Digital resources for researchers

[Sigaba]

Footage and transcripts of William F. Buckley, Jr.'s television show, Firing Line (1966-1999), are available here.

This collection is maintained and hosted by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. The Hoover Institution asks for feedback on what footage from the show should be digitized. The on line form for providing feedback is available here.

[Requiem]

Gentlemen, thank you for posting these sites. Living in a somewhat remote part of the U.S., I've come to rely on internet research. I'll be sure to use some of these sources.

I've found The Command and General Staff College's Combined Arms Research Library's digital library helpful.

-Susan

[Sigaba]

A number of think tanks still have publications available for free but this pattern is changing.

In addition to links provided in post #5, above, here are some resources.

• The Brookings Institution has privatized most of its content. One can keep track of daily developments by monitoring its website or subscribing to its RSS feeds. <<LINK>>
• The Center for Naval Analyses has, sadly, closed the gap that allowed one to see its entire archive of published reports at once. (Sometimes, I really miss the 1990s. But not to the point where I want a return of acid wash jeans, extraordinarily crappy R&B groups, or "New Jack" hip hop.) One can find announcements of its publications here.
• The Congressional Research Service works for Congress and is funded by the American tax payer yet its publications are not readily available. Fortunately, one can find many CRS reports at the OpenCRS portal, here.
  The RAND Corporation has a number of its 'classic' publications available here. Three documents that may be of interest to members of this BB are:
  • Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (This work is important because it helped to challenge the armed service's expertise on strategic thinking after the Second World War.)
  • Stephen T. Hosmer, Sibylle O. Crane, Counterinsurgency: A Symposium, April 16-20, 1962
  • David Galula, Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958

[Sigaba]

QP BMT provided information about this collection in 2008 <<LINK>>.

The link in BMT's post has expired but the same information is available here.

The archive is available here. The digital archive is 1.58 gigabites in 7824 PDF files. The folders in the archive are available here.

The collection is relevant to the following subjects.

United States. Central Intelligence Agency -- History.
United States. Foreign Service.
United States. Office of Strategic Services.
Intelligence officers -- United States -- 20th century.
Intelligence service -- United States -- 20th century.
Spies -- United States -- 20th century -- Correspondence.
World War, 1939 - 1945 -- Secret service -- United States.
United States -- Foreign relations -- Soviet Union -- 20th century.
United States -- Foreign relations -- 20th century.

[Sigaba]

Yale University has a digital collection of primary source material available here. The materials span the arc of western civilization.

ETA. Project Avalon now has a Major Document Collections page that may aid researches find materials relevant to their interests more efficiently. That page is here.

I'd have provided this link sooner but well, the second thing one learns when studying the craft of history is to horde resources. (I need every advantage I can find when debating certain topics with various members of this BB. )

[Thomas Paine]

Thanks Sigaba. There's some great nuggets to be found mining through the resources you've compiled here.

Like this one for example:
The New Frontier: The Great Society: Richard N. Goodwin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me_q3fyAAmw

Might Goodwin have birthed some of Obama's talking points?

[Sigaba]

The Johns Hopkins University Press has launched an on line version of the twenty-four volume The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower <<LINK>>. Access to this collection can be gained through an institutional or personal subscription (The latter costs $125 a year.)

[The Reaper]

I was in an art museum on Friday, and noticed some of the pieces were almost 5,000 years old. Some were art, but most were household items like vases and pots.

I did think that the pieces must have incredible stories to tell about where they have been over that period and how they survived when other pieces did not.

Stone and clay, in particular are so enduring. It made me wonder what, if any of our works will remain in 5,000 years. The digital stuff, in particular seems fragile to me. Will the history of Eisenhower's papers or the Constitution survive for people to marvel at, or will it be something more mundane, like a stainless steel pot or a knife?

Just pondering our mortality, and our legacy.

TR

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

I was in an art museum on Friday, and noticed some of the pieces were almost 5,000 years old. Some were art, but most were household items like vases and pots.

I did think that the pieces must have incredible stories to tell about where they have been over that period and how they survived when other pieces did not.

Stone and clay, in particular are so enduring. It made me wonder what, if any of our works will remain in 5,000 years. The digital stuff, in particular seems fragile to me. Will the history of Eisenhower's papers or the Constitution survive for people to marvel at, or will it be something more mundane, like a stainless steel pot or a knife?

Just pondering our mortality, and our legacy.

TR

FWIW, in 1999, the New Yorker published a sobering article on the challenges archivists at NARA face with the exponential growth of digital records. First, we have more information than archivists can process. Second, the technology is progressing so quickly that we are losing the ability to retrieve data on older media <<LINK>>.

