David J. Bodenhamer

Beyond GIS: Geospatial Technologies and the Future of History

GIS is a powerful technology with useful but limited application to history as practiced by most historians, appealing primarily to scholars who employ quantitative data and methods. But the spatial turn, especially as it is influenced by Web 2.0 technologies and practices, has resulted in a new hybridization of geo-spatial technologies that promise to reshape the discipline of history in ways reflective of postmodern concerns and epistemologies. In this new form, geo-spatial technologies are better equipped to construct the spatial narratives and deep maps that permit, indeed encourage, the sort of reflexive, recursive, and collaborative environments that will mark history in the future.

Developing and Sustaining a Community Information System for Central Indiana: SAVI as a Case Study

SAVI is one of the nation’s largest community information systems containing over 10,000 indicators of quality of life. This chapter describes the history and development of its robust data processing system, its interactive web application that allows users to analyze and visualize the indicators, the governance and funding structures, and the cultivation of the user community and support mechanisms. It highlights various uses of the system by a wide range of user groups. Finally, it shares the lessons SAVI learned during its 15-year history and outlines the recommended steps for a community to develop its own community information system.

The digital atlas of American religion

In this demonstration-paper we introduce DAAR, the Digital Atlas of American Religion (www.religionatlas.org). The DAAR is a web-based research platform with innovative data exploration and visualization tools to support research in the humanities. Using a user-centered design approach, we incorporated historic religion data on adherence, membership, and congregations with historic census data and new religion typologies as the test-bed for the tools that we developed to establish the technology infrastructure and framework that can be used for other humanities data.

The Magic Mirror: Law in American History

Introduction Social and Institutional Foundations of Early American Law Law, Society, and Economy in Colonial America The Law in Revolution and Revolution in the Law Law, Politics, and the Rise of the American Legal System The Active State and the Mixed Economy: 1789-1880 Common Law, Jurists, and American Values: Continuity and Change, 1780-1880 Race and the Nineteenth-Century Law of Domestic Relations The Nineteenth-Century Law of Personal Status The Dangerous Classes and the Nineteenth-Century Criminal Justice System Law, Industrialization, and the Beginnings of the Regulatory State: 1860-1920 The Professionalization of the Legal Culture: Bench and Bar, 1860-1920 The Judicial Response to Industrialization: 1860-1920 Cultural Pluralism, Total War, and the Formation of Modern Legal Culture: 1917-1945 The Great Depression and the Emergence of Liberal Legal Culture Contemporary Law and Society The Imperial Judiciary and Contemporary Social and Cultural Change Epilogue: More like a River than a Rock Notes Glossary Bibliographical Essay Table of Cases Index