Primary sources are original documents and objects created at the time being studied, such as diaries, newspaper accounts, letters, governmental records, or drawings. Any record that documents a past event can be considered a primary source.
You can find primary sources in libraries, museums, and archives, including McGill's Rare Books and Special Collections Library (located on the 4th floor of the McLennan Library building). You can also find digitized primary sources online in library databases, such as those linked below, as well as in digitized collections, such as McGill's Digital Exhibitions & Collections.
You can also find primary sources in print and eBooks through the library. Historians and other scholars often bring together (and, when necessary, translate) primary sources in collections called sourcebooks (sometimes spelled source books), readers, or anthologies. For sources in Latin American history, see especially the Duke University Press Latin America Readers series.
You can systematically search for these in the Library Catalogue by using subject headings. Try combining keywords on your topic with the word sources (which demarcate primary sources) in a subject heading search. For example:
The Costa Rica Reader by
The Costa Rica Reader brings together texts and artwork that reveal the complexity of the country's past and present. It characterizes Costa Rica as a site of alternatives and possibilities that undermine stereotypes about the region's history and challenge the idea that current dilemmas facing Latin America are inevitable or insoluble. This essential introduction to Costa Rica includes more than fifty texts related to the country's history, culture, politics, and natural environment. Most of these newspaper accounts, histories, petitions, memoirs, poems, and essays are written by Costa Ricans. Many appear here in English for the first time.
The Mexico Reader by
The Mexico Reader is a vivid and comprehensive guide to muchos Méxicos-the many varied histories and cultures of Mexico. Unparalleled in scope, it covers pre-Columbian times to the present, from the extraordinary power and influence of the Roman Catholic Church to Mexico's uneven postrevolutionary modernization, from chronic economic and political instability to its rich cultural heritage. Bringing together over eighty selections that include poetry, folklore, photoessays, songs, political cartoons, memoirs, journalism, and scholarly writing, this volume highlights the voices of everyday Mexicans-indigenous peoples, artists, soldiers, priests, peasants, and workers.
The Guatemala Reader by
This reader brings together more than 200 texts and images in a broad introduction to Guatemala's history, culture, and politics.
The Argentina Reader by
This essential introduction to Argentina's history, culture, and society provides a richer, more comprehensive look at one of the most paradoxical of Latin American nations: a nation that used to be among the richest in the world, with the largest middle class in Latin America, yet one that entered the twenty-first century with its economy in shambles and its citizenry seething with frustration. This diverse collection brings together songs, articles, comic strips, scholarly essays, poems, and short stories. Most pieces are by Argentines. More than forty of the texts have never before appeared in English.
The Bolivia Reader by
The Bolivia Reader provides a panoramic view, from antiquity to the present, of the history, culture, and politics of a country known for its ethnic and regional diversity, its rich natural resources and dilemmas of economic development, and its political conflict and creativity. Featuring both classic and little-known texts ranging from fiction, memoir, and poetry to government documents, journalism, and political speeches, the volume challenges stereotypes of Bolivia as a backward nation while offering insights into the country's history of mineral extraction, revolution, labor organizing, indigenous peoples' movements, and much more.
The Brazil Reader by
Containing over one hundred selections--many of which appear in English for the first time and which range from sermons by Jesuit missionaries and poetry to political speeches and biographical portraits of famous public figures, intellectuals, and artists--this collection presents the lived experience of Brazilians from all social and economic classes, racial backgrounds, genders, and political perspectives over the past half millennium.
The Chile Reader by
The Chile Reader makes available a rich variety of documents spanning more than five hundred years of Chilean history. Most of the selections are by Chileans; many have never before appeared in English.
The Colombia Reader by
Containing over one hundred selections--most of them published in English for the first time--The Colombia Reader presents a rich and multilayered account of this complex nation from the colonial era to the present. The collection includes journalistic reports, songs, artwork, poetry, oral histories, government documents, and scholarship to illustrate the changing ways Colombians from all walks of life have made and understood their own history.
The Ecuador Reader by
Spanning the years before the arrival of the Spanish in the early 1500s to the present, this rich anthology addresses colonialism, independence, the nation's integration into the world economy, and its tumultuous twentieth century.
The Lima Reader by
Covering more than 500 years of history, culture, and politics, The Lima Reader seeks to capture the many worlds and many peoples of Peru's capital city, featuring a selection of primary sources that consider the social tensions and cultural heritages of the "City of Kings."
The Paraguay Reader by
The Paraguay Reader is a lively compilation of testimonies, journalism, scholarship, political tracts, literature, and illustrations, including maps, photographs, paintings, drawings, and advertisements. Taken together, the anthology's many selections convey the country's extraordinarily rich history and cultural heritage, as well as the realities of its struggles against underdevelopment, foreign intervention, poverty, inequality, and authoritarianism.
The Peru Reader by
This revised and updated second edition of the bestselling Peru Reader offers a deeper understanding of the complex country that lies behind these claims. Unparalleled in scope, the volume covers Peru's history from its extraordinary pre-Columbian civilizations to its citizens' twenty-first-century struggles to achieve dignity and justice in a multicultural nation where Andean, African, Amazonian, Asian, and European traditions meet. The collection presents a vast array of essays, folklore, historical documents, poetry, songs, short stories, autobiographical accounts, and photographs.
The Rio de Janeiro Reader by
Spanning a period of over 450 years, The Rio de Janeiro Reader traces the history, culture, and politics of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, through the voices, images, and experiences of those who have made the city's history.
The Cuba Reader by
Tracking Cuban history from 1492 to the present, The Cuba Reader includes more than one hundred selections that present myriad perspectives on Cuba's history, culture, and politics.
The Dominican Republic Reader by
This Reader provides an introduction to the history, politics, and culture of the country, from precolonial times into the early twenty-first century. Among the volume's 118 selections are essays, speeches, journalism, songs, poems, legal documents, testimonials, and short stories, as well as several interviews conducted especially for this Reader. Many of the selections have been translated into English for the first time.
The Haiti Reader by
The Haiti Reader introduces readers to Haiti's dynamic history and culture from the viewpoint of Haitians from all walks of life. Its dozens of selections--most of which appear here in English for the first time--are representative of Haiti's scholarly, literary, religious, visual, musical, and political cultures, and range from poems, novels, and political tracts to essays, legislation, songs, and folk tales.
The Jamaica Reader by
The Jamaica Reader presents a panoramic history of the country, from its precontact Indigenous origins to the present. Combining more than one hundred classic and lesser-known texts that include journalism, lyrics, memoir, and poetry, the Reader showcases myriad voices from over the centuries.
Brings together material from within former British colonies and Commonwealth nations, alongside some from former French and Portuguese territories, to provide valuable primary source material created for local audiences by local actors during a period of enormous global change.
Local newspapers provide insight into the social and cultural life of their communities. Several databases and collections with historic and contemporary Latin American newspapers are included below.
Primary sources in this group focus on Black experiences with slavery, abolition, emancipation, and freedom -- a phrase derived from a Harvard Library project focused on Black experiences in North America. Many primary sources included here are written about, rather than by, Black people; be sure to keep this in mind when analyzing these sources.
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