Society and Politics

Coming Soon: Global Politics and US Foreign Policy: The Council on Foreign Relations, 1918–2000

by

│By Clem Delany, Acquisitions Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

December 2025 will see the launch of a new digital archive, Global Politics and US Foreign Policy: The Council on Foreign Relations, 1918–2000.

This is the digitisation of material from the Studies Department, Records of Groups, and the Records of Meetings of the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan, independent US think tank focused on the international relations of the United States and its role in the world.

This role, and public perceptions of it, has altered greatly throughout the twentieth century, from the isolationist principles of the 1920s and 30s, to the American engagement in WWII and subsequent support in Allied recovery processes, to the Cold War, global anti-communist fears, and the growth of American soft power. In 2025, many of the programs of the United States Agency for International Development (established in 1961 and a key tool of US soft power) were shut down and a new phase of US international relations began.

Read more

Terra Nullius: The Legacy of “The Land of No One”

by

│By Oralkhanova Alima, Year 11 Student at Nazarbaev Intellectual School in Semey, Kazakhstan│

In an era when concerns about overpopulation and scarcity of natural resources are rising, it may seem paradoxical that certain areas of land remain unclaimed and unwanted. Even today, when countries continue to engage in territorial disputes and conflicts, there still exist regions that have been ignored by the international community. To describe such territories, early international law introduced a specific term – terra nullius, a Latin expression meaning “the land of no one”. Although this term is no longer officially used, the concept of terra nullius continues to captivate people’s minds.

Read more

In the Footsteps of My Avô: Exploring Angola’s Fight for Independence Through Family History

by

|Rosa Ferreira, Digital Product Trainer|

Armando Dias De Castro, my avô – my Portuguese grandfather – was a man full of life. He was warm, funny, always ready with a story or a joke. He was also the kindest man you’d ever meet. But when it comes to his time in Angola, I’ve got nothing. No stories, no memories. If he ever spoke about it, I must have been too small to notice, or the words just never stuck.

My uncle, however, recalls many conversations. That makes me believe my avô must have shared his experiences, at least in fragments, though they slipped past me.

It is this gap – between the grandfather I knew and the silence that lingers – that has drawn me into the archives.

Read more

Uncovering India with Gale Primary Sources

by

│By Mickey Mehta Arorra, Digital Product Trainer│

India’s history unfolds across centuries of transformation – colonial rule, the struggle for independence, post-colonial reconstruction, and global diplomacy. Much of this complex narrative has long remained buried in distant or hard-to-reach archives. Now, Gale Primary Sources brings these rich and rare documents into the digital realm, making them accessible to students, educators, and researchers across India.

With collections such as Decolonization: Politics and Independence in Former Colonial and Commonwealth Territories, The Making of Modern Law: Legal Treaties, 1800-1926, and Women’s Studies Archive, learners can dive deep into archival material that brings India’s layered past to life in vivid detail.

Read more

Solving the Third Condiment Mystery with Primary Source Documents

by
Dinner table from 1895 combined with source from the article showing a photo of a cruet

|By Kevin Kohls, Marketing Manager| The internet loves a good mystery. They allow content creators to put on their detective hats to try to determine fact from fiction and provide a real opportunity to answer questions that had previously been unknown. When I saw a YouTube video which mentioned the “Victorian third condiment mystery” earlier … Read more

Spanish Flu in the Time of COVID-19

by

│By Eleanor Leese, Acquisitions Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

The first half of the 2020s brought with it political and social upheaval on a scale not seen for generations. Nothing touched the lives of more people than the COVID-19 infections that were reported in the opening days of the decade, and led to the deaths of more than seven million people worldwide. To understand these once-in-a-lifetime events, journalists turned to the most recent example of a global pandemic – still just within living memory: the ‘Spanish Flu’.

With the addition of issues for 2020 to 2024 in The Times Digital Archive, it’s possible to research the development of these two in parallel for the first time.

Read more

Leaving a Mark: Historical Graffiti

by

│By Elizabeth Gaglio, Digital Product Trainer|

“What is it actually about?” the bookseller asks me as we scan the shelves in the British History section.

“Graffiti in the eighteenth century,” I say. 

Admittedly, it’s a topic I may have thought was out of place not long ago. Graffiti, by nature, is often thought of as impulsive and temporary; an expression of a moment, publicly written somewhere it doesn’t belong. How much can we really know about writing, marks, and art that have long since been washed away or painted over? 

In the book I’m looking for, Writing on the Wall: Graffiti, Rebellion, and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Britain, historian and author Madeline Pelling shares some specific examples of how “lost voices”, especially of those who were not otherwise published and preserved, can still be heard and seen today. The bookseller spots the book, aptly hidden in plain sight, and uses the ladder to bring it down to me. 

Read more

A Moment of Anguish: Revisiting the Separation of Singapore from the Federation of Malaysia Through British Library Newspapers

by

|By Liping Yang, Senior Manager, Academic Publishing, Gale Asia|

On the morning of August 9, 1965, a visibly shaken Lee Kuan Yew, prime minister of Singapore, stood before journalists and television cameras. His voice trembled and his eyes welled with tears when he talked about the moment when the agreement “which severed Singapore from Malaysia” was signed. For him, it was “a moment of anguish.” His words marked the beginning of a new chapter for Singapore—a moment that would redefine two nations.

Sixty years on, the emotional weight of that day still echoes through the region’s political and cultural memory. But what did ordinary people know at the time? How did newspapers report the unfolding crisis, and what voices emerged in the public sphere?

Read more

In Need of Some Good News: Daily Mail Historical Archive, 2017-2021

by

│By Emma Harris, Associate Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

The period of 2017 to 2021 spanned both my university education and then being thrust into the adult world of work – a turbulent time for any, exacerbated by a period of news headlines dominated with political fallout, freak weather, and global pandemics. This period saw elections, both in the United Kingdom and the United States, and the likes of Brexit lead to political divides within countries, and not to mention the coronavirus pandemic that absorbed most of our lives considerably from 2020 into 2021.

However, this isn’t to say these years weren’t filled with positive change at all. In fact, there was rather a lot of good news. And when we’re still dealing with the inundation of negative news topics daily – inflation and wars being some of the topics to greet me on the news this morning – sometimes it’s helpful to be reminded of the good news that’s out there too.

So, using the most recent update to Gale’s Daily Mail Historical Archive, 1896-2021, allow me to put some joy back into your day with some of the positive news that came from the last decade.

Read more

Perfecting the Elevator Pitch: Using Gale Primary Sources to Unpack Intellectual History

by

│By Sofía Sanabria de Felipe, Gale Ambassador at the University of Oxford│

With great power comes great responsibility. With being a doctoral researcher comes the ever-present question: what do you work on? As a response, you come up with an elevator pitch that somewhat does justice to your project. To do so, you find yourself using abstract terms like ‘universality’ and ‘contingency’, often leaving your audience none the wiser as to what exactly it is you do.

So, when Gale Primary Sources offered me the opportunity to write a blog post centred on my research, I decided to use their archives and digital humanities tools as a way of finally perfecting my elevator pitch.

Read more