Chatham House rules! A historical digital archive for the 21st Century
Leading international affairs think-tank has released its digital archive.Chatham House in London is the home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs which, by bringing together academics, researchers and decision makers, has helped shape and inform policy for almost 100 years. The famous ‘Chatham House Rule' helps facilitate open and honest communication.Chatham House Online Archive (1920-2008), published by Gale (part of Cengage Learning) is making over half a million pages available to researchers and students interested in politics, international law, economics and international relations. The archive features fully searchable documents, transcripts of speeches and audio recordings of world figures including Mahatma Gandhi and Henry Kissinger. The Archive offers "unique insights" into political developments in the 20th century.The publishers and Chatham House celebrated the launch with a high profile debate on how a deep understanding of the past can inform our understanding of the present and influence decision making. The speakers (including David Stevenson, Professor of International History at LSE; Anne Deighton, Professor of European International Politics at the University of Oxford); debated whether lessons can be learned from the Cold War (particularly the end of the Cold War) to inform our understanding of the current political upheaval in Ukraine.The final speaker, Times journalist David Aaronovitch, celebrated the arrival of the digital archive - and digitisation in general. For him the resources and expertise of Chatham House help journalists get to the heart of the dilemma and are an essential part of the journalist's toolkit to facilitate understanding of current affairs.For more information on the Chatham House archive, visit the Gale/Cengage Learning website.