Collections
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives holds more than one million volumes and over 6,000 archival collections that document war, revolution, and peace and social, political, and economic change that shaped our world in the 20th and 21st centuries.
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.
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.
Collecting Areas
Our curators oversee and actively acquire collections which currently originate from 171 countries.
Featured News
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Hoover Acquires the John S. Widdicombe Papers
A compelling archive detailing early postwar Poland from the perspective of an American UN worker shortly before the descent of the Iron Curtain.
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Hoover Acquires Rare Photograph Archive of a U.S. Army Commander’s Controversial 1944 Tour of Saipan and the Marshall Islands
This unique window into Lt. Gen. Robert C. Richardson's 1944 tour of Saipan during the Pacific War illuminates the consequences of battle and the Army-Marine rivalry that threatened to undermine the Allied victory.
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The Impossible Choice
Five years after the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, a general returns to war, and three voices in the Hoover archive explain what that kind of decision actually costs.
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Hoover Hosts Annual Summer Workshop On Modern China And Taiwan
Held at the Hoover Institution on August 3–7, 2026, this year's workshop featured five speakers, explored Hoover’s unique archival collections, and evaluated how these primary source materials help to reshape our understanding of modern China and post-1949 Taiwan.
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Hoover Acquires the Papers of Chiang Chung-ling, a Key Figure of the Nationalization of Armed Forces and Military Reform in Taiwan
The newly acquired Chiang Chung-ling papers document the career of a key military figure who helped transform Taiwan's armed forces from instruments of authoritarian rule into defenders of democratic governance during the island-state's transition in the 1990s.
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Drawn in Silence: Hoover Acquires the Smuggled Sketchbooks of Iranian Kurdish Cartoonist Iraj Varzandeh
Historic satirical drawings made between 1967 and 1971 survived censorship, imprisonment, two wars, and decades of concealment before leaving Iran wrapped in clothing inside garbage bags to pass unnoticed through searches.
Featured Collections
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.
Ukraine Collections
Covering the emergence and development of Ukraine as an independent state since 1991, as well as earlier periods.
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.
