Information Services

Politics

Some useful resources for Politics are listed below.

Academic Video Online (Alexander St Press/ProQuest)

Access information:

Access on and off-campus

Description:

Academic Video Online is a multidisciplinary collection of videos that touches on the curriculum needs of virtually every department. With over 67,000 titles available now and 400 new titles per month, this collection is unmatched in its breadth. Academic Video Online allows students and researchers alike to analyse unique and valuable content from over 500 producers and distributors around the world.

Userguide: https://proquest.libguides.com/academicvideoonline/home

 

American Jewish Congress Records: Administrative and Executive Committee, Governing Council, National Conventions, and Executive Director Files

Access information:

Access on and off-campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.

Description:

The American Jewish Congress, founded in 1918 under the leadership of Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, is one of the most important organizations dedicated to advocating for the interests of the American Jewish community and defending the civil rights of all Americans. The American Jewish Congress Records span from 1915-2009 and document the American Jewish Congress’s impact on the United States legal system, civil rights and liberties, the fight against discrimination and antisemitism, and support for the State of Israel. The records of the American Jewish Congress are digitized by ProQuest from the holdings of the American Jewish Historical Society. This module represents the first seven series of the collection, covering the history of the American Jewish Congress, the proceedings of its governing committees, the files of the Executive Directors, and records of the organization’s national conventions.

 

 American Politics in the Early Cold War - Truman and Eisenhower Administrations, 1945-1961

Access information. Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description. This resource presents major White House files from the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. The centerpiece of the Truman files is the President's Secretary's file while the Eisenhower files are centered on the Confidential File and the Whitman File of the Eisenhower White House Central Files. The Cold War takes center stage in the Truman files on international relations and the stalling of Truman's Fair Deal program is documented in the files that pertain to domestic concerns. The Eisenhower files focus to a large degree on national defense and economic issues, two of the areas that Eisenhower had the most personal interest in.

 

Archives of Sexuality & Gender

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description:

Archives of Sexuality & Gender provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, you can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other interesting topical areas. This growing digital archive offers rich research opportunities across a wide span of human history. The database currently includes 4 collections: International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture, LGBTQ History and Culture since 1940, Part I and Part II and Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century.

 

Archives Unbound

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description:

Archives Unbound presents topically-focused digital collections of historical documents that support the research and study needs of scholars and students at the college and university level. Collections in Archives Unbound cover a broad range of topics from the Middle Ages forward-from Witchcraft to World War II to twentieth-century political history. Collections are chosen for Archives Unbound based on requests from scholars, archivists, and students.

There are currently 382 collections in Archives Unbound, covering a large range of subject areas, and new collections are added every year. To see a full list of all the collections and what they cover click on the Collections box and you can either view as alphabetical list or browse by category. Alternatively, click here.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

Indexing and abstracting tool covering health, social services, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations and education. Updated monthly, ASSIA provides a comprehensive source of social science and health information for the practical and academic professional. It contains records from over 500 journals published in 16 different countries, including the UK and US.

Detailed information about ASSIA

Coverage: 1987-present.
NHS Staff and other authorised users:  The Knowledge Network

 

Atlanta Daily World

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: Atlanta Daily World provides more than seven decades of this newspaper’s historic coverage, online and easily searchable. Home to the first black correspondent assigned to cover the White House, this archive includes first-hand coverage of the infamous Scottsboro Case and witnesses the fight for civil rights from a black, Southern US perspective.
Coverage: 1931-2003.

 

BFI Player Subscription

Access information:

Access on and off-campus. Individual registration is required - see instructions below.

Description:

BFI Player is a video-on-demand service from the British Film Institute, streaming acclaimed, landmark and archive films. BFI Player’s focus is on British and European independent films, as well as international releases. The availability of films is dependent on rights agreements with licensors.

Instructions for registering for access to our BFI Player institutional subscription: 

  1. Go to https://player.bfi.org.uk/academic/subscribe and create an account using your UoE email address and a password of your choice OR sign in if you already have one by selecting 'Already have an account? Sign in'.
  2. Select University of Edinburgh from the dropdown list and click "Link institution". 
  3. Authenticate subscription using your university credentials.  

Please note: if you already had a BFI Player account linked to our pilot University of Edinburgh institutional subscription before 1st October 2023, you will need to relink your account using the instructions above when you first login after 1st October 2023.  Once your account is relinked, you will then be able to sign in to BFI Player as normal via http://player.bfi.org.uk/ 

Note: BFI Player is unavailable outside the UK. Content can change throughout the pilot and films could be removed. Rental section & festival events are unavailable with the Library subscription. For any licensing queries, please contact IS Helpline at https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/help-consultancy/contact-helpline 
Title list:

March title list

https://www.docs.is.ed.ac.uk/docs/Libraries/Main/E-Resources/Videos/BFI_Titles_March_2024.xlsx

Any titles with less than 6 months remaining are highlighted (in orange)

Subscription ends:

30/09/2024

 

Black Abolitionist Papers

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: This digital primary source collection,  spanning 1830-1865, details the extensive efforts of African Americans to abolish slavery in the writings and publications of the activists themselves. Approximately 15,000 articles, documents, correspondence, proceedings, manuscripts, and literary works of nearly 300 black abolitionists show the full range of their activities in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, France, and Germany.

