Elegant Figures

Spatial Humanities

July 26th, 2011 by Robert Simmon

There’s an interesting article in today’s New York Times about mapping historical landscapes: Digital Maps Are Giving Scholars the Historical Lay of the Land.

Few battles in history have been more scrutinized than Gettysburg’s three blood-soaked days in July 1863, the turning point in the Civil War. Still, there were questions that all the diaries, official reports and correspondence couldn’t answer precisely. What, for example, could Gen. Robert E. Lee actually see when he issued a series of fateful orders that turned the tide against the Confederate Army nearly 150 years ago?

Now historians have a new tool that can help. Advanced technology similar to Google Earth, MapQuest and the GPS systems used in millions of cars has made it possible to recreate a vanished landscape. This new generation of digital maps has given rise to an academic field known as spatial humanities.

Along with some nice examples.

One Response to “Spatial Humanities”

  1. adrian says:

    The San Francisco Estuary Institute has a project called the Historical Ecology program. They’ve done some really cool work looking at how San Francisco Bay has changed over the years.