Making the Case for Digital Mapping as a Tool for Learning about the Past

Abstract

Despite the fact that almost all historians today make use of such online tools as Google Books and digitised primary source archives, it is still considered unusual to make computer software a core part of one’s methodology for learning about the past. This paper makes the case for the use of digital mapping as a tool which allows and encourages us to ask new questions of long-studied areas of history, and to pass knowledge on to others in new ways. It addresses and answers some criticisms that are commonly presented against digital mapping as a methodology, as well as exploring the benefits of the use of digital maps through the discussion of a previous project carried out by the author, in which a map was made and analysed showing popular political activity in Manchester and its surrounding areas in the 1790s.