African Studies Guide

Compiled by NISC in South Africa, Africa-Wide Information is an aggregation of nearly 50 databases sourced from Africa, Europe and the U.S. This comprehensive database collection integrates content from NISC’s South African Studies, African Studies and African HealthLine databases. Africa-Wide Information provides comprehensive, multidisciplinary information documenting research and publications by Africans and about Africa. This database comprises more than 3.5 million media reports, scholarly articles, books, theses, citations and document abstracts dating back to the 16th century.

The Sabinet Complete Collection is the largest aggregation of African journals, news, and government information. The platform includes over 185,000 articles from 532 African refereed and peer-reviewed journals from 1910 to the present, as well as South African news, and Government, Labor, and Law information.
UVA has access to most content.

So many research topics emerged from the colonial conquest and the legacy of slavery in modern South African society—the Anglo-Boer War, imperial policy, and race classification among them—that this volatile corner of nineteenth-century history draws enduring interest from scholars and students. This collection includes monographs, manuscripts, and newspaper accounts covering key issues of economics, world politics, and international strategy.

Large general database of articles from scholarly journals, magazines, and newspapers on many topics. Also includes reference books (World Almanac, American Heritage Dictionary), biographies, speeches, images, and other primary source documents.

This comprehensive news collection is ideal for exploring issues and events at the local, regional, national and international level. Its diverse source types include print and online-only newspapers, blogs, newswires, journals, broadcast transcripts and videos. It currently contains over 9,600 sources from 160 countries.

Uncover the history of European colonization across the African continent in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century through the rare printed works, diaries and journals, correspondence, maps, photographs, and film footage presented within Africa and the New Imperialism.

Black South African Magazines is the first and only digital collection of magazines created for Black audiences in Africa from 1937 to 1973. Find over 50,000 pages of extremely rare, yet historically significant magazines, written for Black African audiences. Coverage includes Drum, Zonk!, The Townships Housewife, Hi-Note, and others.
API available, more information here: APIs for Scholarly Research

With content spanning the 1900s to present, Southern African Films and Documentaries offers streaming access to more than a century of African history, politics, and culture. Propaganda films from South Africa’s Information Service and newsreels from African Mirror, showing life under apartheid and major historical events as they unfolded. Documentaries and interviews, sociopolitical documentary, and feature films are all included.
API available, more information here: APIs for Scholarly Research

Find articles from scholarly, peer-reviewed journals published in Africa on all subjects or browse lists of the journals by subject or by country of publication. Some articles are available in full-text and some journals are open access.

Compiled by NISC in South Africa, Africa-Wide Information is an aggregation of nearly 50 databases sourced from Africa, Europe and the U.S. This comprehensive database collection integrates content from NISC’s South African Studies, African Studies and African HealthLine databases. Africa-Wide Information provides comprehensive, multidisciplinary information documenting research and publications by Africans and about Africa. This database comprises more than 3.5 million media reports, scholarly articles, books, theses, citations and document abstracts dating back to the 16th century.

Apartheid South Africa makes available British government files from the Foreign, Colonial, Dominion and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices spanning the period 1948 to 1980.

HeinOnline’s Civil Rights database brings together a diverse offering of publications covering civil rights in the United States as their legal protections and definitions are expanded to cover more and more Americans. Containing hearings and committee prints, legislative histories on the landmark legislations, CRS and GAO reports, briefs from major Supreme Court cases, and publications from the Commission on Civil Rights, this database allows users to educate themselves on the ways our civil rights have been strengthened and expanded over time, as well as how these legal protections can go further still.

The documents begin with coastal trading in the early nineteenth century and the Conference of Berlin of 1884 and the subsequent Scramble for Africa. They then follow the abuses of the Congo Free State, fights against tropical disease, Italy’s defeat by the Abyssinians, World War II, apartheid in South Africa and colonial moves towards independence. Together they cover the whole of the modern period of European colonization of the continent from the British Government’s perspective.

Decolonization: Politics and Independence in Former Colonial and Commonwealth Territories brings together material from within former British colonies and Commonwealth nations, alongside some from former French and Portuguese territories, to provide valuable primary source material created for local audiences by local actors during a period of enormous global change.

Part of Gale Primary Sources: Archives Unbound, this collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities in Africa. Highlights include the beginning of an anti-colonial movement and problems along the Moroccan-Algerian border.

Part of Gale Primary Sources: Archives Unbound, this collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities in Africa from 1910-1929.

Part of Gale Primary Sources: Archives Unbound, this collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other documents related to U.S. consular activities and Italian Colonies in North Africa and aggression in East Africa. U.S. Consulates were listening posts reporting on the activities of the Italian colonial governments and later the mandate authorities, and the activities of the native peoples.

Part of Gale Primary Sources: Archives Unbound, this collection comprises correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities from 1910-1929 in Africa. U.S. Consulates were listening posts reporting on the activities of the Portuguese colonial government and the activities of the native peoples.

Part of Gale Primary Sources: Archives Unbound, the records of the Board of Foreign Missions (BFM) of the Presbyterian Church provide valuable information on social conditions in developing nations and on efforts to spread the gospel during the nineteenth century.

Find articles about the history of the world from 1450 to the present, published in over 2,000 journals from many countries. Includes book reviews. Does not include articles about the US or Canada. For these see America: History & Life.

Search for books and articles in periodicals about Islam and the Muslim world. Also includes reviews.

JSTOR provides access to millions of journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines. The Archive Journal Collection is included.
API available, more information here: APIs for Scholarly Research

News and business information from sources around the world; book reviews, biographical, and other reference sources; U.S. Code, constitution, and court cases. Includes many newspapers. Most entries are full-text, some updated daily.

This series consists of correspondence and telegrams received and sent by the United States’ diplomatic post in Liberia. The topics covered by these records include all aspects of relations with Liberia, and interactions of American citizens with the Liberian government and people.

Part of Gale Primary Sources: Archives Unbound, this archive serves as a companion to Liberia and the U.S.: Nation-Building in Africa, 1864-1918. It consists of correspondence and telegrams received and sent by American diplomats, as well as records of American citizens and companies with relations to Liberia. It carries the story from the end of First World War into the interwar period.

Lists books plus articles and essays from journals and books on literature, linguistics, and folklore. Before 1956 covered only scholarship published in North America.

World Cities preserves the full text of surveys, budgets, statistical records, case studies, planning documents, training manuals, policy guidelines, reports, and news from the world’s top 100 cities by population, capital cities with populations greater than 20,000 people, major cities in the Global South, and cities with particular research importance, such as those dealing with climate change, political instability, or rapid growth.
API available, more information here: APIs for Scholarly Research

Project MUSE hosts more than 800 journals and more than 90,000 books covering the humanities and social sciences from nearly 400 leading university presses, scholarly societies, and related publishers.

These files are the definitive source of American diplomatic reporting on political, military, social, and economic developments in French Africa, and contain various materials from U.S. diplomats.

The Sabinet Complete Collection is the largest aggregation of African journals, news, and government information. The platform includes over 185,000 articles from 532 African refereed and peer-reviewed journals from 1910 to the present, as well as South African news, and Government, Labor, and Law information.
UVA has access to most content.