Digital History

What is Digital History?

Digital History, as the name suggests, is the subfield of the Digital Humanities that corresponds with the academic field of History, its study, its research, and its presentation.  Different historians engage the field differently. Most are “end-users” who utilize the growing number of digital archives, online libraries, and web projects to supplement their physical efforts in the stacks.  However, an increasing number of historians are “producers,” creating online portals for digital collections, developing computer-aided tools to expand research, or utilizing digital media forms (audio and visual) to publish to mass audiences. Although at its core, digital history  retains the primary hallmarks of historical research, it is made distinct by an additional body of analytical tools, technical skills and forms of presentation.  Considered a trend by some and the way of the future by others, digital history is nevertheless proving itself a useful addition to the historian’s toolbox and one all current students should be prepared to engage with or risk falling behind.

Current Projects:

To be updated soon


How to Digital History: Using Google’s Translator Toolkit

For historians doing world history, or any form of transnational history, language translation and interpretation are two of the most useful skills in their research toolbox.  Unfortunately, as important as these skills are to our research, historians are often on the outskirts of language research and language technologies.  Google’s  Translator Toolkit is one such technology that seems to have flown over the head of most historians.  In the last three years since I began using the program, I have yet to hear it mentioned by a single historian.  In the video above I take you through a small tutorial of the Toolkit’s abilities and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find it as useful as I have.

How to Digital History: Scapple a basic tutorial

Scapple is at its most basic a mind-mapping program.  I use the program as a quick and easy brain-dump platform to just get things out of my head, but by its simple nature I believe the program could be used by students to take notes and by historical researchers to organize their data and arguments.   I have found Scapple to be very useful and worth the $15 purchase.

To download a free trial visit: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple.php