IS 580: Information History

Course Description

Drawing on research in varied historical specializations, information history has become a vibrant area of study, one that improves our understanding, moreover, of today's information universe. Information history covers diverse institutions and practices -- from libraries and the book to the telegraph and postal systems, from surveillance to cartography, from documentary culture to statistical surveys -- seeking to connect them with the major developmental processes of human history. Framed in a succession of major historical epochs, topics and trends, from Antiquity to the twentieth century, this course revises our sense of the historical record by situating information explicitly within it. 4 graduate hours. No professional credit.