Tag Archives: ww2

Trial until 27 Nov: Paris Peace Conference and Beyond, 1919-1939

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Oxford historians are now invited to trial Paris Peace Conference and Beyond, 1919-1939 (British Online Archives) which is available via SOLO and Databases A-Z.

The Paris Peace Conference was a meeting of Allied diplomats that took place in the aftermath of the First World War. Its purpose was to impose peace terms on the vanquished Central Powers and establish a new international order.

This online resource draws on material chiefly from The National Archives: FO 373 (Foreign Office: Peace Conference; Handbooks): FO 608 (Foreign Office: Peace Conference; British Delegation, Correspondence and Papers); FO 893 (Foreign Office: Ambassadors to the Peace Conference, 1919; Minutes of Proceedings); CAB 29/139 (Cabinet Office: International Conferences; Minutes and Papers; Lausanne Conference, 1932).

These Foreign Office records for the first time offer an emphatic and comprehensive coverage of the various peace treaties signed at the end of the First World War. The Treaties of Versailles, Saint-Germain, Sèvres, Trianon, Neuilly and Lausanne are all covered in great depth. They collectively saw to the redrawing of boundaries, the stripping back of German military might and the effective end of the Ottoman Empire.

These records are supplemented by the personal papers of Robert Cecil and Arthur Balfour – held at the British Library – both of whom played prominent roles during the course of the Conference.

Explore how the Allied Powers scrambled to create a diplomatic epilogue to ‘the war to end all wars’. This resource will interest those researching: The First World War, The Second World War, Inter-War International Governance, International Relations, Peace-making, Colonialism, 20th Century, War, Diplomacy, and Politics.

Please send feedback to isabel.holowaty@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Useful subject searches in SOLO: Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920) or World War, 1914-1918 — Reparations.

While you are here…

… did you know that the Bodleian has The Papers of Richard Meinerzhagen (1878-1967)? He was on Balfour’s staff at the Paris Peace Conference.

More titles on Cambridge Histories Online available: Cambridge World History and many more

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CHO - WWII coverI’m pleased to report that Oxford readers can now access more titles in the online Cambridge Histories Online portal. The newly added ebooks of interest to historians are:

  • The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy (2 vols.)
  • The Cambridge History of Witchcraft and Magic in the West
  • The Cambridge History of the Second World War (3 vols.)
  • The Cambridge Economic History of Australia
  • The Cambridge History of Capitalism (2 vols.)
  • The Cambridge History of China, Volume 5 (part 2) & Volume 9 (part 2)
  • The Cambridge History of Scandinavia (to be complete in 2 vols.)
  • The Cambridge World History (to be complete in 9 vols.)

The catalogue records for these ebooks will appear in SOLO in due course. In the meantime you can find these by searching Cambridge Histories Online in SOLO.

New: Mass Observation Online Part III – access to post-war sources

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MO3Mass Observation enthusiasts will be pleased to know that Oxford has now acquired part 3 of this wonderful resource. The latest addition to Mass Observation Online supplements coverage of the war-years and for the first time includes personal writing material from the post-war years.

Oxford users have access to MOO via SOLO or Databases A-Z.

The new content provides opportunities for in-depth research of subjects from an age of post-war austerity and the rise of consumerism and the welfare state:

  • demobilization
  • health and the NHS
  • reconstruction
  • industry
  • sport
  • holidays and leisure

The following new materials are now included:

Diaries, Men and Women, 1946-1950

A full run of diaries up to the end of 1950. You can trace and compare individual accounts of everyday life and events in Britain in the first five years following the end of the Second World War.

Directives, Men and Women, 1946-1947

The complete set of directives for 1946-1947 covers such varied subjects as political parties and policies, reading habits, drinking habits, spiritualism, the cost of living, expectations for 1947, Britain’s place in the world, anti-Semitism, and responses to the Nuremberg Trials.

Topic Collections

Thirty new Topic Collections from the war and post-war years are being added, more than doubling the Topic Collection digital holdings of the existing resource. These include:

  • Propaganda and Morale, 1939-1944 (including material on public opinion, propaganda theory, Beaverbrook campaigns, government advertising campaigns, and Ministry of Information exhibitions)
  • Conscientious Objection and Pacifism, 1939-1944 (including surveys of pacifists, and materials on cultural and legal aspects of pacifism)
  • Press, 1938-42 (including analysis of the press, newspaper placards and cuttings)
  • Police, Law and Invasion Preparations, 1939-1941 (including police reports, accounts of crime and accidents in the Blackout, and Invasion Leaflet Questionnaire Replies)
  • Reconstruction, 1941-1942 (including regional reconstruction surveys, plans, and progress reports, and material on the Housing Centre and the National Council of Social Service)
  • Coal Mining, 1938-1948 (including surveys of mines, miners and mining towns)
  • Industry, 1940-1955 (including industrial and war factory surveys and material on strikes and industrial disputes)
  • Sexual Behaviour, 1939-1950 (including reports on sex in and outside of marriage, sexual morality, questionnaires, and material on contraception, ‘Lonely Hearts’ clubs, and venereal disease)
  • Health, 1939-1947 (including surveys of health, the National Health Service and chemists’ shops)
  • Family Planning, 1944-1949 (including family surveys and matrimony questionnaires)
  • Live Entertainment, 1938-1948 (including fairs, the theatre, pantomime, music hall and concerts)
  • Sport, 1939-1947 (including cricket, football, golf, rugby, darts, dogs, and sport in wartime)
  • Holidays, 1937-1951 (including the Beveridge holiday questionnaire, holiday camps, holiday transport and activities)

Watch the ‘Mass Observation Online’ video overview on YouTube


Largely taken from http://www.amdigital.co.uk/m-collections/collection/mass-observation-iii/.

Related Links

What else in the Mass Observation Online? See my blog post of 24 June 2010.

Other useful resources: