HIST 342 - The World Since 1945

Primary source collections on the open web

• Wilson Center Digitial Archives

  Constructed and maintained by the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program, the Digital Archive contains declassified historical materials from archives around the world, much of it in English translation. The historical documents presented in the ever-expanding Digital Archive provide unique insights into recent international history, and serve to deepen and enrich international scholarship, history education, and public policy debate on important global issues and challenges.

• National Archives

  The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation's record keeper. Of all documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government, only 1%-3% are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept by us forever.
  Those valuable records are preserved and are available to you, whether you want to see if they contain clues about your family’s history, need to prove a veteran’s military service, or are researching a historical topic that interests you.

• Hoover Institution Cold War Documents

  The Hoover Institution at Stanford University is dedicated to the study of war for the purpose of making peace. It contains more than six thousand archival collections.

• Cold War International History Project

  A digital collection of documents, many from the Soviet Union. Includes a section on the collapse of the Soviet Union, and also on the "Soviet Union and the Olympics)

• Cold War Dispatches: Service Stories from 1947-1991

  From the Library of Congress, this collection features narratives from a dozen veterans that served during the cold war period.

• Political Cartoons by Herblock and Others About the Cold War

  From the Library of Congress, this collection contains important responses to world affairs. Few American editorial cartoonists favored the Soviet government during the Cold War, but they had divergent responses to the fear of nuclear warfare.