History and GIS

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

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2. Beyond GIS: Geospatial Technologies and the Future of History

   • David J. Bodenhamer

   Pages 1-13

3. Immobile History: An Interview with Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie

   • Alexander von Lünen, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie

   Pages 15-25

4. The Dawn of a Golden Age? Historical GIS and the History of Choropleth Mapping in the Netherlands

   • Onno Boonstra

   Pages 27-38

5. (In)Digitizing Cáuigú Historical Geographies: Technoscience as a Postcolonial Discourse

   • Mark H. Palmer

   Pages 39-58

6. Place in Time: GIS and the Spatial Imagination in Teaching History

   • Detlev Mares, Wolfgang Moschek

   Pages 59-72

7. “Thou Shalt Make No Graven Maps!”: An Interview with Gunnar Olsson

   • Alexander von Lünen, Gunnar Olsson

   Pages 73-87

8. Vernacular GIS: Mapping Early Modern Geography and Socioeconomics

   • Alexi Baker

   Pages 89-110

9. Mapping Miracles: Early Medieval Hagiography and the Potential of GIS

   • Faye Taylor

   Pages 111-125

10. The Role of Knowledge Spaces in Geographically-Oriented History

    • Monica Wachowicz, J. B. Owens

    Pages 127-144

11. Writing Visual Histories: An Interview with David J. Staley

    • Charles Travis, David J. Staley

    Pages 145-152

12. GIS and Research Into Historical “Spaces of Practice”: Overcoming the Epistemological Barriers

    • Sam Griffiths

    Pages 153-171

13. GIS and History: Epistemologies, Reflections, and Considerations

    • Charles Travis

    Pages 173-193

14. Maps of Change: A Brief History of the American Historical Atlas

    • Edward L. Ayers, Robert K. Nelson, C. Scott Nesbit

    Pages 195-210

15. Tracking in a New Territory: Re-imaging GIS for History

    • Alexander von Lünen

    Pages 211-239

16. Back Matter

    Pages 241-242

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Geographical Information Systems (GIS) – either as “standard” GIS or custom made Historical GIS (HGIS) – have become quite popular in some historical sub-disciplines, such as Economic and Social History or Historical Geography.
“Mainstream” history, however, seems to be rather unaffected by this trend. More generally speaking: Why is it that computer applications in general have failed to make much headway in history departments, despite the first steps being undertaken a good forty years ago?

With the “spatial turn” in full swing in the humanities, and many historians dealing with spatial and geographical questions, one would think GIS would be welcomed with open arms. Yet there seems to be no general anticipation by historians of employing GIS as a research tool. As mentioned, HGIS are popular chiefly among Historical Geographers and Social and Economic Historians. The latter disciplines seem to be predestined to use such software through the widespread quantitative methodology these disciplines have employed traditionally. Other historical sub-disciplines, such as Ancient History, are also very open to this emerging technology since the scarcity of written sources in this field can be mitigated by inferences made from an HGIS that has archaeological data stored in it, for example. In most of Modern History, however, the use of GIS is rarely seen. The intellectual benefit that a GIS may bring about seems not be apparent to scholars from this sub-discipline (and others).

This book wants to investigate and discuss this controversy. Why does the wider historian community not embrace GIS more readily? While one cannot deny that the methodologies linked with a GIS follow geographical paradigms rather than historical ones, the potential of GIS as a 'killer application'  for digital historical scholarship should be obvious.

This book brings together authors from Geography and History to discuss the value of GIS for historical research. The focus, however, will not be on the "how", but on the "why" of GIS in history.

• GIS
• historical geography
• history
• philosophy
• spatial turn

“This book is a collection of debates, opinions, experiences, and reservations along with some case studies. The former are a rich source of ideas for those interested in the differences between the geographer’s and the historian’s craft and concerned with the role of technology as enabling or disabling research.” (Mary Kelly, Journal of Historical Geography, Vol. 48, 2015)

• , Department of Geography, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom

  Alexander Lünen

• , Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

  Charles Travis

Dr. Alexander von Lünen is a Geography Research Fellow at the University of Portmouth, Hampsire, UK. His principle research interests are digital humanities / historical informatics, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and history, history of diving, history of aerospace medicine and physiology.

Dr. Charles Travis was awarded a PhD in Historical-Cultural Geography from Trinity College Dublin in 2006. He is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Trinity Long Room Hub. His research concerns the historical, cultural and environmental geographies of early twentieth century Ireland; the development of Humanities GIS methodologies and applications, as well as media geographies.