Library Guides: International Studies: East Asia

Introduction

The sources below provide broad, top-level coverage of Asian affairs, with an emphasis on China and Japan. However, there are many country-specific resources freely available online. Most countries will have national archives with some digital collections, and they will almost all have online news organizations, government websites, and much more.

Data and Statistics

ASEAN Statistics
Statistics from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
Asian Development Bank
Research and data from the ADB
Asian Barometer
A source for regular and institutionalized cross-national surveys on political and social change in East Asia.
ESCAP Statistical Database
The ESCAP Statistical database provides a regional perspective on development issues in Asia and the Pacific.

Primary Sources

Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new window
The content in the Nineteenth Century Collections Online is sourced from the world's preeminent libraries and archives and includes monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, photographs, statistics, and other kinds of documents in both Western and non-Western languages. The library has access to eight collections:

Asia and the West
British Politics and Society
British Theatre, Music, and Literature
Europe and Africa, Colonialisms and Cultures
Children's Literature and Childhood
Religion, Reform, and Society
European Literature, the Corvey Collection, 1790-1840
Women: Transnational Networks

East Asia History Sourcebook
Maps of Asia
(The Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection, University of Texas at Austin, USA) The maps are mainly produced by the US Central Intelligence Agency. Shaded relief maps are available for China (and parts of it), Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore (and many other Asian states and regions). For some parts there are even political, economic, demographic, and still more maps. In English.
Visualizing Cultures
The VC mission is to use new technology and hitherto inaccessible visual materials to reconstruct the past as people of the time visualized the world (or imagined it to be). Current projects focus on China and Japan. In English.
Images of Colonialism
Constituting a visual record of early European contacts with Asia and Africa, Widener Library’s Images of Colonialism Collection is a primary visual resource for historical and socio-cultural studies. In English.
Chinese civilization in time and space
by Academic Sinica, Taiwan. Extremely useful web site linked map and times
Chinese Posters
Highlights from the collections of the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, and Stefan R. Landsberger (University of Amsterdam, Leiden University). In English.
Morning Sun
This site contains information, images, texts, video clips, links on China's Cultural Revolution. In English.
Japanese Historical Maps
The Japanese Historical Map Collection contains about 2,300 early maps of Japan and the World, and is housed on the Berkeley campus in the East Asian Library. Represented in this online collection are over 1100 images of maps and books from this Collection. In English.
Japan Documentation Center (JDC) Bibliographic Database
Grey literature, 1993-1999. In English.
Digital Archive of Japan's 2011 Disasters - Reischauer Institute
Aggregating Japan's disaster data and reporting from around the world. In English.
Electronic Index to Early Shenbao
This online-index of important articles from the Shanghai daily Shenbaocovers the years from the paper's foundation in April 1872 to the end of the year 1895. It is designed to provide quick key word access to the more than 10,000 entries and thus facilitate the use of this important source for the history of late Qing China. In English.
The Rev. Claude L. Pickens, Jr. Collection on Muslims in China
1000 photos of China's Muslim population in western China in the 1920s and 1930s and the activities of Christian missionaries working among them. In English.

Secondary Sources

China Vitae
China Vitae is a resource of biographical information on more than 5000 Chinese leaders in government, politics, the military, education, business, and the media.
Korean History: A Bibliography
Index to articles and books dealing with all aspects of Korean history.
Online Asian Newspapers in English
A list of English-edition online newspapers in Asia.

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