...and I've stumbled across so many great quotes now which could just as well have been written today and not in, like, 1970. I really feel the urge to start sharing some of them, because that groundhog-day experience I keep having is as entertaining as it is lowkey frustrating lol.😅 Also saw it's topical for some people so maybe it'd even be useful?!
@histodons
"[History] is usually written by one person who, immersing himself in the materials, attempts to interpret what he finds. But as each new technique or method of interpretation becomes a part of the discipline of history, the need for special knowledge and training becomes more apparent [...]
The implication, therefore, is that history will become a group effort, the result of a collaboration between numerous specialists."
"Computer analysis [...] really is an extension of ideas and concepts already inherent in the historical methodology.
The computer also opens the possibilities of predictive history, certainly the most controversial aspect, but by exercising a certain amount of caution in his problems and his predictions, the historian might profitably enter the field already pioneered by the psychologist and sociologist."
Vern L. Bullough, 1967, "The Computer and the Historian: Some Tentative Beginnings" in: Computers and the Humanities, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 61-64. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30199211
@histodons This is a great and interesting read for the history of digital hisory in general, lots more quotable bits. Also one of the early and few genuine historians mentioning simulations, albeit a bit misguiding as "predictive history".
"Although simulation is not new, simulated history is rare enough that historians may not be aware of its possibilities and limitations"
Lance E. Davis, 1975, "Review of 'Late Nineteenth-century American development' by Jeffrey G. Williamson, 1975" in: History and Theory 15(3), p. 330. https://doi.org/10.2307/2504732
Davis also is sure that the book "cannot fail to have a significant impact on the direction of research in economic history." 😬
Williamson is one of the earlier ones to employ sims methods on a large scale. Ofc, this one is about economic history, as are many of the early sims. assoc. with New Economic History (not all though!).
Apart from the bold prediction at the start, it's a very good review, btw., discussing methodology and epistemology of historical sims. 🤖
@independentpen Ah yeah, important clarification, thanks for asking! "simulated history" here means historical simulation models, ie. aspects of history modeled in a computer. So kind of faked history, but with scientific purpose. 😄
@independentpen for sure! Although examples might vary extremely in what is actually done in detail.
One nice example, which is also one of the earliest historical simulations I found, is about simulating how early polynesian settlers were able to navigate the pacific ocean to find islands. So in the model the geographic space was modeled, with proper distances, ocean currents and weather patterns. Added are then boats which have properties assumed to be true to the originals of ca. 800CE...
@jaschaschmitz
Ohh that makes sense. I'm pretty familiar w the literature on the peopling of North America and this is ringing some bells for me; I can imagine how a simulation would fit right into the debate. Thanks for taking time to tell me! @histodons
"The use of computers will require historians to be more
precise in their thinking about the dimensions of the problem to be analyzed. Vague conceptualization and inadequately formulated
research problems are magnified by the computer.
Since the validity of computer analysis is contingent upon the competence of the user,
historians must give careful attention to systematic conceptualization of important research problems."
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