Writing History in the Digital Age

by Jack Dougherty (Editor), Kristen Nawrotzki (Editor), Thomas Dublin

Writing History in the Digital Age began as a “what-if” experiment by posing a question: How have Internet technologies influenced how historians think, teach, author, and publish? To illustrate their answer, the contributors agreed to share the stages of their book-in-progress as it was constructed on the public web.

To facilitate this innovative volume, editors Jack Dougherty and Kristen Nawrotzki designed a born-digital, open-access, and open peer review process to capture commentary from appointed experts and general readers. A customized WordPress plug-in allowed audiences to add page- and paragraph-level comments to the manuscript, transforming it into a socially networked text. The initial six-week proposal phase generated over 250 comments, and the subsequent eight-week public review of full drafts drew 942 additional comments from readers across different parts of the globe.

The finished product now presents 20 essays from a wide array of notable scholars, each examining (and then breaking apart and reexamining) if and how digital and emergent technologies have changed the historical profession.

Genres: History

298 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read a fair amount of professional literature, and most of these books are, frankly, slapped-together publish-or-perish overpriced crap. However, this book is decidedly not any of those things. It is free, carefully written and edited, thoroughly thought-provoking, and everyone professionally or unprofessionally involved with history should read it.

The first chapter, "'I Nevertheless Am a Historian'" is probably the most thought-provoking, discussing the mixed bag that is the public DOING history as the newest wave of what "public history" means. I also have had it running through my head for a while, that phrase, “I nevertheless am a historian,” and don’t know how to get it out.

"Putting Harlem on the Map" talks about how data visualizations can help us see patterns in history we wouldn’t otherwise have noticed. There’s a lot of push for maps and mapping tools in history lately, but I don’t see a lot of arguments for why we should be all going map crazy in history, so this is one concrete map-dependent historical insight that you can cling to in a flurry of mapped history that otherwise just seems to be making maps for the sake of making maps.

The final concluding chapter makes an evidence-based argument for the future of academic publishing in a post-print-boo-paywalls world, and one possible model it can work on. Most interestingly: the essays had traditional paid reviewers, but it was also open to also whatever random academics or non-academics found the book during its peer-review process, so the authors got reviews from both sources. Authors could not successfully guess which of their reviews were paid and free.

[Jim Gulley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a compendium of edited chapters on various aspects of digital history. By today's standards, the book is dated. I liked the chapter with several sections on Wikipedia. There was also a worthwhile chapter on linking maps with databases that is a part of my research project.

[Dan Gorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A technology wonk's guide to writing good history using digital tools. This book goes into depth about topics like the use of statistics, the use of blogging in classrooms, editing Wikipedia, and working with mapping software. This guide will be very useful for historians and librarians seeking "best practices" for doing digital history.