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The Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2006*

The complete online archive of every issue of the global weekly newspaper

What is the Economist?

Established in 1843 to campaign for free trade and freedom of the individual, The Economist is generally regarded as one of the world’s pre-eminent weekly newspapers with an unrivalled reputation as a primary source of intelligent and reliable information through its consistently independent editorial perspective and intelligent analysis of weekly events.

The complete archive (1843-2006) is now available online from Gale Cengage Learning, with editorial, advertising and tabular matter all fully searchable. The archive can be purchased outright and owned in perpetuity or is available as a yearly subscription.

For over 160 years The Economist has appealed to business leaders and the influential. Politicians, diplomats, bankers, journalists and other opinion formers have relied on it consistently. Their use and approval of The Economist have made its back issues key witnesses to the focus and interests of opinion-formers and decision-makers worldwide.

Researchers and students alike can access high quality primary sources, enabling them to facilitate comparisons of economic trends across continents and centuries.

History brought to life

The Economist Historical Archive holds a wealth of material relevant to current affairs, such as:

  • The Economic Downturn - Investigate, for example, the Great Depression of 1929 and the 1930s, the Secondary Banking Crisis of 1973–75 and the slump of the 1990s.
  • The War on Afghanistan – Study Afghanistan’s turbulent past from the war with Russia to the US and UK involvement
  • US Presidents – Whilst everyone’s talking about America’s new President, Barack Obama, take a look at what makes a good President by looking at the highs and lows of past leaders


               The economic downturn              The war on afghanistan              US presidents 

* We have just added the years 2004-2006 to the Economist Historical Archive
Users will now have access to an additional 3 years of content, covering events such as the Asian tsunami, the death of Pope John Paul II, the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Finnish rock group Lordi winning the Eurovision Song Contest. The size of the update is an additional 154 issues, 19,387 pages, and 23,794 articles – the complete archive now totals over 540,000 pages, and includes over 8500 issues!


Objective, written anonymously, and editorially independent, The Economist is renowned for its consistent approach to internationalism and championing of minimal interference by governments in political and business affairs, making it the ideal historical resource for cutting-edge ideas in an easily digestible form.

“For writers and students, an unrivalled source of authoritative and accessible, political, economic and social analysis and commentary since 1843.”
Dr Richard Roberts, The Centre for Contemporary British History, Institute for Historical Research, London

For more information, please contact emea.marketing@cengage.com.