 

Black Thought and Culture

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: A digital collection of approximately 100,000 pages of nonfiction writings by major American black leaders covering 250 years of history including  previously inaccessible material such as letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trial transcripts. The collection includes the words of Frederick Douglass,  Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Ida B. Wells,  Mary McLeod Bethune,  Constance Baker Motley, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson and more.

 

Border and Migration Studies Online

Access information:

Access on and off campus.  The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.

Description:

In 2015, the world recorded the largest number of displaced individuals in modern history. Across Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe, the environmental, financial, political, and cultural impacts of migrant populations and borderland disputes dominate headlines. Yet in order to contextualize modern crises, it is vital to understand the historical, geographic, demographic, economic, social, and diplomatic dimensions of past border and migration issues. Border and Migration Studies Online helps students and researchers understand today’s world through primary source documents, archives, films, and ephemera related to significant border areas and events from the 19th to 21st centuries.

 

Box of Broadcasts

Access Information: Access on and off campus
Description: BoB (Box of Broadcasts) enables all staff and students in subscribing institutions to choose and record any broadcast programme from 60+ TV and radio channels. The recorded programmes are then kept indefinitely (no expiry) and added to a growing media archive (currently at over 1 million programmes), with all content shared by users across all subscribing institutions.
Additional information: Please note that it not possible to access content in BoB when you are outside the UK, under the terms and conditions of the ERA licence.

 

British Labour Party Papers, 1906-1969

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: The Parliamentary Labour Party is the organisation of Labour members of Parliament (MPs) founded in 1906. These papers cover that foundation; then follow the Party through Ramsay MacDonald's Governments, two world wars, the first Harold Wilson Government and the early part of his second Government. The events in these records are a reflection of current events as much as of the Party itself. From the suffrage campaign for the electoral enfranchisement of women, to nuclear tests over the Pacific Ocean, through the Beveridge Report, the Trade Union Bill and the development of the United Nations.

 

British Labour Party Papers, 1968-1994

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: The Parliamentary Labour Party is the organisation of Labour members of Parliament (MPs) founded in 1906. Included in this collection are all the minutes of the Party Meetings, the Liaison Committee and the Parliamentary Committee (Shadow Cabinet) for the period 1968-1994. This period represents a turbulent one in British politics, during the early part of which Labour were twice in power. It begins with the latter half of a Labour government under Harold Wilson and ends during the period of Margaret Beckett’s caretaker leadership after the death of John Smith. It covers the three-day week, becoming members of the EEC, the Margaret Thatcher years, including the Falklands War and the miners’ strike, the sift to New Realism and the progress to the top of Tony Blair.

 

Chicago Defender

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: Chicago Defender provides more than six decades of this newspaper’s historic coverage, online and easily searchable. The newspaper was a proponent of The Great Migration, the move of over 1.5 million African-Americans from the segregated South to the industrial North from 1915 to 1925. It reported on the Red Summer race riots of 1919, and editorialized for anti-lynching legislation and the integration of blacks into the U.S. military.
Coverage: 1910-1975.

 

Chile and the United States: U.S. Policy toward Democracy, Dictatorship, and Human Rights, 1970–1990

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: This collection presents 2,842 once-secret, U.S. records--among them hundreds of declassified Top Secret CIA operational memos, cables, and reports--as well as records from the archives and courts of other nations tracing the U.S. role in Chile from the Nixon administration's covert efforts to block the election and inauguration of Salvador Allende, through the military takeover of September 11, 1973, to the end of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship and his eventual arrest in London.

 

China Law Info (Chinese language version)

Access Information: Access on and off campus
Description: Also known as Beida fabao, China Law Info is a bilingual database for China legal documents and information. The database provides both the original Chinese version and the English translation of China laws and regulations, judicial cases, tax treaties, white papers, law journals and gazettes, as well as other China legal information such as legal news and legislative/regulatory updates. The database is updated daily. .
Note: The English version can also be accessed from the Chinese version by clicking the menu button ‘English’. All the English translations are accompanied by their original Chinese texts and the English and Chinese texts can be displayed side by side. All the documents can be read online or downloaded by clicking the ‘Download’ button in the top right corner.

 

Churchill Archive

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

Until recently the only way to access this historical resource was to visit the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge, now researchers can browse the nearly 800,000 private letters, speeches, telegrams, manuscripts, government transcripts and other key historical documents within the archive.

Search the Churchill catalogue online, browse by topic and period and explore the people and places which appear in the archive.

 

CIA Family Jewels Indexed

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

The work of the National Security Archive's efforts over 15 years to obtain the CIA's most closely held secrets about their domestic intelligence activities conducted at the height of the Cold War, through 1973. Among the most controversial documents ever compiled by the Central Intelligence Agency, the "Family Jewels" represents the CIA's own view, in 1973, of those domestic activities it had engaged in up to that time that were outside its charter, hence illegal.

 

Cleveland Call & Post

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
  amps, and cigarettes. It also encouraged donations to the defense fund for the innocent youths, reminding its readers that the freedom of nine Southern black boys wasn’t all that was at stake — so were the rights of all black Americans to a fair jury trial. Through his newspaper, Walker also promoted participation in politics, urged the establishment of legal aid societies by the African-American community, and encouraged black solidarity and self-reliance. Today’s researchers can explore online 57 years of the Cleveland Call & Post.
Coverage: 1934-1991.

