Guides and Country Studies

One of the best ways to begin your research is by using tools prepared by librarians and subjects specialists. This section of the guide includes a mix of books titles, bibliographies, finding aids, and other topical guides.

Illustrated Guides, Research Guides & Country Studies

Some links lead to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Direct links to digital primary and secondary sources are included when available.

A Note on Country Studies: The following titles are digitized books from the Library of Congress Country Studies series created by the subject experts in the Federal Research Division. Intended for a general audience, books in the series present a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of select countries throughout the world. Most books in the series deal with a single foreign country, but a few cover several countries or a geographic region. Each book was written by a multidisciplinary team of social scientists, who sought to adhere to accepted standards of scholarly objectivity. The books represent the analysis of the authors and should not be construed as an expression of an official U.S. government position, policy, or decision.

African, Jewish, and Middle Eastern Studies: Digital Resources at the Library of Congress (Research Guide)
This research guide provides a compilation of primary and secondary source materials, reference works, free and subscription databases, recorded programs and more, selected by curators in the Library’s African and Middle Eastern Division.
Countries, Regions, and Languages
This page, on the African and Middle Eastern Reading Room website, highlights resources grouped by country.

The Arab World

Arab World Newspapers at the Library of Congress (Research Guide)
This research guide provides a comprehensive list of the newspaper titles published in the Arab World and diasporas. As important resources on Middle Eastern studies, most of these titles are accessible in the Library’s designated reading rooms.
The Arab World: Near East Collections, Library of Congress Illustrated Guide
In terms of sheer number of items, pride of place in the section must go to the immensely influential Arabic-language collection, although defining its scope narrowly by language obscures its brilliance and diversity. Representative of the intellectual heritage of twenty-two modern Arab countries of North Africa and the Middle East, it extends to publications and manuscripts in Arabic from many non-Middle Eastern countries to which Islam's roots spread long ago.
Assyrian Bibliography (PDF, 513 KB)
This guide was created to accompany a special display of collection materials (June 2016).
Egypt: African and Middle Eastern Division Country Guide (Research Guide)
This guide provides curated Library of Congress resources for researching Egypt, including digitized primary source materials in a wide variety of formats, books and periodicals, online databases, and tips for searching.
The Holy Koran in the Library of Congress: a bibliography External
Iraq: A Country Study
Jordan: A Country Study
Persian Gulf States: Country Studies
Saudi Arabia: A Country Study

The Caucasus

Acquisitions of Armenian Materials for the Library of Congress
Acquisitions of Georgian Materials for the Library of Congress
Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia : country studies
The Armenian Collections of the Library of Congress
Papers of the Committee for the Armenian Collection, 1947-1951, and the Dadian Trust Fund, 1989-1997 (PDF, 255 KB)
A checklist for these Library of Congress collections created by Levon Avdoyan, Armenian and Georgian Area Specialist.
Manuscript Microfilm Collections from Mt. Sinai, Athos, and the Greek and Armenian Patriarchates in Jerusalem
Digitized checklists for these collections of microfilmed manuscript collections from the various monasteries on Mt. Athos in Greece, the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai, and the Greek and Armenian Patriarchates in Jerusalem.
The Georgian Collections in the Library of Congress
IDC Armenia Selected Sources
"The Spiwrkʻ Collection of Documents on the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia [ASALA] and Videos and Recordings on ASALA and on the Karabakh Movement" (PDF, 292 KB)

The Iranian World

The Iranian World: Near East Collections, Library of Congress Illustrated Guide
Persia first grabbed the attention of the historic world in the sixth century B.C. with the exploits and conquests of the near-legendary Cyrus the Great, conqueror of the Medes, and of his successors Darius and Xerxes, so strikingly described in the renowned fifth-century B.C. classical Greek works of the historians Herodotus and Xenophon. Powerful rulers dominated the Iranian world and influenced the great ancient cultures that surrounded it, until the native dynasties succumbed to the unrelenting push of Islam in the early seventh century A.D. Persian culture and society were then fundamentally altered, yet the interplay between the older era and the Islamic era yielded a new, uniquely Iranian amalgamation.
Iran: A Country Study

The Turkic World

Turkey: Near East Collections, Library of Congress Illustrated Guide
From the ninth century A.D. Turkic peoples from the Central Asian steppes started their odyssey to the West by making their way into Anatolia and Mesopotamia. With the eleventh century the Seljuk Turks had established a strong Turkish entity in these new lands. From the rise of the Ottoman Turks in the thirteenth century to their triumph in the capture of the Byzantine imperial capital of Constantinople in 1453, fascination with the Ottoman world grew and with it, a desire for information about it. The downfall of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the modern secular Republic of Turkey in 1923 changed the nature of the state, its society, its culture, and its literature in fundamental ways.
Cyprus: A Country Study
Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan: Country Studies
Turkey: A Country Study

African, Jewish, and Middle Eastern Studies: Digital Resources at the Library of Congress