Please see the research guides for A Guide to Chinese Studies and A Guide to East Asian Studies for resources in Chinese. For further assistance, please see Joan Wang, WUSTL Libraries' East Asian and Chinese Studies Librarian.
Berkshire Encyclopedia of China (2009) provides insight into Chinese history and culture today in nearly a thousand articles that include everything from Adoption and Banking to Wound Literature and the Zhou Dynasty. eBook
Chinapedia: The first authoritative reference to understanding China (2014) covers geography, history, politics, economy, and law eBook
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China (1991) an absorbing and authoritative account of China and all things Chinese - geography, politics, customs, food and drink, the arts, and a rich and colorful history, from ancient times through to the momentous events of the past decade. Brian Hook and his team of expert contributors have thoroughly revised and updated the Encyclopedia to take full account of the most recent developments in China, from the economic reforms and increased freedoms of the early 1980s to the crisis of 1989 and its aftermath. print
Bibliography of Asian Studies - references to western-language monographs, articles and book chapters on all parts of Asia published since 1971. eBook
Chinese History is a subject headings with A LOT of subheadings. Pay attention to the subheading "historiography" and bibliography
Keywords - "economic policy," "economic conditions," "foreign economic relations,"
Historical Abstracts (1955- ) contents include world history journals from 1450 to the present
EconLit with Full Text - indexing and abstracts, some full text for 400+ journals and 500+ collected works per year. The database provides indexing and full text for articles in all fields of economics, including capital markets, country studies, econometrics, economic forecasting, environmental economics, government regulations, labor economics, monetary theory, urban economics, and much more. Updated monthly.
Multidisciplinary
Specialty
Book Review Index - a comprehensive online guide to book reviews with over five million review citations from thousands of publications.
Chinese
Chinese academic articles in I usually use CNKI and CAJ
CAJ -- China Academic Journals Full-text Database (English interface) / 中国期刊全文数据库 (Chinese interface) A full text, searchable database of journals from China
Duxiu database 读秀中文学术搜索 Duxiu database provides access to more than 3 million Chinese bibliographic entries and 2 million full text scholarly resources in all subjects and formats, including books, journal articles, newspapers, theses, conference proceedings, and video clips..
Library catalogers use the subheading "Sources" at the end of a string of subheadings to indicate anthologies of primary sources. However, cataloging is not a perfect science, so not every collection of primary sources has this subheading. For example, a search for the keyword phrase "documentary sourcebook" in the WU Libraries' catalog produces seven titles, only three of which have "sources" as a subheading. In other words, performing a subject search will not produce a complete list of all primary source collections. Sometimes the source one wants to find is not in an anthology but cited in a bibliography of another work. You might want to try an advanced search with a combination of subject headings and keywords like “sources,” "sourcebook," "primary sources," "primary documents," etc.
DIGITAL
China: Trade, Politics, and Culture With documents encompassing events from the earliest English embassy to the birth and early years of the People’s Republic, this resource collects sources from nine archives to give an incredible insight into the changes in China during this period.
China: Culture and Society - spanning three centuries (c1750-1929), this resource makes available for the first time extremely rare pamphlets from Cornell University Library’s Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia. The resource is full-text searchable, allowing for the collection to be comprehensively explored and studied.
Empire Online Over 70,000 images of original documents relating to Empire Studies. The images are sourced from libraries and archives around the world, including a strong core of document images from the British Library.
U.S. Government Documents - State Department, et. al.
Political Relations Between China, the U.S. and Other Countries, 1910-1929 This collection includes the microfilmed U.S. State Department records for 1910-1929 relating to the political relations between the United States and China and relations between China and other states. The collection includes instructions to and dispatches from diplomatic and consular officials; the dispatches are often accompanied with enclosures. Also included in these records are the correspondence, reports, and journals of the commissions concerned with extraterritoriality in China, as well as notes between the State Department and foreign diplomatic representatives in the United States, memoranda prepared by officials of the State Department, and correspondence with officials of other government departments and with private firms and individuals.
Country Intelligence Reports on China - This series consists of reports, studies, and surveys on various topics of interest to the Department of State. The reports vary from short memorandums to detailed, documented studies. The topics range from individual commodities or countries to the economic and political characteristics of whole regions. This collection consists of research and intelligence reports prepared during 1941-1961 on China.
Political Relations and Conflict Between Republican China and Imperial Japan, 1930-1939 - The records in this collection relate to political relations between China and Japan for the period 1930 -1939. The records are mostly instructions to and despatches from diplomatic and consular officials; the despatches are often accompanied by enclosures. Also included in these records are notes between the Department of State and foreign diplomatic representatives in the United States, memorandums prepared by officials of the Department. There are records on: the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, beginning with the Mukden incident, in 1931; military action at Shanghai in 1932; further Japanese political and economic penetration into China, 1935-1936; and the course of the undeclared war between Japan and China, 1937-1939.
Subject Files of U.S. State Department's Office of the Republic of China Affairs, 1951-1978 - This collection consists of briefing books, correspondence, memoranda, policy papers, reports, statistics, and other miscellaneous records from the Office of the Country Director for the Republic of China.