 

Congressional Record

Access Information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: ProQuest Congressional is a comprehensive online collection of primary source congressional publications and legislative research materials covering all topics, including government, current events, politics, economics, business, science and technology, international relations, social issues, finance, insurance, and medicine. Finding aid for congressional hearings, committee prints, committee reports and documents from 1970-present, and the daily Congressional Record from 1985-present. Compiled legislative histories from 1969-present.

 

The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

Access information: Access on and off campus. 
Description:

The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (from the Digital National Security Archive) presents an integrated, comprehensive record of U.S. decision making during the most dangerous U.S.-Soviet confrontation in the nuclear era.

Much of the documentation focuses on U.S. decision making during what Robert Kennedy called the "Thirteen Days" of the missile crisis—from McGeorge Bundy's October 16, 1962 briefing of President Kennedy on the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba to Nikita Khrushchev's October 28 decision to withdraw the weapons.

The numerous intelligence reports, diplomatic cables, political analyses, military situation reports, and meeting minutes included in the set portray both the deliberative process and the execution of critical decisions made by the Kennedy administration during the crisis.

 

The Cuban Missile Crisis: 50th Anniversary Update

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

This is a rich update consisting the latest declassified documentation on the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, supplementing the DNSA’s collections, with never-before-published records from U.S. and Soviet archives, highlights from the archive of Anastas Mikoyan - the Soviet leader who negotiated the end of the crisis, U.S. Navy tracking reports, briefing documents for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and formerly classified U.S. intelligence materials. Also in this update are 4 volumes of the CIA’s internal history of the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961.

 

The Database for the History of Contemporary Chinese Political Movements, 1949-

Access information:

Access on or off campus.

Description:

The database provides full-text primary source materials relating to the Chinese political movements after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949: the Political Campaigns in the 1950s from Land Reform to Public-Private Cooperation (1949-1956), the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957–), the Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine (1958-1964), and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Sources include government documents, directives, bulletins, speeches by Mao Zedong and other officials, major newspaper and magazine editorials, and other types of documents. All the documents are in Chinese, but the database platform can be switched to English where document titles can be browsed in English.

Further details: For more information on this database, please visit the Chinese University Press website.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

This resource consists of expertly curated, and meticulously indexed, declassified government documents covering U.S. policy toward critical world events – including their military, intelligence, diplomatic and human rights dimensions – from 1945 to the present. Each collection is assembled by foreign policy experts and features chronologies, glossaries, bibliographies, and scholarly overviews to provide unparalleled access to the defining international issues of our time.

The University's access includes the following databases:

For a complete description of each database, please see the individual entries on the alphabetical databases pages.

 

Documents on British Policy Overseas

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Documents on British Policy Overseas offers researchers the opportunity to see beneath the surface of the major events of the twentieth century. Users can access contemporary accounts and follow the detailed exchanges that shaped British foreign policy from the origins of the First World War and beyond.

 

Donald Rumsfeld's Snowflakes, Part I: The Pentagon and U.S. Foreign Policy, 2001-2003

Access information:

Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.

Description:

Donald Rumsfeld's "snowflakes" are a unique resource, coming directly from the Defence Secretary's desk. Part 1 provides unprecedented insight into the workings of the Pentagon during the early years of the Bush administration. Snowflakes offers glimpses into Rumsfeld's day-to-day concerns covering everything from relations with Russia, China, and other nations to the DOD's strategy and conduct in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to communications with the White House and battles with Pentagon bureaucracy.

 

Donald Rumsfeld's Snowflakes, Part II: The Pentagon and U.S. Foreign Policy, 2004-2006

Access information:

Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.

Description:

Donald Rumsfeld's blizzard of "snowflakes" comes to an end with Part 2. These revealing memoranda illuminate the large and small issues confronting the Pentagon during the second term of the Bush administration and Rumsfeld’s daily administration of the U.S. Defense Department until his resignation. In addition to Rumsfeld’s musings about defense spending, government bureaucracy, political appointments, and office etiquette, the collection includes substantive responses to his inquiries from high-level civilian staff members and military commanders on significant national security topics, such as manpower needs in the prosecution of two wars, reconstruction and democratization in Iraq and Afghanistan, and modernization of the U.S. military.

 

Economist Intelligence Unit Country Reports Archive

Access Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Country Reports Archive provides detailed coverage of political, economic, and commercial developments covering all countries from 1952 to 1995. Comprehensive quarterly overviews allow researchers to gain a thorough understanding of an event, policy, or development. In addition to the highly regarded, impartial insight from EIU researchers, each report contains tables with detailed country-level statistics downloadable to Excel.
Coverage 1952-1995.

 

Electronic Surveillance and the National Security Agency: From Shamrock to Snowden

Access Access on and off campus.
Description A collection of leaked and declassified records documenting U.S. and allied electronic surveillance policies, relationships, and activities. It serves as an addition to several National Security Archive documents sets - including those on U.S. Intelligence and the National Security Agency. The records provide information on the limitations imposed on electronic surveillance activities, organizations, legal authorities, collection activities, and liaison relationships.

