Find your leader
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BBC Country ProfilesStart by finding your leader here. Remember you are looking for the head of government not the head of state, although sometimes they may be the same person.
US Government sites on countries and leaders
- CIA World Factbook (which includes a link for Government for each country)
- U.S. State Department: Bilateral Relations Fact Sheets
- Library of Congress Country Studies (most of these are quite old)
Learn about your leader
Learn about your leader
Recommended independent news sites
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NewsmapThis map links you to international newspaper websites and translates the content to English.
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The EconomistThe Economist has short up-to-date pithy articles. You will need to log in to search the archives - ask a librarian for the details.
SFPL resources
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Biography in Context (requires SFPL card) This link opens in a new window
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World History in Context (requires SFPL card) This link opens in a new window
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Global NewstreamSearch the most collections of news from the US, Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Australia. Has archives going back to the 1980's. -
PressReaderA collection of 4000 newspapers and magazines from 100 countries in 60 languages, many providing same day publication with a 60-day back file.
UHS resources
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Proquest This link opens in a new window
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Encyclopedia Britannica This link opens in a new window
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JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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EBSCO Books This link opens in a new window
We have many books on European countries. Have a look in our library catalog.
Tips for using Google
Word order matters! Google takes into account the way you have typed in your search. Try searching "leader Russian" vs. "Russian leader"
Sidebar: Google displays a box with quick facts related to your search on the right-hand side of the page. This can help you further your search by taking you to other topics or helping you identify other search terms.
Translate: You can search in English and get back results translated from foreign languages. Click on Show search tools in the left-hand sidebar and then choose "Translated foreign pages."
News: You can search just news sources. The default is to display the most recent news, but you can search specific time periods.
Time limits: Time limits can also be used with web pages.
Video: Searching video can bring up interesting results, including foreign news programming and guerilla journalism. Treat these results with the appropriate amount of interest and skepticism.
Operators: Google offers many ways to create advanced searches using various operators that tell the search engine more specifically what you are looking for.
- Quotation marks around exact phrases.
- Use OR to include like phrases (sneakers OR "tennis shoes")
- By using the operator site: you can get Google to look on a specific site or type of site (site: state.gov or just site:gov)
- You can eliminate invasion results by using a minus sign and the word you do NOT want in your search. There should be no space before the eliminated word. (Vladimir Putin -judo)
- You can also specify that certain words must be in the text of your results (vladimir putin site:guardian.co.uk intext:"Orange Revolution")