Librarians at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives catalog hundreds of materials on a monthly basis. Here is a curated list of newly cataloged items. To view more information and to request access to these materials, follow the links to SearchWorks, the Stanford University Libraries online catalog.
Author: Ruth Williams Ricci.
Title: Fortresses of freedom
Published: [Syracuse, NY], [Syracuse University School of Journalism], [1944]
This 1944 monograph examines the democratic role of journalism in postwar United States and received the American Newspaper Publishers Association’s gold medal for the best student monograph on the achievements and responsibilities of U.S. newspapers in that period. Before this period, the author lived in Italy during the 1930s, working as a journalist and participating in Fascist propaganda efforts; she volunteered with the Italian Red Cross during the Italo-Ethiopian War, traveled with Italian military units in East Africa, and published writings funded by the Fascist regime’s Ministry of Popular Culture. Brian J. Griffith’s Hoover Digest article Journey to Fascism (Fall 2022) examines these activities and her later rejection of them. Hoover also holds the Ruth Ricci Eltse papers, a collection of her correspondence, writings, and photographs relating to the Italo-Ethiopian War, Italy’s colonization of Libya, and Italian activities in North and East Africa.
Published: Peking, Chinese People's Committee for World Peace, 1952-
Here is a Cold War-era publication documenting international and Chinese responses to allegations that the United States used biological weapons during the Korean War. Part 4 includes reports from investigative commissions organized by the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the Chinese People’s Commission of Investigation, along with supporting statements and appeals from various peace organizations. This publication was originally acquired with the Herbert Romerstein collection and bears a stamp of the New York Labor Youth League.
Author: Martin Previšić
Title: Tito's gulag: a history of the prison island of Goli Otok
Published: Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, [2025]
This book is part of the Stanford–Hoover Series on Authoritarianism, a series devoted to examining the history and development of authoritarian states around the world. It provides an analysis of the Yugoslav political prison system, discusses the relationship between Tito and Stalin, and includes interviews with former Goli Otok (Barren Island) inmates and a high-ranking member of the Yugoslav secret police. The study offers a detailed reconstruction of the organizational structure of Goli Otok and presents a comparative examination of the administrative systems, hierarchical divisions, and operational practices of Goli Otok, Nazi camps, and the Gulag. Drawing on archival materials, diverse published and unpublished sources, and testimonies from former inmates and a former camp administrator, Previšić reconstructs aspects of daily life within the Goli Otok labor camp and its broader system.
![Dumitru Nistor prizonier de război în Japonia [ドゥミトル・ニストルの画文集「捕虜として日本に生きる」]](/sites/default/files/2025-09/5.png)
Author: Filip Kovacevic
Title: KGB literati: spy fiction and state security in the Soviet Union
Published: Toronto; Buffalo; London: University of Toronto Press, 2025.
While many former Western intelligence officers—such as Ian Fleming, John le Carré, and Graham Greene—have achieved fame by transforming their espionage experience into influential spy fiction, their Soviet counterparts have remained largely unexamined. Filip Kovacevic’s book, KGB Literati, fills this gap by offering long-forgotten Soviet publications and materials from KGB archives, and it also reveals how these works provide rare insights into both clandestine operations and the personal realities of espionage and counterespionage. The study gains additional relevance today, as former KGB officers still occupy prominent positions in Russia's political elite.
