New primary sources for Middle East studies
Students and researchers at SOAS have recently gained access to two new databases of archival documents that are of crucial importance in the studies of Middle East modern history and politics:
Confidential Print: Middle East, 1839-1969
http://www.archivesdirect.amdigital.co.uk
Archives Direct is a suite of collections sourced from The National Archives, Kew – the UK government’s official archive. The Confidential Print series originated out of a need for the Government to preserve all of the most important papers generated by the Foreign and Colonial Offices since 1820’s.
It contains reports, dispatches, correspondence, descriptions of leading personalities, political summaries and economic analyses from countries of the Arabian peninsula, the Levant, Iraq, Turkey and many of the former Ottoman lands in Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt and Sudan.
DNSA Digital National Security Archive (Asia & Middle East)
The Digital National Security Archive contains the most comprehensive collection available of significant primary documents central to U.S. foreign and military policy since 1945. Over 94,000 of the most important, declassified documents – totaling more than 650,000 pages – are included in the database.