Research Guides: HIST/EALC 296: China and Africa: Historical Encounters and Contemporary Legacies (HC): Primary Sources: Texts and Images

Images as Primary Sources

"Chairman Mao is the great liberator of the world's revolutionary people", 1968 (Source: flickr, CC 2.0 Generic license)

Primary Sources

Primary sources can take many different forms. Letters, accounts and other kinds of documents written at the time of an event or era allow a nuanced and detailed understanding of historical issues. Material below explains ways to locate primary sources in Tripod and Worldcat. To find additional primary sources, historical studies in books and journal articles will often offer the best recommendations. Check footnotes and bibliographies for references to material written in the period of time you are researching.

Primary Source Databases and Websites

Adam Matthew Explorer
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Search across 63 primary source databases from Adam Matthew covering historical, cultural and political topics from around the world. The databases reproduce letters, diaries, government records, illustrations and other materials drawn from museum and library collections.
See the excel file below for a list of the individual databases. You will have better searching options within an individual database rather than in this group search.

Adam Matthew Database Title List

African Newspapers
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Search through 40 newspapers published in African countries between 1800-1922. Includes newspapers in English, Portuguese, Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaans, and other languages.

Africans in China
This website gathers information about research, films, news and more concerning the African presence in China. Note in particular the Research tab. The site is administered by Robert Castillo at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.
Afro-Asian Networks: Transitions in the Global South
This website from the University of Bristol focuses on historical connections in a colonial and postcolonial world. See the research group's publications, blogs and data visualization on historic international conferences. The list of other research projects is especially helpful.
China Africa Project
This digital collection, ending in 2019, described itself as "dedicated to exploring every aspect of China’s growing engagement with Africa through a combination of original content and curation of third-party material from across the Internet." It was sponsored by the Asia Society. For more current information see the project now part of the China Global South Project. Note in particular which are available open access.
China and Africa Digital Archive Collection
Online collection of 50+ Chinese documents concerning relations with countries in Africa, particularly during the 1960s. This collection is part of a larger digital archive sponsored by the Wilson Center.
China Trade, Politics and Culture, 1793-1980
This collection contains a wide range of materials documenting western interaction with China from the first embassy by Lord Macartney to trade negotiations for military aircraft in the 1970s. It includes contains maps, drawings and photographs, and personal accounts of life and work in China throughout the period.
Chinese in Africa Africans in China Research Network
This research organization provides a rich array of materials. See especially the Teaching and Research Resources which includes reading lists, digital sources, new books and films. The site is sponsored by Michigan State University.
Late Qing and Republican-Era Chinese Newspapers
The Late Qing and Republican-Era Chinese Newspapers collection (292 papers in Chinese) provides invaluable perspective on this critical period. The press of more than twenty cities is represented, spanning the Chinese mainland and the entire half century. The collection provides researchers a richly comprehensive perspective on Chinese life, culture, and politics throughout the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the years of provisional government and civil war, and the birth of the People’s Republic.

New York Times
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Full-text access to news articles, blog posts, videos, images, and multimedia features. Coverage from 1851-present. Use the link New York Times for the most recent 5 years. It requires an initial registration but then you will have access with your password for a full year. From the Tripod catalog follow the Sign Up prompt to register for your year-long academic pass.
If you want articles in the NY Times more than 5 years old, use the Proquest Historical Newspapers link for a more sophisticated search interface.

Peking Review
English language national news magazine published by the Chinese Communist party. Pdfs of issues from 1958 through 2006. See the partial subject index.
Times Digital Archive
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This British newspaper of record began publication in 1785. This digital database covers issues from 1785 through 2019.

Finding Printed Copies of Primary Sources

Primary source translations that are in the Tricollege libraries will often be listed in Tripod under subject terms using the word "sources" or "personal narratives." For example, the search Keyword: (communis* OR mao) AND Subject: (china OR chinese) AND Subject: (sources OR "personal narratives") produces books and articles including some titles listed below.

This search for sources, with differing literary forms specified, can provide additional titles:

Subject: (memoir* OR autobiog* OR diary* OR diaries OR letter* OR correspondence OR sources OR "personal narratives") AND subject: (africa OR african*) AND keyword: "20th century" NOT american* Selected results listed below.

China Candid: The People on the People's Republic by Sang Ye; Geremie Barmé; Miriam Lang
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ISBN: 1423731476
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Leading Chinese journalist Sang Ye follows his successful book Chinese Lives with this collection of absorbing interviews with twenty-six men, women, and children taking the reader into the complex realities of the People's Republic of China today. Through intimate conversations conducted over many years, China Candid provides an alternative history of the nation from its founding as a socialist state in 1949 up to the present.
Search for Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence
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ISBN: 9780393920857
Publication Date: 2013-06-26
The new edition of this outstanding documents collection displays a stronger blend of social history-pieces reflecting everyday life, family, social networks, and culture-and political history-critical proclamations, treaties, laws, and other public acts. Many of the documents are translated into English for the first time and available only in this book. Informative headnotes accompany the selections, providing context and helping students with unfamiliar names, places, and events. This collection is the perfect source for a firsthand look at modern Chinese history.
Twentieth Century China by R. Keith Schoppa
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ISBN: 0195147456
Publication Date: 2004-09-16
In its period of slow decline from the late 18th into the early 20th century and throughout its 20th century revolution, one of the most important problems facing individual Chinese and China as a nation was choosing appropriate political, social, cultural, and economic identities. This book offers government edicts, political cartoons, poetry, political manifestos, essays, fiction, magazine covers and advertisements, wills, trial transcripts, speeches, statistics, press releases, and even Chinese rock lyrics.
Africa and the West : A Documentary History Vol. 2 From Colonialism to Independence, 1875 to the Present by William Worger
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This collection of primary sources focuses on African voices in the twentieth century.
Africa: War and Conflict in the Twentieth Century by Timothy Stapleton
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ISBN: 9781138281950
Publication Date: 2018-05-02
This book examines the causes, course and consequences of warfare in twentieth century Africa, a period which spanned colonial rebellions, both World Wars, and the decolonization process. Supported by a a timeline of major events and a set of documents which highlight the themes of the book.
The German Colonial Experience: Select Documents on German Rule in Africa, China, and the Pacific 1884-1914 by Arthur J. Knoll (Editor); Hermann J. Hiery (Editor)
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ISBN: 9780761839002
Publication Date: 2010-03-10
Provides readers with an understanding of how the Germans gained, explored, pacified, ruled, and exploited their colonies prior to their loss in World War I. It shows how Africans, Chinese, and Pacific Islanders reacted to German rule, Germans' vision for the colonized peoples, and how the colonizers and the colonized perceived one another.

Visual Resources

Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art
This is a continuation of the Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages. The site features over 5,000 posters searchable by keyword. The posters are examples of unique primary sources.
See the list of over 275 groups organized by time period and topic. Note links for Foreign Friends, African Friends, TAZARA Railway and National Liberation Movements.
Samuel Fosso : Autoportrait
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See Samuel Fosso's photographic work reflecting on Mao in "Emperor of Africa." The book includes an essay by art critic Claire Staebler on the series of photographs.

JSTOR Images (formerly Artstor)
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A digital library that provides access to thousands of digital images derived from a variety of museum, library and archival collections. Images support a variety of disciplines including architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design.