East Asian Studies

Start your search with our library catalog.

You can search by:

• title,
• author,
• keyword,
• subject heading,
• publisher,
• call number and
• ISBN number

Searching the catalog is the best way to find books. To limit to English only - in the Advanced Search screen, under Language, select English from the drop-down box of languages. This can be done before OR after your search. 

For a specific e-journal or known article, search the Journals tab.

For journal articles, try searching our many databases.

• With EBSCO Discovery Services, you can search over 400 databases at once.
• Or, try searching the specific databases below (see A-Z list to browse all databases).  
• For journals, you can also try our archival collections. See, for example, the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives Collection of Asia Serials TAM.779.  

For finding data or GIS

Please check with our Data Services Department. It is located on the 5th Floor, Research Commons, Bobst Library. Email: data.services@nyu.edu

For newspapers

Try Access World News and limit to China, Japan, or Korea.

Also try: 

• Chinese Newspapers Collection 1832-1953,
• CNBKSY Database,
• Japan Times Archives

• The Japan Times (on Trial until 2/22/24)
  Read the daily newspaper in English up to the present.
  The access URL is: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/. You should see NYU’s name in the upper right corner of the page.
  (This is a separate access point from our existing subscription to the The Japan Times Archive.)

• NK News Pro,
• The New York Times, 
• Historical Newspapers Proquest, and more.

For film and videorecordings

Search the Library Catalog and limit material to Video. (You can also limit language to Chinese, Japanese, or Korean if you want videos in those languages). All are at the Avery Fisher Center for Music and Media.

You can also search the databases: 

• Films on Demand: Area Studies Video Collection for documentaries and feature films, including those from China, Japan, and Korea.
• Kanopy Streaming,
• The Criterion Collection, and 
• Asian Film Online for streaming,
• as well as these video databases.

Contact the East Asian Studies librarian with any questions.

Do you Know Japan (encyclopedia)

For primary sources, you may also want to search historical newspapers. We have many from the U.S., but also international. For the International News and Newspapers Guide, click here.

