Find further inspiration from our blog posts, case studies and webinars exploring different aspects of East Asian history and culture.
Commodities of the China Trade: Bechè de Mer, Shark Fins and Gold: in this blog, AM’s editorial team delves into China, America and the Pacific's Forbes Papers, held by the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Chinese delicacies being traded in the eighteenth century.
Spanking, Social Control and Souvenirs: China, America and the Pacific features hundreds of glimpses into Chinese life from mass produced souvenirs in portside workshops by local artists throughout the 19th Century, and sold to merchants who took them home for curious friends.
At Anchor in Bandit-Infested Waters: follow the “Nanchang” kidnapping case in 1933. This blog details how the files in Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980 give a blow-by-blow account of the kidnapping of four British sailors by pirates, from the initial reports to the rescue efforts and negotiations, through correspondence between the British Embassy in Tokyo and the Foreign Office.
Perspectives of the past: A window into 1930s Beijing
Film offers more than entertainment, it captures fleeting, candid moments that reveal the rhythm of everyday life in the past. Wanderings in Peking, from AM’s China on Film: Twentieth Century Sources from the British Film Institute, offers a glimpse of 1930s Beijing, revealing a city where tradition meets progress, with the camera often capturing its most compelling stories unintentionally.
Examine an array of materials providing invaluable insights into key political events, global social change, human rights violations, and advocacy campaigns in AM’s Amnesty International Archives: A Global Movement for Human Rights collection. AM are joined by Dr Nada Ali, Umass Boston, and Fiona Bolt, Amnesty International, to discuss the challenges of working with material of this nature, the opportunities created by its digitisation, and the power of integrating testimonies and personal accounts into teaching and research.
In Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings, as well as the copious collections of ethnomusicological field recordings and notes, students can find World Musical Instruments: Case Studies, sourced from UCLA's World Musical Instruments collection. This features a curated selection of musical instruments from 10 different areas across the world including East Asia. This allows you to see the musical instruments, read about them and hear them played by master musicians. Each case study features musical instruments that can be found within the primary source recordings.
In Japan: A Historical Overview 1919-1952 Dr Rustin Gates from Bradley University discusses the wealth of information on Japanese imperialism in Foreign Office Files for Japan 1919-1952. The interview covers Japanese Imperialism followed by expansion across 1930-1940 and ultimately the American occupation of Japan, regularly directing students and researchers to specific and detailed files.
There are a number of essays across the collections that dig into the primary sources, such as 'Discovering the Work of the Church Missionary Society in China, Japan and India through Region-specific Periodicals', by Dr Phillip Cantrell II at Longwood University. Essays are often region-specific in resources that have global coverage, and Dr Cantrell II examines more than a dozen region-specific titles related to the CMS’s work in Japan, China, and India.
