Skip to Main Content

East Asia: Visual highlights

A guide to AM databases exploring East Asian history, politics and culture

This is just a small selection of some of the hugely varied visual sources relating to East Asian countries in AM databases. Find more by going to the 'Documents' area of a database and then filtering by material type, to look at photographs, posters, illustrations, artwork and other visual sources.

World's Fairs: a Global History of Expositions

A kneeling female and standing male figure in traditional Japanese dress

Photograph of a Japanese theater performance at Expo '67 in Montreal. Sourced from the Library and Archives of Canada.

Colour illustration of a building with turrets and flags, and the title 'Chinese building'

A colourful engraving of a Chinese building dating from the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition in San Francisco. Sourced from the Special Collections Research Center, Henry Madden Library, California State University, Fresno.

Colour photograph of a built-up region with mountains and blue sky in the background

Slides from the Osaka Fair of 1970, captioned 'Innocent Laughter - Gas Pav.' and 'Panorama from Expo Tower'. Sourced from the Special Collections Research Center, Henry Madden Library, California State University, Fresno.

Poster with Japanese text and a colourful montage illustration of smiling people, landscapes and buildings

A guide to the International Ocean Exposition in Okinawa, 1975. Sourced from the Special Collections Research Center, Henry Madden Library, California State University, Fresno.

Age of Exploration

A scrapbook page with four hand-drawn illustrations of landscapes and mountains; the first in muted colours and the other three in black and white

Four images, including 'Shek Tsin' by T V Cooke, B Major, RMLI, 24 October 1859, showing small fortified village and artillery pieces; 'Lemma Islands, 3 Leagues distant, 27 July 1813'; 'Great Lemma SW by W' by Captain F W Beechey, HMS Blossom; 'Rough Copy-Jaquelin Hill Bearing West 6 Miles'. Sourced from The National Archives, UK.

Foreign Office, Consulate and Legation Files, China: 1830-1939

Pen and ink drawing in black, red, and green, of Chinese figures, seated and kneeling, and an animal suspended on a cross

Anti-Catholic placard from Kieyang, 1890. Sourced from The National Archives, UK.

Amnesty International Archives: A Global Movement for Human Rights

Watercolour image of a mother cradlng a baby under the heading 'AMNESTY'

A poster marking Amnesty International Japan's 50th anniversary project for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1998).

Black and white photograph of a smiling woman hugging a young boy, and the caption "I never thought I'd see Mommy again"

A poster from Amnesty International Hong Kong calling for help in the campaign to free prisoners of conscience around the world. Sourced from the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam.

Socialism on Film

A male figure kneeling with paints and paintbrush over a large piece of artwork, with a colourful completed work next to him

A still from a film named 'Korean Architecture': a feature on the wooden architecture and traditional arts and crafts in the temples of South Korea. Produced in South Korea (undated, but c.1954-1975).

Food and Drink in History

A book cover with the title 'The Art of Korean Cookery' and a colour photograph of women in traditional dress, and other people in western dress at a barbeque

A cookbook of 1963 authored by Choong-Ok Cho, aiming to introduce Korean food to the Westerner.