Primary sources, archival resources and newspaper collections

• Adam Matthews Research Methods
  Designed as a tool to support students of the humanities and social sciences, AM Research Methods introduces the key approaches to working with source materials and historical evidence
• AM Explorer (Adam Matthews Explorer)
  https://search.amdigital.co.uk/collections
  Archive Explorer is a single search for all Adam Matthew content collections accessed by NYU Libraries
  Search all at once, or search individual collections, including these selected ones for East Asia:
   Area Studies: Japan, Area Studies: China and Southeast Asia, China, America, and the Pacific, China: Culture and Society, China: Trade, Politics and Culture, 1793-1980, Foreign Office Files for China 1919-1980, Foreign Office Files for Japan 1919-1952, World War Two Studies, Women's Studies, and many more!
• Brill's Primary Sources Online - Asian Studies titles
• Asia for Educators, Primary Sources with DBQs, Primary source texts, (Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University)
  China
  Japan
  Korea
• China: American and the Pacific China, America and the Pacific explores the cultural and trading relationships that emerged between America, China and the Pacific region between the 18th and early 20th centuries. Manuscripts, rare printed sources, visual images, objects and maps from international libraries and archives document this fascinating history.
• Center for US-China Arts Exchange Records document the activities of the Center's artistic and cultural exchange initiatives and projects primarily between 1977 and 2003. Housed at Columbia University, CV Starr EA Library, which recently completed its finding aid.
• China: Culture and Society, a digitized version of the pamphlets held in the Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia housed in the Carl A. Kroch Library of Cornell University. Mostly in English and published between c. 1750 and 1929.
• China: Trade, Politics and Culture: 1793-1980 contains many English-language sources relating to China and the West, as does Archives Unbound.
• Chinese Newspapers Collection (1832-1953), ProQuest Historical Newspapers provides insight into Chinese political and social life during the turbulent 120 year period from 1832 to 1953 with 12 English-language Chinese historical newspapers. Included are critical perspectives on the ending of more than 2,000 years of imperial rule in China, the Taiping Rebellion, the Opium Wars with Great Britain, the Boxer Rebellion and the events leading up to the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, and the subsequent founding of the Republic of China. In addition to the article content, the full-image newspapers offer searchable access to advertisements, editorials, cartoons, and classified ads that illuminate history.
• CNBKSY Chinese newspapers has both English and Chinese language newspapers of the 19th to mid 20th centuries from the collections of The Shanghai Library. Includes North-China Daily News, Herald Newspapers and Hong Lists.
• East India Company gives access to a large collection of primary source documents from the India Office Records held by the British Library. The company seized control of large parts of South Asia, but also colonized Hong Kong.
• Empire Online is a collection of digitized original documents relating to Empire Studies, sourced from libraries and archives around the world.
• Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980 makes available all British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan between 1919 and 1980.  Allows access to eye-witness accounts, weekly and monthly summaries, annual reviews, reports and analyses, economic assessments, synopses on Chinese personalities, and more.
• Foreign Office Files for Japan, 1919-1952 
  Published in three parts, this collection makes available extensive coverage of British Foreign Office files dealing with Japan between 1919 and 1952:
  - Japan and Great Power Status, 1919-1930
  - Japanese Imperialism and the War in the Pacific, 1931-1945
  - Occupation of Japan, 1946-1952
• Global Commodities: Trade Exploration & Cultural Exchange brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of global commodities in world history. The commodities featured in this resource have been transported, exchanged and consumed around the world for hundreds of years.
• The Japan Chronicle is an English-language weekly from 1900 to 1940. It is a British-oriented newspaper that covers Japan’s engagement with modernity, war, political and social upheaval and seismic social change in East Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. This collection includes the Kobe Weekly Chronicle (1900-1901) the predecessor of the Japan Chronicle Weekly. It offers a perspective of expatriate communities in Japan and East Asia from 1900-1941.
• The Japan Times Archive provides full-text searching and page images of this English-language newspaper from 1897. Japan Times is the oldest English language newspaper in Japan.
• Meiji Japan: The Edward Sylvester Morse Collection from the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum
  Edward Sylvester Morse Papers were given to the Peabody Essex Museum in 1926 and consist of 99 boxes of personal and professional papers including diaries, correspondence, research files, drawings, lecture notes, publications, scrapbooks and manuscripts. Collection digitized in its entirety. Papers (ca. 1858-1925, 40 cubic feet), document the numerous and valuable contributions made by Morse to the areas of malacology, zoology, ethnology, archaeology and art history. Included are diaries, scrapbooks, correspondence, research files, drawings, manuscripts, publications and teaching materials and drawings.
• Newspaper Archive - Newspaper Archive contains the historical archives of hundreds of U.S. and international newspapers from the 19th and 20th centuries, with coverage of some titles back to the 17th century. Lots of content from smaller, more local newspapers.
• Chinese newspapers (in English) 
• NK News Pro - NK Pro is an information service designed for professionals working on North Korea issues. It contains a range of research tools, databases, media monitoring services and analysis on contemporary issues.
• Service Newspapers of World War Two
  Service Newspapers of World War Two is a digital resource that reveals the story of war as told by the newspapers that brought information, entertainment and camaraderie to the forces at home and overseas. Explore over 200 titles from key nations across the globe that took part in the world-changing conflict.
• Shanghai Municipal Council: The Municipal Gazette, 1908-1940 - Available through Archives Unbound. 
  The Municipal Gazette provides a unique window into the workings of the Shanghai International Settlement during the period of revolution, the Republic, internationalization of Shanghai, national uprising, and world war.
• Slavery, Abolition, & Social Justice brings together primary source documents from archives and libraries across the Atlantic world. This resource allows students and researchers to explore and compare unique material relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition and social justice.In addition to the primary source documents there are secondary sources for research and teaching; including an interactive map, scholarly essays, tutorials, a visual sources gallery, chronology and bibliography. Try using keywords "China," "Japan," and "Korea" to browse primary source documents related to these areas in the region.
• U.S. Intelligence on Asia, 1945-1991 - Declassified documents 

Search the Library Catalog for many more (just a few examples below). And, don't forget about our many journal databases (try JSTOR, MLA International Bibliography, Bibliography of Asian Studies, and more. Just go to the Articles and Databases tab and search from there) 

Journal: Global Asia: A Journal of the East Asia Foundation
ISSN: 1976-068X
2014-present

Journal: Korea Journal
ISSN: 0023-3900
1961-present

Journal: Social Sciences Japan Journal
ISSN: 1468-2680
1998-present

Journal: U.S.- Japan women's Journal = Nichi-Bei josei jānaru.
ISSN: 2330-5029
2003-present

Journal: Verge: Studies in Global Asias
ISSN: 2373-5058
2015-present

​​​A very comprehensive bibliography of works about Korea in English is available online. Formulated as a browsable list sorted by topic, the list is modestly entitled Korean History: A Bibliography. It encompasses resources covering disciplines outside history as well. It was compiled by Kenneth R. Robinson of International Christian University and is maintained by the University of Hawaii's Center for Korean Studies.

Digital Resources and Projects on East Asia by Paula R. Curtis
English language resources