Where did white papers come from?
This term “white paper” arose early in the 20th century in Great Britain. It was used to distinguish shorter government briefs and position papers with white covers from longer reports and policy books with blue covers. One of the earlier white papers on record is the so-called Churchill White Paper from 1922. There is more background on this white paper here: www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/british.html www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_whitepaper_1922.php A few months after this white paper was published, Britain apparently backtracked on its policies and broke all the promises in this document. Just like today, it seems that not all white papers speak the truth?! White papers were often used in science and medicine during WWII, the 1950s and the ’60s. With the rise of the PC in the 1980s, white papers became extremely popular in the IT industry. And in the ’90s, the Web provided an inexpensive distribution channel that sparked today’s ongoing explosion of white papers.
