PPHS World History Immersion

Curated sourcebook, including texts and websites. Primarily covers China, Japan, and Korean history and culture.

The Smithsonian's National Numismatic Collection (NNC) is America's collection of monetary and transactional objects. The NNC holds an expansive collection of East Asian coins with notable objects from China, Korea, and Japan.

Online history of the Silk Road (1000 CE - 1800 CE). Includes primary sources in the form of images and texts.

IDP is a ground-breaking international collaboration to make information and images of all manuscripts, paintings, textiles and artefacts from Dunhuang and archaeological sites of the Eastern Silk Road freely available on the Internet and to encourage their use through educational and research programmes.

Art and Multimedia from Public Collections. Includes the Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Asian Art and documents, sculpture and decorative objects from around the world.

Felice Beato was the first photographer to devote himself entirely to photographing in Asia and the Near East. He photographed in Japan, India, Athens, Constantinople, the Crimea, and Palestine. He settled in Yokohama and from 1863 to 1877 made hundreds of ethnographic portraits and genre scenes in Japan. He eventually opened a furniture and curio business in Burma.

The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives is a manuscript and photograph repository dedicated to furthering the study of Asian and Middle Eastern art, archaeology and culture as well as turn-of-the-century American art. Our mission is to collect, preserve, organize, describe, and make available documentary materials that support the holdings and activities of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. The Archives houses over one hundred and forty collections, amounting to over one thousand linear feet. We have over 2462 images online and are adding more daily.

Archives manuscript collections date from the early nineteenth century to the present and include the papers and records of collectors, dealers, scholars and archaeologists; making the Archives a critical repository for the study of the advent and development of Asian art scholarship and appreciation in America. Our photography holdings are particularly strong in mid to late 19th century views of Asia, and consist of important works by both western and native photographers and studios. Photographs and other visual documents from the Archives have been featured in numerous galleries exhibitions.

postcards, photos, slides, posters, play scripts

photographic archive

This site provides high-definition images of the National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties owned by the Tokyo National Museum, Kyoto National Museum, Nara National Museum, Kyushu National Museum and the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties aligned under the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, together with their descriptions in multiple languages (Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean).

This database is digitized “Japanese Old Photographs of the Bakumatsu-Meiji Periods Collection” in the Nagasaki University Library, and it is open to the public.
You can search for more than 7,600 photographs taken in various parts of Japan during the Bakumatsu-Meiji Period.

This collection focuses on the decision to drop the atomic bomb. It includes 76 documents totaling 632 pages covering the years 1945 through 1964. Supporting materials include an online version of “Truman and the Bomb: A Documentary History,” edited by Robert H. Ferrell.

Famous artwork, indexed by chronological period. 1280 - late 1900s. Primary European, but also includes Japanese art from prehistory - present.

Digitized Japanese texts from the Heian Period (794) to the Modern Period (present). Texts in Japanese.

Translations of primary sources with discussion questions for Asian Studies and World History courses.

Timeline of Japan History including early period cultures, classical period, medieval period and modern period.

The Japanese Historical Map Collection contains about 2,300 early maps of Japan and the World. The collection was acquired by the University of California from the Mitsui family in 1949, and is housed on the Berkeley campus in the C.V. Starr East Asian Library. Represented in this online collection are over 1,900 images of maps and books from this Collection.

End of Empire is dedicated to a simple premise: events during the 100 days following the bombing of Hiroshima had a profound impact on politics and society throughout Asia for decades to come. The site, which is presented as a daily newspaper, has four integrated components: a pan-asian chronology, expert analyses, photographs and documents, and Special Country Reports that present all events relevant to a country in a single edition. An analytic introduction, by Robert Cribb and Li Narangoa, is presented here. End of Empire is more than a website. It is a multimedia, multi-platform project with contributions by 90 world-renowned experts that can be experienced not only here, but also on Twitter, Facebook and as a spectacular printed book. Enjoy, engage, and join the conversation!

This group of Japanese and Chinese prints and drawings was donated by Gillett G. Griffin, curator emeritus of graphic arts, in honor of Dale Roylance. It represents a small portion of the Far Eastern works on paper held by the graphic arts division. Also included are several sketchbooks, which were collected together with the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century drawings.

The Barbara Curtis Adachi Bunraku Collection at Columbia’s Starr East Asian Library represents four decades of close contact and respectful collaboration between Adachi and the Japanese National Bunraku Troupe, the leading performance group of Bunraku in the world. Adachi’s numerous superb photographs of rehearsals and performances reflect the depth of her understanding and knowledge, as do the other diverse artifacts she selected over the years for inclusion in her collection. The comprehensive combination of visual, audio, and textual materials provide researchers with the foundation for studying all aspects of the Japanese puppet theater in modern times, and for studying these aspects in relation to each other.

Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō brings together works from various Princeton University Library collections that have, as their theme, the rest stops along Japan’s legendary Tōkaidō Road.

Historical documents concerning modern Japanese relations with other countries, particularly those in Asia.

photographic archive

The UCSF Library’s collection of Japanese woodblock prints illustrates a wide variety of health-related topics. The prints provide a window into traditional Japanese attitudes toward illness, the human body, women, religion, and the West.

These porcelains from the collections of the Freer Gallery are part of a 1,500-year-old tradition of making porcelains in Jingdezhen, China. Porcelain production during the Kangxi period (1662–1722) expanded China’s export trade with Europe, sparked the Chinamania craze in the nineteenth century, and bolstered the East-West exchange that endures to this day.

Maps of battles and campaigns of the Chinese Civil War and World War II, 1925-1949

Online tutorial on the history of Chinese and European interactions. Includes primary sources throughout the tutorial.

A collection of relevant publications, and archival research; the National Security Archive has amassed a collection of approximately 15,000 pages of documentation on U.S.-China interaction on foreign policy issues, the U.S.-PRC military relationship, the growing economic relationship between the two countries, as well as documents related to the several issues that separate the countries.

The documents, which include policy and research studies, intelligence estimates, diplomatic cables, and briefing materials, are published (with the exception of Document 15) in the the NSA's China and the United States: From Hostility to Engagement, 1960-1998 document set, part of the Archive's Special Collection Series. The following documents represent a small sample of the documents contained in the set.

Free database of placenames and historical administrative units for the Chinese Dynasties.

The Chinese Foreign Policy Database enhances the ability of contemporary observers and historians to gain broader perspectives on Chinese policies. Curating 1000s of documents from Chinese and international archives, it offers insights into China’s foreign policy since 1949 and its relationship to ideology, revolution, the economy, and traditional Chinese culture. The Database is generously supported by the MacArthur Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation.

Digitizations of Chinese texts, in kanji or pinyin.

Over 2,750 Chinese propaganda posters are shown on this website, with information about their history, background and design. You can browse a Gallery of 200 highlights, look at over 250 theme presentations, or search and browse by poster or by artist.

The database is funded by the University of Zurich; access is free. Search results may be analysed online, it is possible to navigate within them, and they can be saved as PDF report for further processing. Should material from the database be used in publications, we welcome a corresponding source reference.

DACHS collects and preserves website resources relevant for Chinese Studies, with special focus on social and political discourse. The main aim is to make the collected data available for researchers and scholars in the future. *You need to apply for a login to download documents*

Extensive links list on a variety of topics including Chinese History, culture, and environment.

Selections of primary texts, translated, along with discussion questions for Asian Studies and World History courses

Historical photographs of Shanghai.

Timeline of Chinese dynasties with notations of capitals and notable events.

Western written analysis of the history, social system, and politics of China in the mid-1900s.

Virtual Shanghai is a research and resource platform on the history of Shanghai from the mid-nineteenth century to nowadays. It incorporates various sets of documents: essays, original documents, photographs, maps, quantitative data, etc. The objective of the project is to write a history of the city through the combined mobilization of these various types of documents. The implementation of this approach relies on the use of digital and GIS technologies. On the research side, the platform offers various ways to step into the history of the city and follow its course at different levels over time. On the resource side, apart from providing original textual and visual documents, it develops a powerful cartographic tool for spatial analysis and real-time mapping (to be upgraded soon). The authors of the present project suscribe to the idea of sharing scholarship and research tools for the benefit of scholars, students, and citizens at large

Photos especially document culture and regional clothing. (Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

The ephemeral collection of very rare 30 block prints fall into several categories: some are color prints with a minimum of text, others are black and white illustrated sheets, some of which include current news, while others have a more general content. The news sheets were issued in Shanghai , when news of the 1911 Revolution in Wuhan was telegraphed to print agencies in Shanghai. The latter immediately printed illustrated sheets for a Chinese public avid for the latest news; the illustrations themselves may therefore be based upon artists imagination. The sheets generally support the Revolution as a modernizing party, and hence some demonization of the enemy occurs in the prints, as was usual for propaganda prints of that and earlier periods. The collection is useful for investigations into the visual portrayal of the struggle of Han Chinese versus the Manchus during the 1911 overthrow of the Qing Empire. Issues of "modernity" and "nation" are easily visible in the prints. The collection also includes one Japanese block print dating from 1914. The collection was given in 1937 to Princeton Library by Donald Roberts, class of 1909, who was an Episcopalian minister who taught history at St. John's University in Shanghai from 1915 to 1950. Comparison with earlier Chinese anti-Christian, or Japanese anti-Chinese or anti-Russian prints made during the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars may be instructive. The Princeton East Asian Library in no way supports the rhetoric or depictions that are presented on the prints.

