Search Our Collections
Our collections contain rare and unique library materials and archives that include posters, photographs, texts, sound recordings, moving images, and art and memorabilia.
![don't be an amateur g-man cartoon holding a magnifying glass Poster US 6547](/sites/default/files/styles/850x640/public/content/paragraph/cta/2022-08/amateur-g-man-magnifying-glass_us_06547-CTA.jpg?itok=Sn-Tz98X)
Documenting war, revolution, and peace, along with political, social, and economic change in the modern era, our collections come from across the globe and in many formats and languages. Search and discover rare materials from all political persuasions which highlight a spectrum of voices and experiences that shaped the 20th and 21st centuries. Personal papers form the bulk of our collections, however we also have extensive photographica, digital records, rare publications, and other formats spanning roughly 30 miles of shelving and evergrowing terabytes of data.
![peace war bookshelf](/sites/default/files/content/paragraph/fellow-cards/2022-04/peace-war-bookshelf-PBeaudouin_0026-FellowCard.jpg)
Collecting Areas
Our curators oversee and actively acquire collections which currently originate from 171 countries.
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Featured News
News
Hoover Institution Hosts 2024 Annual Summer Workshop On Modern China And Taiwan
The 2024 workshop featured five speakers from the US, Britain, and Singapore who explored Hoover’s unique archival collections and examined how these historical treasures help reinterpret our understanding of modern China and post-1949 Taiwan.
![TV Soong greets Herbert Hoover at the Nanking airport, May 1946](/sites/default/files/styles/340x370/public/2024-07/Soong-1.jpeg?h=e12ddd2c&itok=SYrkZk-X)
News
More Historical Materials On T. V. Soong Come To Hoover
A recently acquired increment has been added to the T. V. Soong papers at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
![Color photograph of Soviet author Anatolii Gladilin](/sites/default/files/styles/340x370/public/2024-06/Gladilin%20copy.jpg?h=73c08910&itok=IQkzAJdq)
News
Hoover Acquires Papers Of Soviet Author Anatolii Gladilin
Prominent Soviet writer Anatolli Gladilin's papers have come to the Library & Archives providing insights into Soviet literary life and Gladilin's work with Radio Liberty.
![Photo of Deng Yanda and Mao Zedong at the third plenary session of the KMT Second Central Committee, March 1926](/sites/default/files/styles/340x370/public/2024-05/Olenik%20papers-1.jpeg?h=b61a6bec&itok=HBzzIqC8)
News
Research Materials On KMT Left-Wing Radicalism Come To Hoover
Newly acquired are the personal papers of J. Kenneth Olenik—a retired historian and expert on Deng Yanda, a well-known leftist in the Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT)—adding to Hoover’s rich archival holdings on Nationalist China.
![book cover for "Stalin's Usable Past"](/sites/default/files/styles/340x370/public/2024-05/Stalins_Usable_Past.jpg?h=dfe37760&itok=aFuIle7y)
News
Stalin's Usable Past
The Stanford–Hoover Series on Authoritarianism has released it's latest volume, Stalin's Usable Past: A Critical Edition of the 1937 Short History of the USSR, edited by David Brandenberger.
![Cover of book "Forgotten Aviator" and authors Barry and Carolyn Martin](/sites/default/files/styles/340x370/public/2024-05/Royal-Leonard-collage-691x520.jpg?h=7a19e518&itok=hp7wXXCY)
News
Hoover Acquires Papers Of Legendary Aviator Royal Leonard
A collection on pioneering American aviator Royal Leonard, best known as Chiang Kai-shek’s personal pilot before World War II, has come to the Hoover Library & Archives and joins significant holdings on American pilots in 1930s China.
Featured Collections
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Japan and Japanese Diaspora Collections
These collections focus on social, political, and economic change from the Meiji (1868–1911) to post–World War II reconstruction (1945–52) periods in Japan and overseas Japanese communities.
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Ukraine Collections
Covering the emergence and development of Ukraine as an independent state since 1991, as well as earlier periods.
![Chiang Diary collage banner cropped](/sites/default/files/content/paragraph/fellow-cards/2022-07/chiangdiarybanner-337x164.jpg)
Chiang Kai-shek & Chiang Ching-kuo Diaries
The Hoover Institution has been helping preserve the handwritten diaries of Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo since Chiang family members deposited them at Hoover in 2005.
Policies & Practices
We continue to advance Herbert Hoover’s mission by fulfilling our strategic priorities of acquiring important historical collections on war, revolution, and peace. Our collections deal in subjects that encompass a broad range of human experiences. Policies and practices are in place to ensure that materials are cared for and made available for their ongoing use. Learn more about collection donations, description, digitization, preservation practices, and potentially harmful language and visual materials.