Digital World History: An Agenda

Patrick Manning’s article Digital World History: An Agenda argues that the study of history on a global scale needs the cross disciplinary cooperation of researchers and this can be aided by the advance of digital technology. This cooperation can involve different areas of history or other social sciences and it results in better results when academics coordinate their work in such a manner. He advocates such an approach throughout the article, as a new modern way of research, as well as looking at more complex historical patterns and seeking new data rather than developing on old data.

                   

At the beginning of the article Manning comments on the recent ‘extraordinary expansion in knowledge about the past.’ He comments that ‘the new knowledge, exciting but always incomplete, fueled a search for still more knowledge.’ The huge number of history books being released exemplifies the vast array of knowledge there is.  Over Christams the vast array of books I saw on sale dealt with topics such as De Valera and his republicanism to a recent controversial release asserting that he was a British spy! The internet has been  a vital component in this expansion of knowledge. People can now access a vast archive of historical knowledge at the click of a mouse. I found during my time undergrad, when studying medieval Irish history which had become hazy from secondary school I could quickly refresh my memory by looking up the internet. Despite all its critics I found Wikipedia very useful for such purposes, eliminating the need to search for my old secondary school book hidden somewhere in the attic at home.

           

This expansion of knowledge can also be applied to the media today. People can now stay informed with current events on a global scale, keeping in touch with issues such as the current independence referendum in Southern Sudan. With such a vast array of now accessible, Manning asserts that ‘the work of the historian is to assemble and interpret this multidimensional knowledge.’

Manning also comments on analytical and conceptual problems associated with world history. He outlines the need to take account of the perspectives of different actors, in analysing world history and the need for a flexibility of scale. Balancing local and global scales, short and long term time spans. For example one cannot just look at the Troubles in Northern Ireland starting in 1969. There is a necessity to look at longer time scales. Additionally global perspectives can differ significantly from local ones. This was evident in the same period in the money the IRA received from the Noraid group, funded by Irish-Americans with a completely romanticised revolutionary view on the IRA campaign of violence.

Manning also expresses the view that history at the world scale is still unfamiliar. ‘Neither researchers nor readers are yet comfortable with interpreting the global past, so the analysis lags far beyond the accumulation of new information’. This was interesting in terms of low profile countries suddenly coming to the forefront in world headlines. Nobody can know or be expert in the history of every place in the world no matter what technology exists, and this can lead to difficulties when reporting from such areas. A prominent example of such a phenomenon came in the Yugoslav War in the early 1990s. Yugoslavia shot into world headlines as Croatia and Slovenia seceded, and the vicious civil war broke out in Bosnia. Misha Glenny in his history of the Balkans, criticised the stereotypes and generalizations of a continual violent people involved in an unsolvable war that emanated from Western media outlets.

           

There were other parts of Manning’s article which I found rather difficult to comprehend, such as when he was differentiating between analog and digital technologies. He also outlines the many benefits of digital technology in conducting global research and the connections between both digital technology and world history’s growth. He notes the need to write history to an audience beyond national frontiers. This approach is evident in the BBC news website which has a separate websites for UK and global readers.

           

Digital technology’s ability to aid access to a range of interpretations and multidimensional analysis of world history is an element which Manning really values. It is an approach that makes a lot a sense to me. During my Arts degree I did Geography as my second subject and there was so much overlapping of the topics covered in both subjects, whether it is issues of demographic history or migration. The two disciplines have different approaches to topics but cooperation between disciplines should lead to what Manning calls an ‘improved world-historical interpretation.’