Speaking of the digital revolution, a few weeks ago Andrew Prescott gave a keynote address at the Digital Humanities Congress in Sheffield. I wasn’t there but the text has been posted online. In the keynote Prescott questions some widely held beliefs about revolutions both industrial, social and digital:

The Arab Spring, the arrival of printing and the Industrial Revolution all show us how change is not necessarily revolutionary or disruptive. The processes we think of as revolutionary can be lengthy, patchy in character, amorphous, difficult to measure and unpredictable, and there is no reason to think that the digital will be any different. It’s the continuities and the parallels that are often as striking as the disruptions.

In an age of rapid change were many bold claims are made, a thoughtful analysis such as this is what I call putting history to good use.