More Readings for a Field in Digital History

Last month I posted a draft reading list for a general / comprehensive graduate exam in digital history. The list raised a fair amount of interest, and a number of people were kind enough to e-mail me suggested additions or blog about them. So, more or less in the order that I received them, here are more readings for a field in digital history. As before, I've included links to Amazon records to support further hacking. Suggestions are still welcome, of course.

John Jordan emphasized the historical precursors of digital history, particularly systems theory.

• Ackoff, Russell and Fred Emery. On Purposeful Systems: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Individual and Social Behavior as a System of Purposeful Events, new ed. Aldine, 2005.
• Bowker, Geoffrey C., Susan Leigh Star, William Turner and Les Gasser, eds. Social Science, Technical Systems, and Cooperative Work: Beyond the Great Divide. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997.
• Churchman, C. West. The Systems Approach, rev. ed. Dell, 1984.
  
• Copeland, B. Jack, ed. The Essential Turing. Oxford, 2004.
  
• Emery, Fred E., ed. Systems Thinking. Penguin, 1981.
• Emery, Fred E. and Eric L. Trist. Towards a Social Ecology. Springer, 1975.
• Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: The Enigma. Walker and Company, 2000.
  
• Rogers, Everett M. Diffusion of Innovations, 5th ed. Free Press, 2003.
• Russell, Stuart J. and Peter Norvig. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, 2nd ed. Prentice Hall, 2002.
• Simon, Herbert A. Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd ed. MIT, 1996.
  
• Simon, Herbert A. Administrative Behavior, 4th ed. Free Press, 1997.
• Tufte, Edward R. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd ed. Graphics Press, 2001.

David Parry suggested a few theoretical works:

• Bogost, Ian. Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism. MIT, 2006.
  
• Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Chicago, 1998.
• Derrida, Jacques. Paper Machine. Stanford, 2005.
• Hayles, N. Katherine. My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary Texts. Chicago, 2005.
  
• Heidegger, Martin. The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays. Harper, 1982.

Sheila Brennan sent two readings from her own list...

• Burton, Orville Vernon, ed. Computing in the Social Sciences and Humanities. Illinois, 2002.
• Landow, George P. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Johns Hopkins, 2006.
  

Jeremy Boggs posted a nice piece about the importance of design in digital history, which included the books listed below. (He also quoted Josh Greenberg to the effect that "You wouldn’t go to an academic conference to present a paper wearing dirty, torn jeans and ratty t-shirt." To which I'd have to reply that I've given more than my share of conference presentations in a black T-shirt and ratty cargo shorts. How the heck else could I perform my nerdiness? It's not like I wear horn rims or a pocket protector.)

• Bickner, Carrie. Web Design on a Shoestring. New Riders, 2003.
  
• Clarke, Andy. Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design. New Riders, 2006.
• Curtis, Hillman. MTIV: Process, Inspiration, and Practice for the New Media Designer. New Riders, 2002.
  
• Krug, Steve. Don't Make Me Think: A Commonsense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd ed. New Riders, 2005.
  
• Lenker, John. Train of Thoughts: Designing the Effective Web Experience. New Riders, 2002.
• Lupton, Ellen. Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors and Students. Princeton Architectural Press, 2004.
• McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Harper, 1994. [added by Paula Petrik]
  
• McCloud, Scott. Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology are Revolutionizing an Art Form. Harper, 2000. [added by Josh]
  
• Tufte, Edward R. Beautiful Evidence. Graphics Press, 2006.
• Wroblewski, Luke. Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability. Wiley, 2002.
  
• Zeldman, Jeffrey. Designing with Web Standards, 2nd ed. Peachpit, 2006.
  

And last but not least, Tom Elliot pointed out Geoffrey Rockwell's great list of online readings in humanities computing.

Tags: bibliography | digital history | history education | pedagogy