Not for nothing do I intermittently urge certain folks to archive their papers and letters both digitally and in their original formats.

As far as our historical legacy, I'm much more worried about how we're going to make it through the next fifty years without a "usable past."

YMMV.

[GratefulCitizen]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

I was in an art museum on Friday, and noticed some of the pieces were almost 5,000 years old. Some were art, but most were household items like vases and pots.

I did think that the pieces must have incredible stories to tell about where they have been over that period and how they survived when other pieces did not.

Stone and clay, in particular are so enduring. It made me wonder what, if any of our works will remain in 5,000 years. The digital stuff, in particular seems fragile to me. Will the history of Eisenhower's papers or the Constitution survive for people to marvel at, or will it be something more mundane, like a stainless steel pot or a knife?

Just pondering our mortality, and our legacy.

TR

I've always wondered just how much was lost with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria.

Particularly, how much was lost of Greek math and science?
When later civilizations re-discovered some of the surviving work, how much did they misinterpret, given their own limited understanding?

Jared Diamond, Nat Geo, Collapse 2210

It's more of the same speculation, but this time Diamond did it differently then his other stuff.

When people talk about the collapse of Rome or the Anasazi emipre(s), you must remember, it was the system that collapsed not the people. The majority simply continued to move, live and survive.

[nmap]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

As far as our historical legacy, I'm much more worried about how we're going to make it through the next fifty years without a "usable past."

YMMV.

If you're so inclined, I would very much like to hear your thoughts on why and how this is problematic. Not that I disagree, I'm just intrigued by your point.

[Richard]

I've always wondered just how much was lost with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria.

And Ephesus...and it makes me wonder what - other than the collection of BCE carpenter's tools recovered from the archaeological discovery of the only carpenter's shop in Nazareth - purportedly 'lost' knowledge actually exists in the Vatican's theologically restricted archival collections.

And so it goes...

Richard

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

In addition to the resource mentioned in post #8, above, one can find the digital version of volumes 14-21 of the Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower here.

These volumes, covering both of President Eisenhower's administrations, were originally published as a part of Johns Hopkins University Press's twenty-two volume collection of Eisenhower's papers.

Thanks, Sig.

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by nmap

If you're so inclined, I would very much like to hear your thoughts on why and how this is problematic. Not that I disagree, I'm just intrigued by your point.

The ongoing absence of a 'usable past' is problematic because it inhibits the ability of Americans to have sustained, meaningful conversations about the past that have shared frames of reference and agreed upon terms of debate.

The reason why there is, at present, no 'usable past' is because academic historical inquiry travels along different trajectories that those traveled by general readers.
As one historian recently put it:

In the world of mass market publishing there is little interest in niche histories. Publishers want two things for their titles, firstly, a concept that can immediately connect with a wide audience and does not first require any formal introduction to history. Secondly, they require a scope that allows the whole story to be told. The rationale is simple, 'panoramic histories' have an instant appeal, a sweeping all-inclusive style and a proven success in sales. The problem for historians tempted down the path of mass market releases is that while producing a big picture narrative has obvious benefits for the lay reader, it usually provides little, or at least less, of substantive interest to the scholarly community.*

Because of this disconnect, non specialists who step into the fray and offer sweeping accounts of the past might present interpretations that a general audience finds compelling. Yet, these accounts can rarely survive sustained historiographical scrutiny.** These accounts also do poorly when they form the historical basis of broader points about policy, politics, or political philosophy.

Now, when I say "do poorly" what I mean is that these historical interpretations often do not translate into arguments that can convince people either to reconsider (much less to change) long held views. A key reason these interpretations prove ineffective is because their authors are unaware that they're building a house on an intellectual flood plain.

So while these interpretations may get the choir to holler "Amen!" and "Testify!", they're not going to as well with parishioners in other congregations--especially if those congregations have in their ranks those who can summon forth Grome and Straasha.




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* David Stahel, review of Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin (2010), Journal of Military History 75:1 (January 2011): 320. Two comments here. First, the preceding reference is probably not compliant with the sixteenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. Second, I am not ignoring the structrualist/materialist and post-structuralist implications of Stahel's formulation of sales being proof of what the public wants in historical writing. As I'm in the process of moving, anyone wanting to cast a blue-pencil or fling a copy of History of Madness at me, I ask for you to await patiently my reply.
** Something to keep in mind here is that aspiring historians learn early on that a quick and easy way to talk/to write about a work of history and to get a good mark is to trash it.