Blog Post #8: Digital History Project Review - Take One (Draft/In Class Presentation)

 Cold War International History Project Digital Archive

https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/

The Cold War International History Project Digital Archive, founded in 1991 and maintained by the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, focuses on acquiring and translating various Cold War documents from archives around the world – uncovering new sources as global archives release documentation to the public, offering fresh new insights into the history of international diplomacy and relationships. These efforts to provide public access to emerging documents allow students, scholars, and the interested public to “reassess the Cold War and its contemporary legacies,” an indispensable resource for historians researching twentieth-century international relationships and the insights of the conflict on a global scale.

In March of 2013, the Wilson Center for Scholars instituted a new digital archive collection dubbed Digital Archive: International History Declassified, an archive that housed more documents than the original CWIHP site did, while also facilitating the addition of more documents expected to be declassified as time went on.

Source materials include a wide array of Cold War topics, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, Chinese global diplomacy and approaches, and the impact of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident – while also providing various sources on lesser-known aspects of the Cold War, such as the history of the Brazilian Nuclear Program, diplomatic implications of the 1988 Seoul Olympic games, and even documents on the existence of ice hockey during the height of the Cold War. Documents come from over one hundred archives worldwide and are translated by CWIHP scholars from twenty-four different languages.

With such an impressive scope of topics covered, the site also features several different search mechanisms that make the site extremely navigable and user-friendly. In simply browsing the collection, users can choose to explore documents by location, where a world map featuring hyperlinked regions takes the user to a page with only sources related to the selected region.

Documents by location.

Users can also explore global documents by year, in which they are presented with a clickable timeline, and then also by most common subjects. The archive has also created several different collections where various document types related to a specific subject, such as “Local Nationalism in Xinjiang, 1957-1958” are grouped and organized chronologically – users can then click on the specific document they want to read or sift through detailed summaries of each different source within the collection. The archive also provides thematic databases; users can choose a theme, navigate through a timeline of events, and parse through research material related to the theme they have chosen (such as Nuclear History or Chinese Foreign Policy.)

Documents by year or most common subject.

This user-friendly navigation is the archive’s most useful feature: the site provides an excellent tool not only for historians researching niche aspects of the Cold War but also for teachers and professors as an educational tool. The simplicity of the search mechanisms, while also extremely thorough in possibility, allows the site to access a large public audience. Nonspecialists, unsure of what keywords to search for, can make efficient use of the project’s curated collections and hyperlinked maps and timelines. Furthermore, on the site’s homepage, columns for the most recently added documents and newly created collections allow visitors to see the firsthand acquisition of newly declassified documents and the implications these documents have for larger historical themes and narratives.

While the archive is a highly beneficial tool for historians and the public alike, the curated collections and themes sometimes feel unfinished – with such important topics, like Yuri Gagarin and the First Human Space Flight having only 20 applicable documents, and South Korean Nuclear History having only 26 – mostly consisting of texts that have always been widely accessible. As time goes on, however, and more declassified materials become available for translation and acquisition, these collections and themes may become more full-figured; this one issue is possibly out of the archive’s hands, simply because they are working with what is currently available to them.

The archive’s about section claims that “the Digital Archive is a resource where students, researchers, and specialists can access once-secret documents from governments and organizations all over the world,” and the project does just that – and more. In providing public access to sources, translating foreign documents, and housing such navigable, palatable search mechanisms, The Digital Archive: International History Declassified provides anyone with an interest in Cold War implications and relationships the ability to research these narratives to the fullest extent possible. Expectantly, this archive will only continue to grow as more classified documents become available to the public, and this efficient online format perfectly facilitates this anticipated growth.