Afghanistan
Background
Biographies of important people since Taliban takeover September 1, 2021.
Encyclopedia Britannica- Afghanistan
Full-text journal and magazine articles, primary sources, multimedia, and other unique resources and tools that make research easier and more productive.
The World Factbook - Afghanistan
The World Factbook provides basic intelligence on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, environment, communications, transportation, military, terrorism, and transnational issues for 266 world entities.
BBC Country Profiles - Afghanistan
An instant guide to the history, politics, and economic background of countries and territories.
UofL Government Resources Guide - Afghanistan
Our Government Resources guide provides an extensive list of articles related to politics, culture, and society
Secondary Sources
Use these databases to find articles and/or essays in scholarly journals and books.
Statistics
UofL Databases
Open Access
Afghanistan (UNdata)
UNdata is a web-based data service for the global user community. It brings international statistical databases within easy reach of users through a single-entry point. Users can search and download a variety of statistical resources compiled by the United Nations (UN) statistical system and other international agencies. The numerous databases or tables collectively known as "datamarts" contain over 60 million data points and cover a wide range of statistical themes including agriculture, crime, communication, development assistance, education, energy, environment, finance, gender, health, labour market, manufacturing, national accounts, population and migration, science and technology, tourism, transport and trade.
News
UofL Databases
Recommended Titles:
Afghanistan Times (Kabul)
Afghanistan Today
Bakhtar News Agency (Kabul)
BBC: Afghanistan
Daily Outlook Afghanistan (Kabul)
Kabulpress.org
Killid Weekly
TOLOnews
Books
eBooks
Primary Sources
These databases and websites provide access to digital archival materials such as manuscripts, letters, photographs, moving image and sound materials, artwork, books, diaries, and other artifacts. You can also visit our main pages for Asia and South Asia to find additional databases and resources covering broader regions.
UofL Databases
- Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, 1947-1980
This collection of files from the Foreign Office (later the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) and Dominions Office focuses on the political and social history of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980.
- India, Raj and EmpireManuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland on the history of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947.
Open Access
The immediate objective of the Afghanistan Digital Library is to retrieve and restore the first sixty years of Afghanistan’s published cultural heritage. The project is collecting, cataloging, digitizing, and making available over the Internet as many Afghan publications from the period 1871–1930 as it is possible to identify and locate.
Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection: Digitizing the Collection
One of the largest collections of Afghanistan research materials in the world is housed at the Criss Library, University of Nebraska at Omaha. The primary focus of digitization in the Afghanistan Collection is on public access. Digitized materials are made available to the public through the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Digital Commons site.
Afghanistan Web Archive - Library of Congress
The Afghanistan Web Archive is comprised primarily of websites produced by the Afghan government, specifically the executive branch. Also included are a selection of sites from statistical reporting agencies, banking institutions, universities, U.S. Embassy and critical NGOs supporting democratic and human rights initiatives. The date range of the collection overlaps with the country's presidential (2009) and parliamentary (2009) elections, which were the second national elections held in the country since the founding of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in 2003.
Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan Government Web Archive
This collection consists of official government websites for Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan and provides an overview of the political, economic, administrative and social situation in these four countries.
Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Tajikistan Elections Web Archive
The Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan Elections Web Archive includes campaign sites archived during these countries’ election seasons since 2014. This archive collection includes websites for government bodies, political parties, presidential candidates, election observers and political commentators which offer significant information related to presidential and general elections in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan. Pertinent social media channels are also included in this collection in order to provide a fuller representation of how candidates presented themselves via the internet to the general public.
The Political Islam Web Archive is a collection of websites from Islamic political parties and political Islamist organizations. In Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Turkey, Islamic religious parties already, or increasingly, have a strong influence within the existing political structure. On the other hand, political Islamists, defined as fundamentalist Islamic religious organizations working outside the political and social mainstream, hold strong influence over local, national, or regional political outcomes.
Afghan Media Resource Center (AMRC)
Content warning: Some images in this archive are graphic depictions of violence and may be disturbing to viewers.
The Afghan Media Resource Center (AMRC) has the largest collection of audiovisual material on Afghanistan from the periods between 1986 and 2012. This collection includes photographs (94,652), video footage (1,175 hours), and audio material (356 hours) of all aspects of Afghan life. The majority of the collection is on the Soviet-Afghan war (1979-1989), the years of the communist regime (1989-1992), and the Civil War period (1992-1994).
During the past ten years, at the Afghanistan Institute in Switzerland, in close co-operation with Afghan and international experts, some 5.000 old photographs were secured and identified (place and date of the picture, personalities and events presented). This work provided us with the necessary experience and is a solid basis to establish the project of Phototheca Afghanica on a broader level.
Hiromi Lorraine Sakata Field Recordings at the University of Washington Ethnomusicology Archives
The Hiromi Lorraine Sakata collection in the Ethnomusicology Archives of the University of Washington contains over 50 hours of field recordings of traditional Afghan music. This collection is based on the recordings collected by the ethnomusicologist, Hiromi Lorraine Sakata, during her research in the country in the 1960s and 1970s.