 

European Sources Online

Access information: Open access
Description: European Sources Online (ESO) is an online database and information service which provides access to information on the institutions and activities of the European Union, the countries, regions and other international organisations of Europe, and on issues of importance to European researchers, citizens and stakeholders.

 

Access information: Access on and off-campus.
Description:

This resource covers the political and social history of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1947 to 1980, featuring essential content on Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and Kashmir, as well as other frontier regions. Files look at the impact on UK, US and European trade, industrial policy, education and the media through a vast array of material including diplomatic dispatches, inward and outward telegrams, newspaper cuttings and transcripts, maps, photographs, political and economic reports, accounts of visits and tours, minutes of meetings, conference proceedings, letters, leaflets and more.

 

House of Commons Parliamentary Papers

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description: The 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st Century House of Commons Parliamentary Papers contains bibliographic records and searchable full text for papers printed between 1688-2014. It also includes Hansard 1803-2005.
Further information: The collection does not include the House of Commons Journal, or daily business papers, such as Order papers and Votes and Proceedings, nor does it include Acts.  User guide located at http://proquest.libguides.com/parliamentary
Note: Access to 2015-2020 content is available until 31 July 2023.

 

House of Lords Parliamentary Papers (1800-1910)

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description:

The House of Lords Parliamentary Papers (1800-1910) is an essential research resource that, along with the existing House of Commons Parliamentary Papers database, provides a complete picture of the working and influence of the UK Parliament during the pivotal 19th century. As the working documents of government, the papers encompass wide areas of social, political, economic and foreign policy, and many contributors were found outside the official world – providing evidence to committees and commissions during a time when the Lords still wielded considerable power.

The Library already has access to the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers and the two databases are cross-searchable.

Further information: User guide located at http://proquest.libguides.com/parliamentary

 

Independent Labour Party Records, 1893-1960

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British left-wing political party founded in 1893. The ILP was affiliated with the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932. This collection contains minute books, annual reports, committee reports, conference resolutions, and weekly notes for speakers from the party's archive. These documents cover a wide range of subjects, from questions of war and peace to housing and trade unionism. They provide an excellent insight into the early years of the Labour movement in Britain.

 

 

IBSS (International Bibliography of Social Science) Online

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

Produced by the British Library of Political and Economic Science, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) is an essential online resource for social science and interdisciplinary research focusing on the four core social science subjects of anthropology, economics, politics, and sociology. IBSS includes over 2.5 million bibliographic references to journal articles, books, reviews and selected chapters dating back to 1951. Over 2,800 journals are regularly indexed and some 7,000 book and chapter records are included each year. Abstracts are provided for around 80% of all current journal articles and users can link to the full text of articles in journals subscribed to by the University of Edinburgh.

Userguide: http://proquest.libguides.com/IBSS

 

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)

Access information: Access on and off campus. For off campus access please use the University VPN - Access to the University network via the VPN.
Description:

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), based at the University of Michigan, is an international consortium of 750 academic institutions and research organizations.  ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 250,000 files of research in the social and behavioural sciences. It hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.

 

Access Information: Access on and off campus.
Description: The documents in this collection include every exhibit released by the official investigations of the Iran-Contra Affair, including the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Tower Commission, the joint select Congressional committees, and the Independent Counsel. Iran-Contra focuses on the period from Fall 1983, when Congress first put limits on official U.S. assistance to the Contras, to the criminal indictments of Oliver North, Richard Secord, and Albert Hakim in Spring 1988.

 

Access Information: Access on and off campus.
Description: The collection brings together a wealth of materials which trace U.S. policy toward Iraq prior to the Persian Gulf War, as well as U.S. government reactions to revelations about the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) scandal and the secret arming of Saddam Hussein's regime. The set also focuses on the economic issues at play in the U.S. relationship with Iraq. Documents are derived from virtually every federal agency involved in U.S.-Iraq policy and the BNL affair.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Full-text journal archive service providing access to complete back runs of all the scholarly journals currently available in JSTOR. Recent volumes are excluded, usually the last 3-5 years, but each year a further year is added to the archive. Each title is listed in DiscoverEd. About 4-5% of Artstor images migrated into Jstor are not accessible outside the United States.
Coverage:

The collections currently available are:

  • Arts & Sciences 1-15
  • Biological Sciences
  • Business I-IV Collection
  • Business & Economics
  • Ecology & Botany II
  • Global Plants
  • Health & General Sciences
  • Hebrew Journals
  • Ireland
  • Jewish Studies Collection
  • JSTOR Essential Collection
  • Language & Literature
  • Lives of Literature
  • Life Sciences
  • Mathematics & Statistics
  • Music
  • Religion and Theology
  • Security Studies
  • Sustainability
  • World Heritage Sites: Africa

The 19th Century British Pamphlets Collections is also available via JSTOR.  Userguides to the various collections can be found at https://guides.jstor.org

 

Kenya Under Colonial Rule, in Government Reports, 1907-1964

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: The colony of Kenya was managed by the government departments who wrote these A1:F79 reports. They start when Kenya was a part of the East Africa Colony and continue until independence. The statistics for Kenya are included in Colonial Africa in official statistics, 1821-1953. These reports explain why those statistics are at the levels recorded. The contents pages at the front of each report list the departments which existed at that time. Comparing the contents pages reveals how the structure of the colonial government changed over time.