Chinese Civil War and U.S.-China Relations: Records of the U.S. State Department's Office of Chinese Affairs, 1945-1955 - The U.S. State Department’s Office of Chinese Affairs, charged with operational control of American policy toward China, amassed information on virtually all aspects of life there immediately before, during, and after the revolution. Declassified by the State Department, the Records of the Office of Chinese Affairs, 1945-1955, provide valuable insight into numerous domestic issues in Communist and Nationalist China, U.S. containment policy as it was extended to Asia, and Sino-American relations during the post-war period. This product comprises all 41 reels of the former Scholarly Resources microfilm product entitled Records of the Office of Chinese Affairs, 1945-1955.
Other U.S. gov docs
Political, Economic, and Military Conditions in China: Reports and Correspondence of the U.S. Military Intelligence Division, 1918-1941 - This collection reproduces the six principal MID files relating exclusively to China for the period 1918 to 1941 (general conditions, political conditions, economic conditions, army, navy, and aeronautics). Also includes documents created by other U.S. Government agencies and foreign governments from the records of the Military Intelligence Division.
Records of the U.S. Information Service in China: Chinese Press Reviews and Summaries, 1944-1950 - This collection of essential U.S. Information Service collections on the Civil War period provides a unique opportunity to understand immediate post-World War II Chinese history, comparative revolution, and early Cold War history. This combination of smaller press collections weave together the strands of military, social, political, and free world history
British Foreign Office documents
China and the Modern World Imperial China and the West 1815 - 1905 - Digitized in two parts from the FO 17 series of British Foreign Office Files held at the UK National Archives, Part 1 of Imperial China and the West provides General Correspondence relating to China from 1815–1881; and Part II is from 1865-1905. Here, scholars will find material relating to the internal politics of China and Britain, their relationship, and the relationships between other Western powers keen to benefit from the growing trading ports of the Far East.
British Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980 - The six parts of this collection make available all British Foreign Office files dealing with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan between 1919 and 1980.
NEWSPAPERS
National Index to Chinese Newspapers and Periodicals (Shanghai Library) contains over 120,000 books (full-text searchable) and visualization of digital humanities accomplished by the DH team of Shanghai Library. Covers the Late Qing Full-text Database (1833-1911), Chinese Periodical Full-text Database (1911-1949) Series 1-11, and Books of Modern China (1840 - 1949).
Chinese Maritime Customs Service: the Customs' Gazette, 1869-1913 The Customs’ Gazette, published by order of the Inspector General of Customs of China in Shanghai, provided quarterly reports on trade that were prepared and submitted by various custom houses based across the country. This statistical and narrative information provided the central Chinese government with an in-depth analysis on trade. But, the Gazette also provided insights into local and regional economic and social conditions, policing of customs and trade, and conditions at Treaty Ports.
Shen Bao Newspaper Archive (1872-1949) established in 1872, Shen Bao was the most influential and longest lasting commercial newspaper before the establishment of the People’s Republic. Published in Shanghai until 1949, Shen Bao was founded by Englishman Ernest Major, but, uniquely, as a newspaper for Chinese readers, written by Chinese reporters.
Historical American Newspapers (ProQuest) Includes the Atlanta Constitution, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Hartford Courant, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
19th Century English-Language Journals from the Far East Six 19th century journals documenting English missionaries' and scholars' encounters with Far East culture, history, and religion, among other topics.
MISSIONARY SOCIETY RECORDS
Global Missions and Theology (1800-1899) - Database of 19th century religious missionary activities, practices and thought in the United States based on personal narratives, organizational records, and biographies of the leaders, missionaries, and churches. Collection includes materials on missionary activities among Native Americans and African Americans - both slaves and freedmen - activities in regions and countries, such as Africa, Fiji and Sandwich Islands, India, China, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Hawaii.
Chinese Recorder and the Protestant Missionary Community in China, 1867-1941 Knowledge was valuable to the Christian missionaries who went to China in the nineteenth century. They wanted to spread the knowledge of Western Christianity and technology to the Chinese, but also they wished to exchange information among themselves about the work they were doing. The need to keep informed about the activities of their counterparts in other locations in the country was evident very soon after they arrived in China. Although the first Protestant missionary reached China in 1807, missionaries were not legally permitted to live in the interior of the country until after the signing of the 1860 treaties between China and Britain and France.
OTHER
Making of the Modern World: The Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature (1460 - 1850) presents more than 61,000 books from the period 1460-1850, and 466 pre-1906 serials.
Open Access
The PRC History Group An interdisciplinary collective of PRC history scholars. The website has a useful collection of primary and secondary sources, plus an extensive list of outside resources.
The Mao Era in Objects Website devoted to understanding the Mao era through objects and daily artifacts.
Cold War International History Project A collection of primary sources on the Cold War, most of which are bilingual. You may find a range of transcripts and documents on China and Taiwan during the Cold War.
Chinese Propaganda Posters An extensive collection of propaganda posters from the PRC. Especially useful for understanding what kind of information was disseminated by the party both domestically and globally.
The Maoist Legacy Collection of official documents that shed light on the history of justice during the post-Mao transition. Especially important for sources on the Gang of Four.
The Peking Review The PRC’s official English-language organ that circulated widely around the world from 1958 onward.
Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) more on material culture you can look at
East Asian Libraries in North America (CEAL)
CALIS Union Catalog (China Academic Library and Infor. System) (CALIS 公共目录检索系统)
Hong Kong Academic Library Link (香港高校圖書聯網)
[Taiwan] National Bibliographic Information Network (NBINet 全國圖書資訊網)