Databases

The Afghan Serials Collection: Partisan Publications from the Wahdat Library (DA-ASC) contains individual issues of newspapers and journals from Afghanistan published in Persian, Pushto, Arabic, Urdu, and English from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. These publications cover the use of the press by many groups that sought to shape Afghanistan’s social and intellectual landscape during this turbulent time. Various ideologies are represented in these publications, published by opposing factions from the Taliban to anti-Taliban groups, to anti- Soviet jihadi and mujaheddin groups to the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan. The Wahdat Library was founded by Afghan scholar and journalist Ahmad Shah Wahdat and collected over a nearly 30-year period.

The primary source collections hosted by British Online Archives (BOA) are rich in documentation relating to the expansion, methods, and impact of colonial rule throughout a wide range of geographical and historical contexts. They are particularly valuable for the study of the British empire, which was at its largest in 1919. BOA’s extensive collections of British government reports reveal the reality of colonial rule in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania.

Many of the archival collections published by British Online Archives (BOA) can be grouped under the broad theme of “Culture and Society”. These terms are interrelated. They are also difficult to define. It may be said, however, that “Culture” denotes a set of practices, beliefs, and traditions, whilst “Society” can be understood as a group of people who occupy a shared space.

The collections grouped here chart the development of civil society across the globe (such as the rise of Black nationalism in South Africa and the consequent dismantling of Apartheid). These collections can inform our understanding of everyday life in differing forms of society—capitalist, socialist, fascist, colonial, and post-colonial.