 

Access Information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

This collection documents Kissinger's conversations with top officials in the Nixon and Ford administrations, senior officials as well as noted journalists, ambassadors, and business leaders close to the White House.

Topics range widely, including detente with Moscow, the Vietnam War, the Jordanian crisis (1970), rapprochement with China, the Middle East negotiations, U.S.- European relations, U.S-Japan relations, the Cyprus crisis, and the unfolding Watergate crisis.

 

Access: Access on and off campus.
Description: These documents cover Kissinger's time in office as National Security Adviser and then Secretary of State. Some three quarters of the 2,163 declassified documents in this collection were produced by Kissinger and his assistants on the National Security Council Staff. Even after Kissinger became Secretary of State, he relied on the NSC system for keeping meeting records, especially of the most sensitive matters such as relations with Beijing and Moscow, Middle East diplomacy, or meetings with the president.
Coverage: 1969-1977

 

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description:

This resource gives rich insight into the efforts of the Executive Branch of U.S. government to reach out to the burgeoning Latino population during the last 2 years of the Carter Administration. Major topics covered in this collection include inflation, bilingual education, police brutality, political unrest in Latin America, Haitian refugees, and immigration (legal and otherwise), Puerto Rican self-determination, and the U.S. Navy’s use of Vieques Island. Latino Civil Rights during the Carter Administration also documents some of the most important Latino organizations of the time, including LULAC, TELACU, La Raza, the Puerto Rican Legal Defence and Education Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defence and Education Fund, and the American G.I. Forum.

 

Los Angeles Sentinel

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: FROM ITS EARLIEST beginnings when it urged African-Americans not to “spend your money where you can’t work,” the Los Angeles Sentinel has exposed prejudice, promoted social change, and empowered the black community. By accessing more than 70 years of cover-to-cover reporting, today’s readers view the Depression through the eyes of African-Americans in the 1930s. They can follow the grass-roots struggle against the racially restrictive housing covenants of the 1940s. Researchers can follow Roy Wilkins’ column, “The Watchtower,” and see how he attacked efforts to label civil rights activists as “communists” during the Cold War. Today, this independent publication continues to cover community and world issues from the unique cultural perspective of the Los Angeles African-American community.
Coverage: 1934-2005.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Migration to New Worlds explores the movement of peoples from Great Britain, Ireland, mainland Europe and Asia to the New World and Australasia. From government-led population drives during the early nineteenth century through to mass steamship travel, it showcases unique primary source material recounting the many and varied personal experiences of migration. Most material comes from the period 1800-1924, the ‘Century of Immigration’, but there is some earlier and later material included as well. Explore Colonial Office files on emigration, diaries and travel journals, ship logs and plans, printed literature, objects, watercolours, and oral histories.

 

National Security Archive Index

Access information: Single user CD-ROM workstation, Main Library.
Description: A database of the 12 collection indexes and guides included in The Making of US Policy series produced by the National Security Archive. It covers topics such as Afghanistan, the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, El Salvador, the Iran-Contra Affair and Nicaragua.

 

News, Policy & Politics Magazine Archive

Access information:

Access on or off campus.

Description:

Offering full runs of 15 major 20th-century titles, in full-color, page-image format. News, Policy and Politics Magazine Archive makes newly available and accessible these key sources, for which the archival print issues have not consistently been retained by libraries. Titles include Newsweek, UN Chronicle, NATO Review and New Internationalist.

Coverage: 1918-2015

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: The British Politics and Society archive of Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO) is packed with primary source documentation that enhances a greater understanding and analysis of the development of urban centers and of the major restructuring of society that took place during the Industrial Revolution. The archive is composed of a number of individual collections, drawn together from a variety of sources.

 

Northern Ireland Official Publications Archive

Access information: Freely available from The Library at Queen’s University Belfast .
Description:

The Library at Queen’s University Belfast has been developing an online archive, known as the Northern Ireland Official Publications Archive (NIOPA).

NIOPA is fully searchable with browsing and full text functionality and, as a digital archive of Northern Ireland official publications, makes documents available to support the research community, government departments and the wider public.

For your information, NIOPA records and documents are deposited with the British Library under the Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print Works) Regulations 2013.

 

Overton

Access information:

Access on and off campus - see registration guidance in Notes below.

Notes:

Use your University of Edinburgh email address to create a personal account via The Library's institutional subscription:

https://app.overton.io/ui/auth/register?group_code=unie61b0

Future access can then be direct from app.overton.io

Description:

A large searchable index of policy documents, guidelines, think tank publications and working papers from sources that are typically difficult to find in one place. Documents are parsed to find references, people and key concepts in relevant news stories, academic research, think tank output and other policy literature.  Full-text indexing can lead to discovery of additional citations.

Coverage:

Over 11 million full-text policy documents and grey literature from 32,000 organisations in 188 countries

 

Access information: Access on and off campus
Description: Complete text of scholarly books published by Oxford University Press in the subject areas below.
Coverage: Archaeology, Biology, Business & Management, Chemistry, Classical Studies, Clinical Medicine and Allied Health, Computer and Information Science, Earth Sciences and Geography, Economics and Finance, Education, Environmental Science, History, Law, Linguistics, Literature, Mathematics, Music, Neuroscience, Palliative Care, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Public Health and Epidemiology, Religion, Social Work and Sociology. We have access to over 20,700 e-books.

