History research requires primary sources. There is no one place to find primary sources as the primary sources depend on the type of research you are doing.
For European history, you will often be relying on translated works. Many of these can be found by searching Albert for books. Using keywords: "cold war" and "personal narratives", for instance will yield a list of books that contain diaries, or other documentary sources, for the cold war era. You can try other keywords: letters, diary, personal narrative, sources, to see if there is anything in your topic area that might have a primary source in a book form.
Other ways to find primary sources is through your scholarly research. Historians always work from primary sources, so you can identify which sources they used, and then try to find them once they have been identified.
If you are struggling, please ask for help from your professor, or from the librarian.
Historic German Newspapers and Journals Online - From EuroDocs.
Historical Newspapers - From Europeana. There is a wide selection of over 3,000 newspapers, but many are for just a few years. Search by keyword, browse by title, or by country. "Explore the headlines, articles, advertisements, and opinion pieces from European newspapers from 20 countries, dating from 1618 to 1996."
Internet Library of Early Journals - Scanned journals for England and Scotland. Included are: Annual Register (1758-78), The Builder (1843-9), Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (1843-52), Gentleman's Magazine (1731-50), Notes and Queries (1849-69), Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (1757-77). Search within each journal, or browse by general date.
If the event is of importance, it may be published in The New York Times or the San Francisco Chronicle.
Here are various primary source collections of possible interest (below). If you are looking for something specific, try searching for it on the web. For instance, if you would like the text of the so-called Treaty of Versailles, try searching for "treaty of versailles". The results are kind of mixed, but if you go down a bit you'll spot something called "Treaty of peace with Germany" and realize that this is the document that was signed in 1918 in Versailles. If you know the name of the document or speech that you wish to find, always put the named object in quotes to keep the words as a phrase. This is a great way to find government documents of all sorts, speeches, interviews, and even contemporary news stories if someone has scanned said stories and placed them on the web. Please do ask for help if you can't find what you are looking for!
If you are looking for American viewpoints and documents, remember that there are presidential libraries that have digital archives. For instance, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, etc. all have online digital collections. Take a peek at them to see if there are documents for your research.
The Web has some amazing primary source collections. Here are a few:
At Cold War's End: US Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1989-1991 - Various documents showing the end of the Cold War from the Road to Malta, to it's official ending in 1991. From the CIA.
Cold War History - Historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War, including some from communist bloc countries. Searchable. From the Wilson Center Digital Archives.
EuroDocs: Primary Historical Documents from W. Europe - Select a country for a listing of national historical documents.
German History in Documents and Images - from the German Historical Institute. Primary source documents range in date from 1500 to the current time.
German Propaganda Archive - Texts of speeches, visual material such as posters and cartoons, excerpts from other writings, all from Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Fascinating and controversial site from Calvin College.
Hoover Institution - Digital archives in a variety of topics, including the Cold War.
Making the History of 1989: The Fall of Communism of Eastern Europe - A teaching resources that includes over 300 primary source documents. Searchable. From the Center for History and New Media.
Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw Pact - Declassified documents and information. Sources from the archives of both NATO and the former Warsaw Pact countries including Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. Adobe Acrobat required. Searchable.
Robert L. Mackey World War I Diary is the electronic version of this Allied soldiers' diary from the front, covering the years 1915 to 1918.
World War I Document Archives - A great site for official and unofficial documents from pre-War to post-War Europe; excellent links to other resources as well.
World War II Documents Site from the Avalon Project at Yale University.
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