Description
This introductory article to the special issue on digital history claims that digital history bears promise for the study of modernity. The German historian Reinhart Koselleck argued that the rise of modernity involved fundamental discursive shifts. These can be found in texts, of which many are rapidly becoming available in digitized form, while the steady rise of new text mining techniques provides unprecedented opportunities to explore these texts in innovative ways. However, digi-tal historians need to use these techniques critically since most are not geared towards the study of history. In particular, historians have to account for comparability, chronology and language. The articles in this special issue offer showcases of how digital historians have shed new light on various aspects of modernity.
Published
2019-11-02