 

Access Information: Access on and off campus
Description: PAIS (originally, the Public Affairs Information Service) was established in 1914. There are two databases created from the files: PAIS International and PAIS Archive. This resource covers issues in the public debate through selective coverage of a wide variety of international sources including journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference papers, web content, and more. PAIS International is the current file covering 1972 to present. Topics covered include: Economic conditions, Education, Energy resources and policy, Government, Health conditions, Human rights, International Relations, Labor conditions and policy, Politics, Social conditions, Civil rights movement. PAIS Archive is a retrospective conversion of the PAIS Annual Cumulated Bulletin, volumes 1-62, published 1915-1976.

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) remains the best-known of the Chamberlain family due to his controversial policy of "appeasement" towards Hitler. The Papers of Neville Chamberlain contain political papers documenting his policies as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister, but also highlight his personal correspondence with his family. These provide insight into the intentions behind his policies, his concerns at the development of the Second World War, as well as letters covering his life together with his wife Annie and his sisters, particularly Hilda and Ida. The correspondence of his wife with his biographer and the handling of his estates following his death can be found in this collection as well.

 

Access Information:

Access on and off campus.

Description:

Difficult to find publications in one place, built around a directory of over 21,000 policy organisations. Provides access to 2.4 million books, articles, working papers, reports, policy briefs, data sets, tables, charts, media, case studies, and statistical publications from organisations including inter-governmental organisations, non-governmental organisations, think-tanks and other research centres.

The search interface also enables searching for tables within reports.

Registered users can receive alerts of material added to the database.

Political Science Complete

Access information Access on and off campus.
Description: Political Science Complete provides nearly 340 full-text reference books and monographs and more than 44,000 full-text conference papers, which includes those from the International Political Science Association. The database also provides a subject-specific thesaurus with more than 23,500 terms to provide subject searching guidance to researchers. Subject coverage includes comparative politics, humanitarian issues, international relations, law and legislation, non-governmental organizations and political theory.
Coverage: 1965 - present.

 

Access Information: Access on and off campus
Description: Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt through to Richard M. Nixon all secretly recorded many of their conversations in the Oval Office. The resulting 5,000 hours of telephone and meeting tape recorded during their time in the White House capture some of the most significant moments in modern American political history. From Birmingham to Berlin, from Medicare to My Lai, from Selma to SALT, and from Watts to Watergate, the presidential recordings offer a unique window into the shaping of U.S. domestic and foreign policy. This history is now accessible via the Presidential Recordings Digital Edition (PRDE), the online portal for annotated transcripts of the White House tapes published by the Presidential Recordings Program (PRP). The transcripts are presented in PRDE alongside the corresponding audio, enabling users to read and listen to these conversations simultaneously. The database currently has recordings and transcripts from Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon and the site is updated regularly.

 

Project Syndicate

Access information:

Access on and off campus. 

Description:

Project Syndicate provides commentaries by distinguished economists and policymakers. Sections include Economics, Politics, Development, Sustainability, Culture, and Innovation. Includes archive of past articles, including in-depth thematic coverage via ‘Big Picture’

 

ProQuest Congressional

Access information:

Access on or off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.

Description:

ProQuest Congressional offers a comprehensive collection of congressional documents from 1789 to the present. This primary source collection offers you an opportunity to understand the present by comparing today’s events and opinions with trends and patterns throughout our nation’s history. The Library has access to the following collections through ProQuest Congressional:

  • Congressional Basic.
  • Congressional Hearings Digital Collection Historical Archive, Parts A-C (1824-2010).
  • Congressional House and Senate Unpublished Hearings, Parts A-C (1973-1992).
  • Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection, Parts A-D (1789-2009).
  • Congressional Research Digital Collection Historical Archive, Parts A-B (1830-2010).
  • Digital U.S. Bills and Resolutions, 1789-2013.
  • Executive Branch Documents, Parts 1-6 (1789-1952).
  • Executive Orders and Presidential Proclamations, 1789-Present.
  • U.S. Serial Set 1 Digital Collection, 1789-1969.
  • U.S. Serial Set 2 Digital Collection, Parts A-D (1970-2010).
  • U.S. Serial Set  Maps Digital Collection Complete.
Coverage: 1789 - present.

 

ProQuest Political Science

Access information. Access on and off campus.
Description.

This database gives users access to hundreds of leading political science and international relations journals, providing full-text of many core titles indexed in Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. In addition, over a thousand recent full-text doctoral dissertations on political science topics are included, together with working papers, conference proceedings, country profiles, political news and other sources.

Coverage: 1985 - current

 

Public Information Online

Access information:

Access on campus or off campus.

