The Origin Myths of Computing in Historical Research

2021 ◽  
pp. 17-45
Author(s):  
Adam Crymble
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Humanities Computing ◽  
Multiple Origin ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Mass Digitization ◽  
Origin Myths ◽  
New Generation

This chapter outlines the multiple origin myths of “digital” historical research, arguing that social science inspired cliometricians and linguistically inclined humanities computing scholars working on textual collections were both using computers from the mid-twentieth century, but with very different intellectual agendas and only occasionally crossing paths. With the rise of mass digitization in the 1990s, both groups inspired a new generation of “digital” historians who worked to unlock the potential of the newly digitized archives. Wrestling with practical and intellectual challenges ranging from poor-quality transcription to dealing with incomplete data, this group generated new knowledge and answered new questions such as “what do you do with a million books?” but were not necessarily contributing directly to the existing conversations of the historiography

Hopscotch Modernism: On Everyday Life and the Blurring of Art and Social Science

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Highmore
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Systematic Study ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Health Centre ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Modernist Literature ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Point Of Departure

From a remarkably innovative point of departure, Ben Highmore (University of Sussex) suggests that modernist literature and art were not the only cultural practices concerned with reclaiming the everyday and imbuing it with significance. At the same time, Roger Caillois was studying the spontaneous interactions involved in games such as hopscotch, while other small scale institutions such as the Pioneer Health Centre in Peckham, London attempted to reconcile systematic study and knowledge with the non-systematic exchanges in games and play. Highmore suggests that such experiments comprise a less-often recognised ‘modernist heritage’, and argues powerfully for their importance within early-twentieth century anthropology and the newly-emerged field of cultural studies.

Theory, Method, and Social Reproduction in Social Science History: A Short Jeremiad

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-499
Author(s):  
Charles Wetherell
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Formal Methods ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Theory Method ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Collective Enterprise

Let me begin with a simple theme, repentance, and a simple message: repent from complacency in the practice and defense of social science history (SSH). I say this because I do not see social science historians meeting three major challenges that must be overcome if the larger, collective enterprise is to survive with the same vitality it had a decade ago. Those challenges are, first, to bring social theory forcefully back into historical research; second, to take formal methods to a new, higher level; and, third, to seek to train the next generation of social science historians in the theory and methods they will need in the next century.

scholarly journals ‘From Zionism to Communism’: Emilio Sereni and the Consiglio di Gestione in postwar Italy

Modern Italy ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Andrea Bonfanti
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Previous Experience ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Postwar Italy

This essay demonstrates that it is impossible to appreciate the actions of the Italian communist Emilio Sereni without considering his Zionist background. Anyone who is interested in understanding the complexities of communism in the past century and to avoid simplistic conclusions about this ideology will benefit from the study. The problem at stake is that researchers often approach communism in a monolithic manner, which does not adequately explain the multiform manifestations (practical and theoretical) of that phenomenon. This ought to change and to this extent this essay hopes to contribute to that recent strand of historical research that challenges simplistic views on communism. More specifically, by analysing the Management Councils that Sereni created in postwar Italy, we can see that many of their features in fact derived from, or found their deepest origins in, his previous experience as a committed socialist Zionist. The study, then, also relates Sereni to and looks at the broader experiences of early twentieth-century Zionism and Italian communism in the early postwar years.

Unrevolutionary Mexico

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Gillingham
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Mexican Revolution ◽  
Cultural Control ◽  
Partido Revolucionario Institucional ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
Entry Points ◽  
Low Culture ◽  
New Generation

Unrevolutionary Mexico addresses how the Mexican Revolution (1910-1940) turned into a capitalist dictatorship of exceptional resilience. While soldiers seized power across the rest of Latin America, in modern Mexico the civilians of a single party moved punctiliously in and out of office for seventy-one years. The book uses the histories of the states of Guerrero and Veracruz as entry points to explore the origins and consolidation of this unique authoritarian state on both provincial and national levels. An empirically rich reconstruction of over sixty years of modernization and revolution (1880-1945) revises prevailing ideas of a pacified Mexico and establishes the 1940s as a decade of faltering governments and enduring violence. The book then assesses the pivotal changes of the mid-twentieth century, when a new generation of lawyers, bureaucrats and businessmen joined with surviving revolutionaries to form the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, which held uninterrupted power until 2000. Thematic chapters analyse elections, development, corruption and high and low culture in the period. The central role of military and private violence is explored in two further chapters that measure the weight of hidden coercion in keeping the party in power. In conclusion, the combination of provincial and national histories reveals Mexico as a place where soldiers prevented coups, a single party lost its own rigged elections, corruption fostered legitimacy, violence was concealed but decisive, and ambitious cultural control co-existed with a critical press and a disbelieving public. In conclusion, the book demonstrates how this strange dictatorship thrived not despite but because of its contradictions.

John Hinshaw, Steel and Steelworkers: Race and Class Struggle in Twentieth-Century Pittsburgh. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. 320 pp. $75.50 cloth; $25.95 paper

2004 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 227-229
Author(s):  
Ruth Needleman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Class Struggle ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
State University ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
The Past ◽  
Steel Mills ◽  
Growing Body

Richly descriptive and well documented, Steel and Steelworkers: Race and Class Struggle in Twentieth-Century Pittsburgh by John Hinshaw makes a significant contribution to the growing body of historical research on steel unionism in the twentieth century. Over the past few years, a number of new studies have broadened our understanding of unionization and work practices in the nation's steel mills, by examining in greater detail the patterns of organization in specific mills and mill towns.

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