This site provides access to archives of the Dutch East India Company. The files focus on trade, personnel, logistics, and diplomatic affairs.

Academic Search (EBSCO)
Provides full-text coverage of magazine, newspaper, and scholarly journal articles for most academic disciplines.
This multi-disciplinary database provides full-text for more than 4,500 journals, including full text for more than 3,700 peer-reviewed titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles.
Bibliography of Asian Studies
Western-language bibliographical database for research on East, Southeast and South Asia. Published by the Association for Asian Studies, it covers all subjects with special focus on the humanities and social sciences.
Includes over 900,000 citations, dating primarily from 1971 onwards, with more than 400,000 citations since 1992. All entries are searchable by author, title, year of publication, place of publication, language of publication, journal title, country, subject, keyword, ISSN and ISBN. Includes the full content of the printed volumes of the annual Bibliography of Asian Studies dating back to 1971.
Historical Abstracts
Index to journals, chapters and theses about world history, 1450 to present.
Covers modern world history (excluding the United States and Canada which are covered in the database America: History and Life) from 1450 to the present. It currently indexes about 2,300 journals in 40 languages, with indexing also for some books and dissertations. Most of the article citations include abstracts of 75-100 words.
Index Islamicus
Bibliography of publications in European languages on all aspects of Islam and the Muslim world.
Index Islamicus is the primary index to literature on Islam, the Middle East and Muslim areas of Asia and Africa, and Muslim minorities elsewhere. It includes citations to over 2,000 journals, conference proceedings, monographs, and book reviews from 1906 to present.
International Medieval Bibliography
The IMB indexes articles in journals, conference proceedings, collections of essays and Festschriften. Indexing includes materials worldwide in a variety of languages.
The International Medieval Bibliography covers of the European Middle Ages, including the Middle East and North Africa, in the period 400-1500. Items in the bibliography are taken from some 4500 periodicals and 5000 miscellany volume (conference proceedings, essay collections, Festschriften and exhibition catalogues). Entries include full bibliographical details and subject classifications.
Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance
Interdisciplinary resources pertaining to the Middle Ages and Renaissance (400-1700).
Access to e-journals, bibliographies, and other content related to the study of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Includes access to the following:

Iter Italicum
Milton: A Bibliography
Bibliography of English Women Writers
JSTOR
Provides searchable full-text of historical runs of important scholarly journals in the humanities, arts, sciences, ecology, and business.
JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization established with the assistance of The Mellon Foundation, provides complete runs of hundreds of important journal titles in more than 30 arts, humanities, and social science disciplines. These scholarly journals can be browsed online and searched, and the page images can be printed for those available in full-text. The IUB Libraries subscribe to current content for only some titles available through JSTOR. Includes access to the following collections: Arts & Sciences, Business, Hebrew Journals, Ireland Collection, Lives of Literature, Public Health Collection, Security Studies Collection, Sustainability Collection.

All journals in JSTOR start with the first volume. Many include content up to a "moving wall" of 3-5 years ago, although some journals have a fixed ending date for their content in JSTOR. Please check individual journals for exact dates of coverage.

For information about access to this resource for IU alumni, contact the Indiana University Alumni Association.
OneSearch@IU
Project Muse
Provides full text access and indexing for e-journals and e-books from a variety of scholarly publishers. Covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others.

HIST J300 Cradle of 'Globalization'? History, Economy, Society, and Diaspora in the Indian Ocean

Featured Databases

IU Libraries

HIST J300 Cradle of 'Globalization'? History, Economy, Society, and Diaspora in the Indian Ocean

Social media

Additional resources

Featured Databases

IU Libraries