Middle East History: Primary Sources

Over 1500 photographs dating from about 1880 to 1893, covering the period of one of the last sultans of the Ottoman Empire.

Translations of over 2000 folk tales and oral narratives.

Documents and materials relating to Empire Studies, with an emphasis on the British Empire but coverage of the Spanish Empire as well.

Hundreds of digitized Islamic manuscripts, maps, and published texts from Harvard’s library and museum collections.

A collection of declassified documents from the CIA and other U.S. government agencies related to events in the Middle East & South Asia.

Hundreds of manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, primarily in the fields of medicine, literature, philology, theology, law, and history, and ranging from the 11th through the 19th centuries.

A sampling of images, as well as a search database of records for photos from the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

Several thousand prints and photographs contained in works from the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century held by the New York Public Library.

A digital archive focusing on Western interactions with the Middle East, particularly travels to Egypt during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Digitized books and diaries from a Harvard expedition to Samaria.

Full-text historical Jewish newspapers published in the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa. Includes 5 English language titles.

Documents, photos, oral histories, and other materials concerning the formation of the Israeli State.

A compilation of videos from Internet Archive users about the Iraq War and the issues and events surrounding it are collected here.

Copies of photos, diaries, and letters from Gertrude Bell, who traveled extensively in the Middle East during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Personal accounts of 134 individuals who played major roles in or were eyewitnesses to important political events in Iran from the 1920s to the 1980s.

A document collection focusing U.S. policy toward Iraq preceding and following the Persian Gulf War.