Earlham Libraries Home: HIST 374: Modern Japan: Find Primary Sources

Primary Documents

Japan-Specific

National Diet Library - List of Online Gallery of Exhibits with English Interface
Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures
By the National Diet Library. Available in English and Japanese. Includes a photograph and a brief biographical sketch of over 350 individuals, including government officials, military officers, businessmen, scholars and artists.
National Archives of Japan Digital Archive
Historical documents and images.
Japan Search
Portal to digitized collections in Japan.
JapanAirRaid .org
A bilingual digital archive about the air raids conducted by the United States Army Air Forces and Navy against Japan.

East Asian

Primary Sources — East Asia
A resource from University of Washington that has gathered a wide variety of East Asian primary source materials, most of them open access. Find the Japan category for Japan-specific material.
East Asian History Sourcebook
List of primary sources (mostly documents) organized by country and year.
East Asia Image Collection
From Lafayette College, this repository contains images mostly from 20th Century Japan, but also China, Korea, and other East Asian countries.

Asian Newsstream This link opens in a new window
This database provides access to more than 60 of the most respected national and regional sources of news and current affairs information in Asia and the Far East. Many titles are available in full text and are updated within 24 hours of publication. Publications include The Wall Street Journal Asia, China News and The Bangkok Post.

Press Translations, Japan, 1945-1946
English summaries or full translations of newspaper articles and editorials from November 1945 to June 1946.

Check out these primary source eBooks held by Earlham Libraries.

Sources of Japanese Tradition : Volume 2, 1600 to 2000 by Wm. Theodore de Bary
Publication Date: 2005
Authoritative sourcebook for Japan from the eighteenth century to the post-World War II period and the entire twentieth century.
Japan : A Documentary History by David J. Lu
Publication Date: 1996