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Middle East & North Africa Studies (MENA): Begin Your Research: Background Information

This guide provides an overview of resources for beginning research on the countries comprising and geographic area comprising the Middle East and North Africa.

NGO & IGO Website Examples

Digital National Security Archive

The National Security Archive, a nongovernmental entity, curates digital collections of declassified government documents covering U.S. policy toward critical world events from 1945 to the present. Each collection is assembled by foreign policy experts and features chronologies, glossaries, bibliographies, and scholarly overviews.

You can either search all collections in the Digital National Security Archive (DNSA), or search the sub-collections related to the Middle East below. Given the variety of document types in these databases, use the filters in the left-hand column to limit your search to the kinds of materials you're interested in.

Reference Works: Databases, Encyclopedias, and Websites

To learn more about the MENA region, look for background information in encyclopedias, government websites, and NGO websites. Use these sources to begin research topics or to narrow down a research topic in your studies. Background sources can also help you learn the vocabulary used to describe your topic. This new vocabulary will help you with your keyword searches. 

Helpful sources for background information include subscription databases and encyclopedias: 

 

 

Additional Web Sites