Drawing on items in the British Library and other collections such as the Royal College of Music and Wandsworth Local History Service, Mike's second exhibition, Black Europeans, features five people of African descent who made a contribution to the mainstream of European culture and society: Alexander Pushkin, Alexandre Dumas, George Polgreen Bridgetower, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and John Archer. Mike's essays on each of these individuals explores how they were all aware of their mixed backgrounds but also regarded themselves as part of a European nation and thought of their work as a contribution to their own sector of the culture of Europe and the world. The essays go on to discuss how each of the figures highlighted in Black Europeans have been generally accepted to be an important part of Europe's cultural heritage to the point where most people ignore, or have forgotten about, the ‘black' element of their identity and its significance in their lives and work.

There is also a general summary of the British Library's African collections and significant holdings on their site - see the link below.

Black Europeans - see the online exhibition

The British Library's African Collection

The British Library hold the India Office Records: that is, all the documents relating to the British rule of India prior to independence in 1947. There is a long introduction to the material online on the British Library's website.

The India Office Records At The British Library

Private papers relating to the India Office

Using the themes of sugar, slavery and the making of the West Indies, Caribbean Views explores the African slave trade and the contrasting lives of plantation owners and plantation life as experienced by the slave population. The experiences of former slave Mary Prince are sharply contrasted against the journal of Maria, Lady Nugent, wife of the Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Jamaica, who lived in the Caribbean at the same time. Maria, Lady Nugent's journals talk about a life of relative ease with a constant round of social engagements, dancing, and carriage rides in the mountains. Mary Prince's experiences are chronicled following her escape from her owner, John Wood, in 1828. Mary Prince arrived in England where her cause was taken up by the Anti-Slavery Society. Her story, The History of Mary Prince, published in 1831, detailed horrific brutality at the hands of her owner and was the first substantial account of life as an enslaved woman. The final part of the exhibition looks at the eventual approach to the abolition of the slave trade.

The British Library Sound Archive holds material from the 1950s onwards of published and unpublished Caribbean music. Follow the link below for an essay on the details of the collection.

Caribbean Views - see the online exhibition

Caribbean Music In the British Library Sound Archive

The British Library's collections in the field of Slavonic, East European and Soviet Studies are the largest in the UK, and probably in Western Europe. The policy of the East European Section is to acquire, as widely as possible, material of research value published in all Slavonic and East European languages covering subjects in the humanities and social sciences. You can find a comprehensive introduction by country on the British Library website.

The British Library Sound Archive holds extensive published and unpublished material from across Eastern Europe including wax cylinder recordings from Bosnia and Albania. You can see a longer essay on what they have, and search the catalogues by following the link below.

Eastern European Collections At The British Library

European collections in the British Library Sound Archive

Most of the British Library's Arabic-language material is held as part of the Oriental and India Office Collections. The Library's collection of Arabic manuscripts is world-famous. It is one of the largest such collections in Europe or North America, comprising almost 14,000 manuscripts, representing nearly 20,000 works. It is renowned for the importance of many individual items, from some of the finest calligraphic and illuminated manuscripts of the Holy Qur'an to autograph and other high-quality copies of major legal, historical, literary and scientific works. The collection of Arabic printed books is among the largest in the UK and is made up of over 60,000 items, together with over 600 periodical titles. Current acquisitions policy aims to maintain a broad coverage of the humanities and social sciences by obtaining material from a number of Middle Eastern countries, focusing principally on Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.

You can search the British Library's catalogues and find out more about specific holdings by following the link below.

Arabic Material in the British Library

The British Library's Modern Irish Collections (1915-) hold a wide range of subjects in the humanities and social sciences in mainly book, journal and pamphlet form. Coverage of historical and literary subjects is particularly strong. The output of academic publishers and institutions in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland is well represented in the Library's collections.

You can explore the details of the British Libary's Irish collection online on their website, as well as searching the library catalogue.

Irish Collections At The British Library

European Music In The British Library Sound Archive Including Irish

The British Library has the largest collection on Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands in the United Kingdom. From early colonial texts through to contemporary literature, the monograph collections cover a broad range of humanities, social science and general interest topics. You can see more details of the holdings by following the collections link below.

The British Library Sound Archive also holds many rare recordings from the region. The Oceanic/Australasian holdings of unpublished recordings comprise 21 separate ethnographic collections, including 12 wax cylinder collections. Published holdings include early recordings on 78rpm discs primarily of Maori choral music issued on the Columbia label. Later periods are represented by an array of western labels as well as the regional Kiwi and Larrikin publishing companies. You can read an essay on the holdings, and search the British Library's catalogues by following the Sound Archive link below.

Australia, New Zealand and Polynesia at the British Library

Oceania/Australasia In The British Library Sound Archive