Databases & history


I missed this article in the NYTimes by Stephen Mihm when it first ran Sunday, but it's right on:

For generations, biographers have used the same methods to conduct research: they waded through the paper trail left by their subject, piecing together a life from epistolary fragments. Based on what they found, they might troll through newspapers from specific dates in the hope of finding coverage of their subject. There were no new-fangled technologies that promised to transform their research, no way of harnessing machines to reveal new layers of historical truth.

That’s all starting to change. Several campaigns to digitize newspapers — Readex’s “American Historical Newspapers” available by subscription at research universities, or the free “Chronicling America” collection available at the Library of Congress — have the potential to revolutionize biographical research. Newspapers are often described as the “first draft of history,” and thanks to these new tools, biographers can tap them in ways that an earlier generation of scholars could only have dreamed of.

Full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/opinion/sunday/the-biographers-new-best-friend.html

In my case, having access to digital databases helped (and continues to help) in a large number of ways. To give just one example, being able to look at contemporary news stories about Patton and Bradley in the context of the times showed clearly how a lot of our perceptions about them really began with the early new stories and the publicity the men received.

That's not to say that Patton wasn't a great general, of course, or that Bradley was perfect and never made a mistake - on the contrary. Rather, it's a statement about how we come to our perceptions of people.

And that is really one of the core points of General At War. Why is it important? Because if we don't examine our perceptions about the past, then we are very likely to make the wrong decisions in the present. We're likely to revere (an admitted stereotype, by the way) one type of leadership over a more effective though not nearly as flamboyant alternative.