Mapping Freedom

There are many interesting points made by Edward L. Ayers in his article Mapping Freedom.  He outlines the benefits of the use of maps and graphics in the writing of history. He argues that history takes place in space whether it is in a historical building or on a battlefield, therefore there should be a justification for using maps and graphics as a means of presenting the relationship between space and time.

Ayers uses the example of the movements of African American populations during and after the American Civil War and spatially represents the marriages of African Americans in Virginia during the Civil War through the use of maps. His animated map showing population movements of African American between 1810 and 1970 vividly illustrate the increased migration in the post emancipation period. As they say a picture paints a thousand words and I would agree that this can also be applied to writing history. The use of graphs or maps can have the ability to illuminate an article which may be difficult to comprehend. I found this in reading a book on the Battle of Kursk which used 3D maps recreating the terrain and movements of the Russian and German armies, illustrating the events in a manner which written accounts could not.

In an Irish context the use of maps can be useful in the illustration of events such as the plantations. The map below from irelandstory.com depicts the change in land ownership in Ireland during the Cromwellian Plantation and serves as an example of the enacting of history in space.

 Ayers uses the analogy of weather maps to justify the use of maps for history. He describes how we use weather maps to retrospectively depict and explain the complex processes occurring in a weather system. Similarly ‘we can comprehend the historical weather, tracing where the currents led, how the storms brewed, and how the unpredictable somehow came to pass.’

The visual representation of history as a time landscape with important events represented by mountains and uneventful times by flat valleys was an interesting analogy. Additionally these significant historical events cannot be depicted as occurring in a straight line from start to finish. For example it would be inaccurate to present the events of Easter 1916 to the coming to power of Cumann na nGaedheal as a simple capitulation of British control in Ireland. All factors need to be considered. As Ayers says ‘history never travels as the bird flies; history walks across a varied and landscape of time.’



Ethnic Divisions in Bosnia in 1991



One of the courses I did in second year history in which I found maps to be an essential aid was the Balkans; World War I to Kosovo. I was studying the extremely complicated break-up of the Yugoslav Federation. This conflict’s division went well beyond national borders but was based on vicious ethnic divisions. The development of the war in certain ethnic areas of different countries was difficult to form a clear picture of. This was increasingly relevant in the bitterly divided Bosnia.  The use of maps depicting the divisions was essential in studying the conflict.

Ayers article had many interesting points and there is no doubting the benefits of the use of maps and graphics in the representation of history. Their use can make historical events and trends far more illuminating to readers of history.

Webs of Significance

Drew VandeCreek article Webs of Significance outlines the need for professional historians to engage with the development of digital libraries on the internet, or risk historians becoming increasingly irrelevant to popular historical discourse. He uses the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project as an ideal example of the types of interactive work historians need to become involved in.

VandeCreek comments that for the person with an interest I history as a hobby or ‘lifelong learners’ the availability of primary source documents on the internet is not enough. People also need a proper historical context and interpretation to get the most out of these sources. He says that while librarians can provide access to such materials it is historians that can provide ‘the perceptions and debates unique to their discipline.’

The Lincoln project provides access to primary documents and is unique in its collection image, map, sound and video sources too. As well as this the website also provides a biographical context in which to place the early phase of Lincoln’s life and a number of key historical themes around which debate range on Lincoln. This provides the context that VandeCreek calls for in other projects.

The benefits of collaboration of different disciplines that Patrick Manning advocated in his article Digital World History are also evident in the Lincoln project. The project saw the contributions of historians interested in different aspects of the historical experience, whether social, diplomatic or political history. The Lincoln project provides a ‘variety of interpretations of historical materials’ and allows people ‘to weigh the available evidence in order to assess their persuasive power.’

The issue of access is identified by VandeCreek as an impediment to lifelong learners with digital sources. ‘Unlike enrolled students, these individuals and groups usually lack any recourse to instruction or other forms of historical expertise that may inform their exploration of a digital library.’ This situation is similar to the position I was in before taking this course. There was numerous useful digital resources available to me which I was unaware of, but now I use tools such as Evernote and Google Alerts for my research.        

VandeCreek also outlines the possible consequences of the non-involvement of historians in the development of digital libraries. With huge amounts of other material available, people will readily consult history websites ‘without scholars queries, interpretations, and debates.’ VandeCreek is very critical of the history articles of websites such as About.com, many of which he says do not consult any primary sources.

I looked up an article on the 1916 Rising to get an impression of About.com articles. I could see VandeCreek’s reservations. The article was written by a journalist and has no citations or footnotes of any kind, therefore having no evidence to back up the facts in his account.

To counteract this, VandeCreek feels it is essential that historians engage with modern forms of scholarship. This is needed in an Irish context also. When one searches on an issue such as the 1916 Rising for example, many of the Google results page come from republican websites, which obviously would not be applying the standards of professional historians. Quoting VandeCreek historians are now obliged ‘to step forward and share their ideas and interpretations with the public.’

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.’