OWHL Guides: History 300: A Guide to Research: Cold War in the US

Reference Sources

Selected Reference e-Books

The Fifties in America by John C. Super (Editor); R. Kent Rasmussen (Editorial Coordinator); Christina J. Moose (Editor-In-Chief); Salem Press Editors
Call Number: REF e-Book
HSS 300 - The Cold War; The 1950s and 1960s
The Columbia Guide to the Cold War by Michael Kort; Michael G. Kort
Call Number: REF E-Book
REF E-Book
Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement by Christopher M. Richardson
Call Number: REF E-Book
Encyclopedia of Cold War Politics by Brandon Toropov
Call Number: REF E-Book
REF E-Book
The Korean War: an Encylopedia by Stanley Sandler, Editor
Call Number: REF E-Book
REF E-Book
Encyclopedia of the Cold War by Thomas S. Arms
Call Number: REF E-Book
REF E-Book

Secondary Sources

Recommended e-Books

The Cold War by Bradley Lightbody
Call Number: E-Book
The Cold War's Last Battlefield by Edward A. Lynch
Call Number: e-Book
HSS300 e-Book - The Cold War
God Bless You Joe Stalin : the man who saved capitalism by Lewis E. Kaplan
Call Number: E-Book
Henry Kissinger and the American Century by Jeremi Suri
Call Number: e-Book
HSS 300 e-Book - The Cold War
A journey through the Cold War : a memoir of containment and coexistence by Raymond L. Garthoff
Call Number: E-Book
Murrow's Cold War by Gregory M. Tomlin
Call Number: e-Book
HSS 300 e-Book - The Cold War
The Rhetorical Presidency, Propaganda, and the Cold War, 1945-1955 by Shawn J. Parry-Giles
Call Number: E-Book
Selling the American Way: U.S. propaganda and the Cold War by Laura A. Belmonte
Call Number: E-Book

Recommended Websites

CIA Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room
The CIA has established this site to provide the public with an overview of access to CIA information, including electronic access to previously released documents.
Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
Digitized cultural heritage materials from libraries, archives and museums across the United States.

Primary Sources

Selected Primary Source e-Books

Primary Sources on the web

Baptism By Fire: CIA Analysis of the Korean War This collection includes more than 1,300 documents consisting of national estimates, intelligence memo, daily updates, and summaries of foreign media concerning developments on the Korean Peninsula during 1947 - 1954. Largest collection of CIA documents released on this issue. (Central Intelligence Agency, CIA)
Korean War, 1950-1953 250+ primary source documents on the Korean War, obtained largely from Russian archives. TIP: In addition to this collection, look at the broader Wilson Center Digital Archive for other specific collections on captured North Korean documents, China's involvement in the Korean War, conversations with 1948-1994 North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, inter-Korean relations, Korean War origins and armistice, and much more. (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars)
Korean War Project The site design is a little sketchy, but this site is full of quality information (primary and secondary). Includes KIA-MIA-POW-WIA databases; maps; hundreds of US Marine Corps Command and Unit files; and more. Soon it will also include tens of thousands of digitized documents from the U.S. Army.
Korean War Propaganda Leaflets (North Dakota State Univ.)
The Nuclear Vault: Resources from the Nuclear Documentation Project De-classified documents, photos, info, related reading lists, and links related to nuclear weapons, nuclear weapon policies, nuclear crises, and nuclear proliferation (in the U.S. and around the world) from the 1940s through the present. (George Washington Univ.)
Statistical Abstract of the United States from the GPO (1878-2012) Statistical Abstract data present here ranges from our most recent edition to the historical abstracts compiled throughout the decades. Some of the data were scanned as an effort to make historical abstract information available to the public. The display of data will continue as historical records become available.
CIA World Factbook Information on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities.
Veterans History Project The Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war. (Library of Congress)
Documentation on Early Cold War U.S. Propaganda Activities in the Middle East "The documents collected here describe an earlier program to expand and revitalize American propaganda directed at the Middle East, and the methods that were utilized, including graphic displays, manipulation of the news, books, movies, cartoons, activities directed at schools and universities, and exchange programs. U.S. propaganda efforts were assisted by collaborating governments, the news media, academics, publishers, and private associations." (George Washington Univ.)
Revelations from the Russian Archives June 15–July 16, 1992: This exhibition is important for what it represents, what it contains, and what it suggests. It represents a new Russia, willing and anxious under its first democratically elected president, Boris Yeltsin, to affirm the core democratic value of open access to information. Shortly after defeating the attempted coup of August 1991, a group from the victorious democratic resistance led by the chief archivist of Russia, Rudolph Pikhoia, took over the previously top secret archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and began the process of both consolidating democratic control over all archives in Russia and attempting to make them available for the first time for public study. (Library of Congress)
American Archive of Public Broadcasting Audio Visual Resources on the Cold War.
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XIV, Berlin Crisis, 1961–1962 Documents from the Berlin Crisis. (U.S. Department of State)
Cold War Studies The Cold War Studies program at Harvard University's Davis Center promotes archival research in former East-bloc countries and seeks to expand and enrich what is known about Cold War events and themes. More important, it encourages scholars and students to use their research on Cold War topics to illuminate current theoretical debates about international and domestic politics. (Harvard University)
Cold War Origins "This collection of primary source documents discusses international relations during World War II and the years shortly after. It begins with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed in 1939 and ends with documents from the 1950’s. The collection contains a wide variety of documents including agreements, memorandums, meeting minutes, cables, letters, diary entries, and military reports from WWII. The documents mainly come from Russian and Bulgarian archives." (Wilson Center Digital Archives)
Cold War Museum The Cold War Museum is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization dedicated to education, preservation, and research on the global, ideological, and political confrontations between East and West from the end of World War II to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Cold War International History Project

From the P.A. Archives

Andover and The Soviet Union
Secondary Source Material from the Andover Bulletin, 1985. See Primary Source Conference Notes below: Dartmouth Conference.
Third Unofficial Soviet-American Conference of Public Figures, Andover, MA Oct. 1962

Russian American Conference, Dartmouth Group, October 1962
Photo: Phillps Academy Archives.