THE OLD AND NEW OF DIGITAL HISTORY

Abstract

This article reflects on the expectations and changes that digital technologies have brought to history, activities that are increasingly codified as digital history. Because of the breadth of digital technologies and communicative media, the contours of a digital history are still unclear, so I frame my discussion with two potential narratives that begin from different ideas that emerged from World War II weapons research. One narrative begins with Roberto Busa and the application of a computer to find concordances in the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas. The emphasis here is on the application of computer technologies to the practice of history. The second narrative begins with Vannevar Bush's essay “As We May Think” and focuses on digital technologies as a key element in an information system. This beginning invites a parallel between inscription technologies (especially the movable-type press) and knowledge systems. Both narratives imbibe the modern faith in technology to improve; the “new” is better, but the latter better involves humans and societies. Despite important differences between them, both narratives lead to an inquiry into the foundations of our modern knowledge system. In the case of history, the question is whether a knowledge system that was developed in the nineteenth century and designed to encompass and order the world into one system is still apposite in our digital world. I close by suggesting that one such presumption that needs to be reconsidered is the idea of the past as a prior and distant time-form. A shift from “the past” to “pasts” opens history to a broader field of previous happenings and a reconsideration of chronological time, of change, and to other modes of transmission, such as storytelling.