Explorations in the Digital History of Ideas
New Methods and Computational Approaches

Explains how computational approaches to text mining can substantially increase the power of our understanding of ideas in history.

Peter de Bolla (Edited by)

9781009263580, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 November 2023

312 pages
23.5 x 15.6 x 2 cm, 0.64 kg

What would the history of ideas look like if we were able to read the entire archive of printed material of a historical period? Would our 'great men (usually)' story of how ideas are formed and change over time begin to look very different? This book explores these questions through case studies on ideas such as 'liberty', 'republicanism' or 'government' using digital humanities approaches to large scale text data sets. It sets out the methodologies and tools created by the Cambridge Concept Lab as exemplifications of how new digital methods can open up the history of ideas to heretofore unseen avenues of enquiry and evidence. By applying text mining techniques to intellectual history or the history of concepts, this book explains how computational approaches to text mining can substantially increase the power of our understanding of ideas in history.

Part I. Computational Methodologies for the History of Ideas: 1. Introduction Peter de Bolla
2. Distributional Concept Analysis and the Digital History of Ideas Peter de Bolla, Ewan Jones, Paul Nulty, Gabriel Recchia and John Regan
3. Operationalizing Conceptual Structure Paul Nulty
Part II. Case Studies in the Digital History of Ideas: 4. The Idea of Liberty, 1600-1800 Peter de Bolla, Ewan Jones, Paul Nulty, Gabriel Recchia and John Regan
5. The Idea of Government in the British Eighteenth Century Peter de Bolla, Ewan Jones, Paul Nulty, Gabriel Recchia and John Regan
6. Republicanism in the Founding of America Peter de Bolla
7. Enlightenment Entanglements of Improvement and Growth Peter de Bolla, Ryan Heuser and Mark Algee-Hewitt
8. The Idea of Commercial Society: Changing Contexts and Scales John Regan
9. The Age of Irritability Ewan Jones and Natalie Roxburgh
10. On Bubbles and Bubbling: The Idea of 'The South Sea Bubble' Claire Wilkinson
11. Embedded Ideas: Revolutionary Theory and Political Science in the Eighteenth Century Mark Algee-Hewitt
12. Computing Koselleck: Modeling Semantic Revolutions, 1720-1960 Ryan Heuser.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]