Databases:
The National Archives: Cabinet Papers, 1915-1986
Foreign Relations of the United States:
The Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series presents the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity.
- https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments
The US Presidential Libraries hold a wealth of documents:
- http://www.trumanlibrary.org/photos/av-photo.
- htmhttp://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/online_document.html
- http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/holdings/content.asp
Wilson Center, Digital Archive:
The Digital Archive contains once-secret documents from governments ( and especially the Soviet Union) all across the globe, uncovering new sources and providing fresh insights into the history of international relations and diplomacy. It collects the research of two Wilson Center projects which focus on the interrelated histories of the Cold War, and Nuclear Proliferation. The third link points to publications based on these declassified documents
- http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/theme/cold-war-history
- http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/theme/nuclear-history
- http://www.wilsoncenter.org/program-publications/Cold%20War%20International%20History%20Project
The 20th Century British Collection of Newspapers:
This is not a collection of all newspapers, but it does contain a sample of many London and provincial titles.
- https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/subjects/newspapers
British History Online:
For those of you interested in looking at the policies of the state – the crown and privy council, secretaries of state- and parliamentary debates, there are many available sources, although they are not always easy to locate. A very useful electronic site is British History Online (BHO): www.british-history.ac.uk
- The following webpage has links to their political history resources: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/subject.aspx?subject=6
Here, you will find the contemporary Journals of the Houses of Commons and Lords, which summarise proceedings, although the summaries are pretty brief. There are also some sources which contain fuller records of parliamentary debates on the same page, for certain periods- when using these, make careful note of the nature of the source that you are using.
German History in Documents and Images:
(GHDI) is a comprehensive collection of primary source materials documenting Germany’s political, social, and cultural history from 1500 to the present.
- http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/home.cfm
The Digital National Security Archive:
The Digital National Security Archive contains the most comprehensive set of declassified government documents available.
- http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/marketing/index.jsp
The Avalon Project – Documents in History, Law, and Diplomacy:
- http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/20th.asp
The Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security:
PHP provides new scholarly perspectives on contemporary international history by collecting, publishing, and interpreting formerly secret governmental documents.
- http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/index.cfm
The Harvard Project on Cold War Studies:
The Cold War Studies program at Harvard University’s Davis Center promotes archival research in former East-bloc countries and seeks to expand and enrich what is known about Cold War events and themes.
- http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/coldwarstudies/home
CVCE: The research infrastructure on European Integration:
- http://www.cvce.eu/en/hom
The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents:
- http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB76/
Kings College London: Oral History Witness Seminars:
- http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/icbh/witness/OnlineArchive.aspx
Central Intelligence Agency:
- http://www.foia.cia.gov/
Printed Primary Sources:
An excellent collection of documents on the Cold War:
- Mastny, V./ Byrne, M. (eds.), A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955-1991 (National Security Archive Cold War Readers , 2005)
- Savranskaya, S, Blanton, T. and Zubok, V. (eds.), Masterpieces of History. The Peaceful End of the Cold War in Europe (CEU press, 2010)
- Paczkowski, A., and Byrne, M., From Solidarity to Martial Law: The Polish Crisis of 1980-81 (National Security Archive Cold War Readers , 2007)
- Hanhimäki, Jussi M., and Odd Arne Westad. 2004. The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
- Judge, Edward & Langdon, John (eds.), The Cold War: A Global History with Documents, Pearson, 2010
- William C. Wohlforth (ed.), Cold War Endgame. Oral History, Analysis, Debates (Pennslyvania University Press, 2003)
- On French foreign policy: Documents diplomatiques français: http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/photos-videos-publications/archives-diplomatiques-3512/publications-des-archives/article/documents-diplomatiques-francais-113702
- On British foreign policy: Documents on British Policy Overseas: http://diplomatic-documents.org/editions/united-kingdom
- On German Foreign policy: Akten zur auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: http://www.ifz-muenchen.de/aktuelles/themen/akten-zur-auswaertigen-politik/open-access/
Secondary Resources:
For Cold War history, the best way to find out what has been published on a subject is via the online Historical Abstracts (via EBSCOhost): https://www.ebscohost.com/academic/historical-abstracts
- WorldCat – http://www.worldcat.org/
The Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) is the most extensive guide available to published writing on British and Irish history: http://www.history.ac.uk/projects/bbih
There are also two journals dedicated to Cold War History:
- Cold War History, LSE: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/fcwh20/current
- Journal of Cold War Studies, Harvard: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/jcws
