Title: Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security (PHP)

Source/Sponsoring Agency: Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security

URL: http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/

Date Checked: 2/19/2009      Status: Active

Date Annotated: 6/16/2008

Topics: Dispute Resolution; Foreign Law; Human Rights Law; International Law; Legal History; Politics

Other keywords: United Nations; NATO; Warsaw Pact; international relations; Cold War; Soviet Union; Communism; security; defense; military; Europe

Contents: The Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security (PHP), sited at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, "provides new scholarly perspectives on contemporary international history by collecting, publishing, and interpreting formerly secret governmental documents," specifically with regard to the history of the Cold War and the parallel security organizations of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. As military, governmental and intelligence documents have been gradually declassified in both the east and west, the PHP has become a clearinghouse for these documents. The PHP also hosts conferences, produces a newsletter, and provides links to publications on Cold War history that derived research from the PHP's online collections. The website is well-designed and provides an expandable menu with such straightforward headings as "News," "Services," "Publications," and "Conferences." The raison d'etre of the site -- the primary documents in the "Collections" section -- are thematically arranged into categories such as "Warsaw Pact Records," "Crises," "NATO Records", and "Intelligence." The documents are available as images in their original languages and as modern translations into English. Many of the larger document sets have "Introductions" by affiliated scholars to give a narrative background. A search engine is available and the extensive tagging of the PDF documents makes it an effective search tool.

Author of Annotation: J. P. Cusker