Description: Public Information Online contains material from the UK Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly & Scottish Government Papers. PIO contains a Bill Tracker for the UK Parliament, Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. This service is provided by Dandy Booksellers and is updated daily.
Coverage: UK Parliament (House of Commons- Papers 1998 onwards and Bills 1919 onwards, House of Lords Papers and Bills 1901 onwards, Command Papers 1955 onwards, Public Bill and General Committee Debates 1919 onwards, House of Commons and House of Lords Hansard 1909 onwards, Public General Acts 1901 onwards), Scottish Parliament (from session 3), Northern Ireland Assembly (from 2008/09 session), National Assembly for Wales (2008 onwards), Key non Parliamentary Publications in Education, Health, Charities, Defence, Transport and the Civil Service Yearbook (1947 onwards).  
Additional information: Please note that House of Commons / House of Lords Hansard volumes from 1909 can be searched and viewed online on Public Information Online, but not downloaded. Please see House of Commons Parliamentary Papers and House of Lords Papers for this functionality.

Roper iPoll

Access information:

Access on and off campus. 

Optional individual registration. Click the login button, find the University of Edinburgh from the drop-down menu and use your University email address to register.

Description: The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research is one of the world's leading archives of social science data, specialising in data from surveys of public opinion. The data held by the Roper Center range from the 1930s to the present. Most of the data are from the United States, but over 50 nations are represented. You can search for datasets by keyword, country, surveying agency, timeframe and type of sample.
Note: Some datasets require a separate agreement with the individual researcher(s) requesting access and are unrelated to institutional membership.Specific requirements vary across studies.

 

Access Information: Access on and off campus
Description:

Content from SAGE publisher (some unique to SRM) on the steps involved in a research project. Full range of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods for the social and behavioural sciences, as well as many methods commonly used in the hard sciences.

Topics: Key concepts in research, Philosophy of research, Research ethics, Planning research, Research design, Data collection, Data quality and data management, Qualitative data analysis, Quantitative data analysis,  Writing and disseminating research.

Userguide: http://sagepub.libguides.com/research-methods/researchmethods
Coverage:

1000+ books, case studies, datasets, encyclopaedias and journal articles, as well as features, such as the Methods Map visual browse tool using a custom taxonomy of 700+ methods terms.  Over 900 videos.  

 

Access Information: Access on and off campus
Description: The SHAFR Guide Online: An Annotated Bibliography of U.S. Foreign Relations since 1600 is a near-comprehensive, 2.1 million-word online annotated bibliography of historical work covering the entire span of U.S. foreign relations. It aims to jump-start the research of both students from high school to graduate school as well as the most advanced scholars. The SHAFR Guide Online should be the first place to which researchers turn when establishing a bibliography, whether it be about US-Latin American relations in the 19th century, World War II, or US-China/East Asia relations since the Vietnam War

 

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: Abstract and citation database containing both peer-reviewed research literature and quality web sources.  Contains over 16 million author profiles, 70,000 institutional profiles, 5000 publishers, 70 million records, 1.4 billion cited references, covers over 20,000 journals from health, life, physical and social sciences and the humanities.
Coverage: For some subject areas, from 1788 onwards.  
User guide: https://elsevier.libguides.com/Scopus/home
Note: The University of Edinburgh's Affiliation ID is 60027272 (used for configuring Papers 3 for Mac to work with Scopus).
Note: If you would like to register to receive personalised searches, alerts etc then select "Other Institution login", then add "Edinburgh" to the search box to find the University of Edinburgh log in link, select the Shibboleth option if requested.

 

Scottish nationalist leaflets, 1844-1973

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description:

From British Online Archives many of the pamphlets included in this collection were printed by the Scottish National Party and its predecessors. Authors include Archie Lamont, Hugh MacDiarmid, and William Mitchell. These items contain research and policy proposals for how an independent Scotland might manage financially. They also contain both a pamphlet of nationalist songs and a history of the nationalist movement which was printed in 1853. The idea of using of oil wealth to support an independent Scotland can be traced back to the 1970s. Questions about how the European Union might affect independence also date back to these papers.

 

Socialist and Radical Periodicals

Access information:

Access on and off-campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.

Description:

The backfiles of more than 25 periodicals reflecting the 20th/21st–century history of a variety of movements and ideologies on the political left. These titles include Marxist, socialist, communist, social democratic, and Fabianist publications, addressing key topics and events such as labour history / workers' rights, international socialism, anti-Nazi movements, Red Scares, class struggles, campaigns / legislation, and youth radicalism.

 

Access Information: Freely available
Description:

A range of official statistics about Scotland for information and re-use. Datasets can be explored by theme, organisation, or geography. You can search for datasets, places or postcodes. Or you can access the data programmatically using our APIs. Major publishers of data on this website include the Scottish Government, National Records of Scotland, and NHS.

Additional information:

Queries regarding this website can be directed to statistics.enquiries@gov.scot

 

Students for a Democratic Society, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: This resource has key collections offering new opportunities for research on the 1960s through the lens of two influential anti-war organizations. In its heyday, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) emphasized participatory democracy, community building, and creating a political movement of impoverished people. As U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War escalated, SDS became involved in the anti-war movement, before splintering and disbanding by 1970. Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) organized major national protests, including Operation Dewey Canyon III (1971), which catapulted VVAW to a position of leadership within the antiwar movement. Following Dewey Canyon, an ideological split led to a decline in membership; however, VVAW survived to the end of the Vietnam War by focusing on veterans' benefits and, after 1987, on the Agent Orange health issue. In addition to the SDS and VVAW collections, this module contains documents of 10 other anti-Vietnam War organizations.
Coverage: 1958-1987.

