Asian History
Primary Sources in Books
Primary sources can be published in books. Use the main search in Library Search and include search terms personal narratives, sources, diaries, memoirs, papers, speeches, documents, or letters.
Personal narratives is a term assigned by librarians and is used for first person accounts.
Diaries and memoirs are terms used by writers and editors to describe their document. These are also normally in the first person.
Autobiography is often assigned to diaries and memoirs.
Letters and correspondence are published correspondence and occasionally include both outgoing and incoming letters.
Papers include correspondence, speeches and other previously unpublished items by the author.
Speeches were written to be spoken and have often been published.
Sources is another term assigned by librarians and often includes all of the types of documents listed above as well as government records.
Sample Books with Primary Sources
Beijing Spring, 1989 by Call Number: General Stacks DS779.32 .B45 1990ISBN: 0873326830Publication Date: 1990A collection of documents, with commentary, which trace the day-to-day pronouncements, utterances, and reflections from all sides of the conflict in China in the spring of 1989. The 65 documents are arranged chronologically, starting in early March and ending in late June.
The Great Famine in China, 1958-1962 by Call Number: General Stacks HC430.F3 G74 2012ISBN: 9780300175189Publication Date: 2012Beginning soon after the implementation of the policies of the Great Leap Forward of 1958-1961, when the drive to collectivize and industrialize undermined the livelihoods of the vast majority of peasant workers, China';s Great Famine was the worst famine in human history. In addition to claiming more than 45 million lives, it also led to the destruction of agriculture, industry, trade, and every aspect of human life, leaving large parts of the Chinese countryside scarred forever by human-created environmental disasters. Drawing on previously closed archives that have since been made inaccessible again, Zhou Xun offers readers, for the first time in English, access to the most vital archival documentation of the famine.
New Qing Imperial History: The Making of Inner Asian Empire at Qing Chengde by ISBN: 9780415320061Publication Date: 2004New Qing Imperial History uses the Manchu summer capital of Chengde and associated architecture, art and ritual activity as the focus for an exploration of the importance of Inner Asia and Tibet to the Qing Empire (1636-1911). Well-known contributors argue that the Qing was not simply another Chinese dynasty, but was deeply engaged in Inner Asia not only militarily, but culturally, politically and ideologically. Emphasizing the diverse range of peoples in the Qing empire, this book analyzes the importance to Chinese history of Manchu relations with Tibetan prelates, Mongolian chieftains, and the Turkic elites of Xinjiang. By using a specific artifact or text as a starting point for analysis in each chapter, the contributors not only include material previously unavailable in English but allow the reader an intimate knowledge of life at Chengde and its significance to the Qing period as a whole.
Wild Lily, Prairie Fire by ISBN: 9780691043586Publication Date: 1995This is a source book of documents of democratic dissent under Chinese Communism, most of them previously untranslated and difficult to find in the West. Ranging from eye-witness accounts of a massacre to theoretical critiques of Chinese Marxist thought, these essays are among the most powerful and important works of Chinese dissident literature written in this century.
Primary Sources on the Internet
- Bhagat Singh (1907 - 1931)From the Marxists Internet Archives
- Digital South Asia LibraryContains statistics from the colonial period to the present, maps and photographs.
