Collections - Themes and Resources
More detailed information, main topics, guides, and digital collections of some special regions and themes in our collections.
Academy Library
Library collections of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, integrated in the IISH library
Africa
An overview of the IISH collections on African social history and labour is available as an online guide (pdf, 507 Kb)
Anarchism
IISH is the most important repository of anarchist records and papers anywhere.
Anti-Apartheid/Southern Africa
Extensive collection of materials relating to the anti-apartheid and Southern Africa solidarity groups in The Netherlands, the historic collections of the Netherlands institute for Southern Africa (NiZA).
The Arab Middle East Section
Collections from Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon.
Asia
Collections from Bangladesh, Burma, China, the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia, India, the Philippines and Pakistan
• Guide to the Asian Collections at the IISH (pdf, 2469 Kb)
• Supplement October 2005 to the Guide to the Asian Collections (5th update, pdf, 188 Kb)
• Asian Periodicals at the IISH (7th update, July 2005, pdf, 549 Kb)
• The Tian'anmen 1989 collection on the student uprising in Beijing in the spring of 1989
• Chinese Communist Party History and Workers' Movement before 1949 - catalogue of IISH materials
• Chinese Propaganda Posters
• Indonesian labour (INDOC) - database of articles
• Journalistiek in de Tropen. De Indisch- en Indonesisch-Nederlandse pers - in Dutch
• Bengal Collections - since 1996 the IISH has been actively collecting material on the social history of Bengal
• Bengal Oral History - list of interviewed persons
Digital Social History Archive (Occasio)
Collection of newsgroup messages on social, political and ecological issues distributed on the internet.
Economic History
Collections of the Nederlandsch Economisch-Historisch Archief (NEHA). - in Dutch
France
While the Institute's collections generally begin with the Industrial Revolution, the material in the French collection dates back to the emergence of the revolutionary ideology in the second half of the eighteenth century.
Germany and Central Europe
The collection covers a range between two extremes: the democratic-revolutionary movements and early workers organizations from around 1840 versus the extra-parliamentary protest movements from around 1970.
Image and Sound collections
A survey of the image and sound collections held by the IISH, including:
• Button collections - alphabetical list
• Next 5 Minutes Video and Documentation - database
• Photo collections - alphabetical list
• Poster collections - alphabetical list
International Organizations
International socialist and trade union organizations in the collections at the IISH.
Israel - The Israeli Left Archive.
Latin America
A large share of the material predating 1940 comes from the collector Max Nettlau.
Microfilms available of IISH Collections
List of films.
Middle East & Central Asia
Overview of the collections of the Institute’s Middle East & Central Asia Department (Iran, Afghanistan, Caucasus and Central Asia), including:
• Azerbaijan 1988-1991, oral history project IISH-BBC - list of interviewed persons
• Iranian left activists, oral history project - list of interviewed persons
• بخش
خاور ميانه و
آسيای مرکزی: مجموعه
ها
Migration History
An overview of the IISH collections on migration
• The Netherlands - list
• Worldwide - list
The Netherlands
The Institute's largest collection, including:
• Dutch migrants - list of IISH collections (pdf)
• Dutch social movements (CSD) - lists and database
• Dutch squatters' movement (Het Staatsarchief) - lists
• Dutch strikes - database
• Dutch entrepreneurs - database
• Dutch trade unions - annual reports - lists by subject
• CNV archival database
Russia, Soviet-Union and Eastern European countries that became communist after 1945
• Русские
коллекции
Spain and Italy
Collections on socialists, anarchists, and anarcho-syndicalists in Spain and anarchism in Italy.
Spanish Civil War - a guide to primary source materials on the Spanish Civil War.
Surinam press
Virtual exhibition on the history of Surinam press and an overview of Surinam newspapers and serials 1774-2007.
Turkey
Books on the social-economic history of Turkey and the Ottoman Empire after 1800, and, periodicals and archival material relating to oppositional and other political movements, trade unions and labour migration.
• Türkiye Bölümü
• Turkeys Red Flank by Zülfikar Özdogan, Margreet Schrevel (2007, pdf file, 24 pp., 1.8 Mb)
United Kingdom
Seven centuries of British social historiography from the medieval farmers' protests and enclosure movement to today's Nuclear Disarmament movement.
Utopian Communities
A catalogue of printed IISH materials
War and Peace - a guide to IISH archives and some webpresentations
Women's History
A guide to IISH sources
• ViVa bibliography of women's and gender history
The Yiddish Collection
A unique and manifold collection of Yiddish material consisting of books, brochures, periodicals and pamphlets of the early Jewish socialist and anarchist movement in Eastern and Western Europe.