Book contents
- The Dangerous Art of Text Mining
- The Dangerous Art of Text Mining
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Toward a Smarter Data Science
- Part II The Hidden Dimensions of Temporal Experience
- Part III Disciplinary Implications
- Appendix: Notes on Data, Code, Labor, Room for Error, and British History
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 September 2023
- The Dangerous Art of Text Mining
- The Dangerous Art of Text Mining
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Toward a Smarter Data Science
- Part II The Hidden Dimensions of Temporal Experience
- Part III Disciplinary Implications
- Appendix: Notes on Data, Code, Labor, Room for Error, and British History
- Index
Summary
The introduction opens with the work of researchers such as biologist Peter Turchin, who argues that he can distill the massive volume of textual data on human society, easily reduce human culture to variables, and create not only descriptive models of the human past, but also a predictive machine. It contrasts predictive fantasies with the “hybrid” studies where historians and mathematicians have joined forces to apply text mining – the literal count of words from the past – as a tool for modeling how cultures changed in the past. Reviewing recent work from historians and other specialists in text mining, it sets forth the broad aims of this book – to map out how researchers can take a digital, quantitative approach to illuminating history that eschews naïve interpretation, and instead provides a robustly accurate, original, and profound dimension to this complex discipline.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Dangerous Art of Text MiningA Methodology for Digital History, pp. 1 - 22Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023