Free internet information can be worth what you pay for it: nothing! Or, it can be a gold mine! Here are some potentially useful, free websites.
GETTING STARTED: Middle Eastern Studies
Central Asia and the Middle East: Guide to Internet Resources
Middle East Studies: Databases and Reference Sources
These are online research guides about doing research on the contemporary Middle East written by M.S.U. Libraries' staff. Deborah Margolis is M.S.U.'s Library bibliographer/subject selector for the Middle East.
History Highway: a 21st Century Guide to Internet Resources Reference and DMC 4 West (CD) D 16.117 .H55 2006
An annotated bibliography of web sites.
Goal is to "mount digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government." Click on "Document Collections" and scroll down to "Middle East 1916-2001: a Documentary Record. Primary sources in chronological order.
Internet Global History Sourcebook
Information contained comes from the author, Paul Halsall's other internet history sourcebooks. Scroll down to the sections on Western Hegemony and Twentieth Century. Primary sources.
Internet Modern History Sourcebook
Paul Halsall, author. Scroll down, watching the green bar on the left, click on "ME since 1914." Copies of many useful documents for British policy in the Middle East. Primary sources.
American Center of Oriental Research Photo Archive
The American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR) in Amman, Jordan was founded in 1968. ACOR promotes study, teaching, and increased knowledge of ancient and Middle Eastern studies with Jordan as a focus. Photos in the archive appear to go back to 1905.
British Cartoon Archive is a research center and library of British cartooning located in in the Templeman Library at the University of Kent, Canterbury. Its web site features a catalog with images of over 130,000 cartoons published in the British press, as well as information about the archive, announcements of special events, featured cartoons and cartoonists, teaching aids, and other useful material. The primary draw is the catalog database of images (back to the 1790s), which extends beyond the Archives' own physical collection (back to 1904). Detailed cataloging records. Searching by keyword and date. Primary sources
This guide is a list of scholarly resources in British and UK Studies. Intended primarily for librarians; it may be useful to scholars in this field. It is curated and managed by members of the European Studies Section (ESS) of the Association of College & Research Libraries. Users are free to copy and edit content from this guide for their own purposes.
The Illustrated London News was a magazine founded by Herbert Ingram and Mark Lemon, editor of Punch, in 1842. ILN was the world's first illustrated newspaper and was published weekly until 1971. Then it became a monthly, then a quarterly, and has now ceased publication. Its illustrations are fabulous visual records of life at the time, all over the world, but especially of the British Isles and its imperial possessions.
This website offers viewable online images of illustrations from the magazine, but no full texts of the articles, which are also noteworthy, but are not available here. To print or download you must buy the picture you want; this is only a free service when you are viewing the illustration! And, we do not have online access to the articles' contents, either.
M.S.U. Libraries does own much of Illustrated London News from 1842-2003 in bound volumes. They are in Remote Storage at AP 4 .I4. Apply at the Circulation Desk or online, in our Request Forms, to have volumes brought to the Main Library for use. Primary source.
Intute: Arts and Humanities (U.K.)
This is a free online service providing you with access to the best Web resources for education and research, selected and evaluated by a network of subject specialists. There are over 21,000 Web resources listed here that are freely available by keyword searching and browsing. Fields covered include humanities in general, art and the creative, history, languages, literatures. The history pages come from Humbul Humanities Hub originally. Try clicking on "Humanities" in the center of the initial page in "Browse web resources by subject." Then click on "History" along the left within humanities. Then browse in history; scroll down to "Imperial and Colonial History" and click there. Then enter this phrase: "middle east" or palestine into the "filter by keyword box" and change the date range to 1900-1945. Both primary and secondary sources.
National Archives Research Guides
National Archives: the Cabinet Papers, 1915-1977 (U.K.)
The Cabinet is the main body that controls policy and coordinates activities of governmental departments. It is chaired by the Prime Minister and consists of most of the ministerial heads of departments, as well as some additional members. During peacetime it typically consists of 20 members. During the two world wars the size of the Cabinet was reduced to enable rapid decision-making. It proceeds by joint discussion and decision-making, which requires collective responsibility for policy and outcomes. Browse by themes, such as: diplomacy and foreign relations; finance and the economy; total war; empire, commonwealth, and de-colonisation. An interesting section called "Maps in Time" permits examining resources organized geographically in various parts of the 20th century. Primary source.
Parliamentary Archives of the United Kingdom
Parliamentary Archives of the United Kingdom holds several million historical records relating to Parliament. In the middle of the entry screen there is a link "Digitized Historical Parliamentary Material"; click there. From this point a variety of Parliamentary documents, in various periods, are "accessible." Some are free to all; others are not. Primary source
Perry Castaneda Map Collection Historical Map Web Sites
Noted map collection at the University of Texas. See link to "Middle East" in center of page. Primary source
A noted collection of antiquarian maps. Primary source
Travelers in the Middle East Archive
The Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA) is a digital archive that focuses on Western interactions with the Middle East, particularly travels to Egypt during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. TIMEA offers electronic texts such as travel guides, museum catalogs, and travel narratives, photographic and hand-drawn images of Egypt, historical maps, and interactive GIS maps of Egypt and Cyprus. Primary source
Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire
Detailed information on over 6000 films showing images of life in the British colonies. Over 150 films are available for viewing online. Search or browse for films by country, date, topic, or keyword. Over 350 of the most important films in the catalogue are presented with extensive critical notes written by academic researchers. A combined effort of Birkbeck and University College London, British Film Institute, Imperial War Museum, and British Empire and Commonwealth Museum.