These photographs were taken during the late 1920s and early 1930s by John B. Shackford during his travels and tenure as an English teacher in southern China.


The titles of the photos are taken from Shackford's original hand-written notes identifying the pictures.

Mass education materials published in Hong Kong and in Mainland China, particularly Shanghai, in the years 1947-1954. These cartoon books, pamphlets, postcards and magazines, on topics such as foreign threats to Chinese security, Chinese relations with the Soviet Union, industrial and agricultural production, and marriage reform, were produced by both Kuomintang (Nationalist) and Gongchantang (Communist) supporters.

Ling long women's magazine, published in Shanghai from 1931 to 1937, was popular during a time of dramatic material, social, and political change in China. Today, the magazine offers researchers a unique glimpse into women's lives in Republican-era (1911-49) Shanghai. This site features Columbia University's collection of Ling long magazine, one of the most complete holdings outside China.

This group of Japanese and Chinese prints and drawings was donated by Gillett G. Griffin, curator emeritus of graphic arts, in honor of Dale Roylance. It represents a small portion of the Far Eastern works on paper held by the graphic arts division. Also included are several sketchbooks, which were collected together with the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century drawings.

This is a catch-all collection for sources on Sino-Soviet relations. Its contents are described in an essay by Charles Kraus, "The Sino-Soviet Alliance, 70 Years Later" (February 2020). To see focused collections that deal with specific periods of the Sino-Soviet relationship during the Cold War, see (1) Making of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-1950; (2) Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1950-1959; (3) Sino-Soviet Split, 1960-1984; (4) Sino-Soviet Border Conflict, 1969; and (5) Sino-Soviet Rapprochement, 1985-1989. (Image, Soviet propaganda poster, "Friends Forever.")

Documents on the growing division and worsening relations between China and the Soviet Union from 1960 onward. For other collections on Sino-Soviet relations, see Making of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945-1950; Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1950-1959; Sino-Soviet Border Conflict, 1969; and Sino-Soviet Rapprochement, 1985-1989. (Image, Mao and Khrushchev, 1958)

In September 2005, UW-Madison Professor Emeritus Tse-Tsung Chow (who died in 2007) and his wife Nancy Wu Chow donated over 120 calligraphic and painted Chinese scrolls and fans, ranging from the 18th through the 20th centuries, to the Special Collections Department of the UWM Libraries. Professor Chow's collection is an invaluable addition to Special Collections, offering primary examples of Chinese culture spanning a two-hundred year period, with didactic applications in a broad range of disciplines at UWM, including art, art history, history, geography, foreign languages and linguistics, and international studies.

This digital library gathers together a large body of primarily European and American images of the island of Taiwan – called "Formosa" by foreign visitors in the nineteenth century – and its various peoples, natural resources, wildlife, and built environment. These textual and visual representations, maps, and linguistic data were originally published in European and North American books and journals during the 19th century, but are not easily accessible to those interested in the history of Taiwan today.

The Taiwan Documents Project (TDP) contains the largest collection of documents on the Internet relating to the legal status and international relations of Taiwan.

Maps of the campaigns and battles of the Korean War, 1950 - 1953

Translations of texts with discussion questions intended for Asian Studies and World History courses.

Historical timeline including prehistory and dynasties

The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery thank the National Museum of Korea for providing the 3D scanning data used to create this digital model. This 3D model presents a beautiful gilt wood sculpture of Gwaneum, the bodhisattva of compassion and the most popular deity in Korean Buddhism.

The Modern Korean History Portal is a learning and a research tool for students, educators, and professional historians interested in Korea and has been funded through the generous support of the Korea Foundation. (Image, Namdaemun, Seoul, Sam Garza)

Using fresh and policy-relevant historical data, the Database on Inter-Korean Relations informs and supports current and future efforts to peacefully reunify the Korean Peninsula and achieve reconciliation in post-unification Korea. The Database has been made possible through the generous support of the Korean Ministry of Unification.