 

TV Rain Video Archive

Access information:

Access on and off campus. For off campus, please use the VPN - Access to the University network via the VPN.

Our subscription agent advises that new programming has been suspended as of March 3, 2022, but access remains available to the archived programming.07/03/2022

Description:

TV Rain is Russia’s only independent television channel. The TV Rain Video Archive holds thousands of TV programmes, reports and interviews about today’s Russia. 

 

U.S. Declassified Documents Online

Access information:

Access on and off campus.

Description: This database provides access to previously classified documents that were used to develop and implement U.S. domestic and foreign policy and deal with events and crises. The comprehensive compilation of declassified documents comes from presidential libraries, the Department of State, Department of Defense, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, United Nations, National Security Council, and other executive agencies.

 

U.S. Policy in the Vietnam War, Part I: 1954-1968

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

This collection documents the deadliest conflict in modern U.S. history prior to the current war against terrorism. The goal was to assemble both classic and relatively well-known documentary sources as well as the most recent declassified materials, making a single comprehensive resource for primary substantive research on the Vietnam conflict. The principal focus of this collection is on the period of the Vietnam War between 1961 and 1968.

 

U.S. Policy in the Vietnam War, Part II: 1969-1975

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description:

This is the most important compilation of documents available on the final phase of the Vietnam War. Incorporating newly released documents, virtually all previously classified, it covers all the major issues from the period, including diplomatic, military, and intelligence aspects of the Vietnam war during the period of the Nixon and Ford administrations.

 

Very Short Introductions

Access information: Access on and off campus
Description:

Online version of Oxford University Presss Very Short Introductions series. Written by experts in the field they offer a bridge between reference content and higher academic work.

Launched by Oxford University Press in 1995, Very Short Introductions offer concise introductions to a diverse range of subjects from Climate to Consciousness, Game Theory to Ancient Warfare, Privacy to Islamic History, Economics to Literary Theory.

Since the series was launched it has continued to offer new books each year for students and scholars, offering a bridge between reference content and higher academic work. All titles provide intelligent and serious introductions to a range of subjects, written by experts in the field who combine facts, analysis, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make challenging topics highly readable.

Every month the newest Introductions are published online.

 

Vietnam War and American Foreign Policy 

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: Vietnam War and American Foreign Policy covers the U.S. involvement in the region from the early days of the Kennedy administration, through the escalation of the war during the Johnson administration, to the final resolution of the war at the Paris Peace Talks and the evacuation of U.S. troops. Along the way, documents in this module trace the actions and decisions at the highest levels of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus, as well as events on the ground in Vietnam, from the perspective of State Department officials, Associated Press reporters, and members of the U.S. Armed forces, including the Marines and the Military Assistance Command Vietnam.
Coverage: 1960-1975.

 

Web of Science Core Collection

 
Access information:

Access on and off campus.

  Russian Science Citation Index is not presently included in the Web of Science.
Description:

Citations and abstracts to millions of journal articles and conference proceedings from all subjects. Cited reference searching, Impact Factors, h-indexes and email alerts available.

Coverage:

Arts & Humanities (1975 onwards), Science and Social Sciences Citation Indexes (both 1900 onwards), Conference Proceedings in Science and Social Science & Humanities (both 1990 onwards).

Also: Book Citation Indexes in Science and Social Sciences & Humanities (both 2005 onwards), Current Chemical Reactions (1986 onwards), Emerging Sources Citation Index (2015 onwards), Current Chemical Reactions (1985 onwards), Index Chemicus (1993 onwards).

Change "Search in:" to use: BIOSIS Citation Index (1926 onwards), Current Contents Connect (1998 onwards), Data Citation Index (1990 onwards), Derwent Innovations Index (1966 onwards), KCI-Korean Journal Database (1980 onwards), Medline (1950 onwards), PrePrint Citation Index (1991 onwards), ProQuest Dissertatoins & Theses Citation Index (1637 onwards), SciELO Citation Index (2002 onwards), Zoological Record (1864 onwards).

Help:

Publisher userguide

Finding articles which have in their reference lists a work you found useful ('cited reference searching'):

Cited Reference Searching (pdf)

 

Journal Citation Reports (JCR): 

Journal Impact Factors and other measures on JCR (pdf)

 

Who's Who and Who Was Who

Access information:

Access on or off campus.

Description:

Who’s Who and Who Was Who  have been published since 1849, and contain biographical information about over 134,000 influential noteworthy and influential individuals worldwide. Approximately one thousand new entries are added every year.

 

World War I: Records of the American Expeditionary Forces, and Diplomacy in the World War I Era

Access information: Access on and off campus. The Library's subscription to this resource expires 31 July 2024.
Description: This resource offers extensive documentation on the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during World War I as well as materials on U.S. intelligence operations and the post-war peace process. AEF documents consist of correspondence, cablegrams, operations reports, statistical strength reports and summaries of intelligence detailing troop movements and operations of Allied and enemy forces. The vast majority of the AEF documents date from April 26, 1917 - July 2, 1919.
Coverage: 1915-1927.

 

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

Access information: Access on and off campus.
Description: This database provides abstracts and indexing of the international literature of political science and international relations, along with complementary fields, including international law and public administration/policy. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,500+ serials publications and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations and working papers.

Related Links

Subject guide: Politics