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Historical GIS and Guidebooks : A Scalable Reading of Czechoslovak Tourist Attractions

Bechmann Pedersen, Sune LU orcid and Johansson, Mathias LU orcid (2023) In Digital Humanities Quarterly 17(2).
Abstract
This article demonstrates the value of “scalable reading” of historical travel guides, combining traditional close reading with computer-assisted distant reading. Aiming to scrutinize the persistence of older tourist attractions under communism, we analyse guidebooks intended for similar audiences but produced under different political regimes. More specifically, we compare three travel guides to the same geographical area produced between 1905 and 1959: one to communist cold war Czechoslovakia, one to democratic interwar Czechoslovakia, and one to the Habsburg-era Czech lands and Slovakia. We analyse the geographic distribution of attractions by geolocating the guidebook toponyms and visualizing them with Geographic Information Systems... (More)
This article demonstrates the value of “scalable reading” of historical travel guides, combining traditional close reading with computer-assisted distant reading. Aiming to scrutinize the persistence of older tourist attractions under communism, we analyse guidebooks intended for similar audiences but produced under different political regimes. More specifically, we compare three travel guides to the same geographical area produced between 1905 and 1959: one to communist cold war Czechoslovakia, one to democratic interwar Czechoslovakia, and one to the Habsburg-era Czech lands and Slovakia. We analyse the geographic distribution of attractions by geolocating the guidebook toponyms and visualizing them with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This distant reading is complemented with a hermeneutic analysis grounded in a close reading of the guidebook text. The combination of these approaches documents the similarities in the symbolic representation of the country’s attractions across political caesuras and provides a methodological template for future explorations of travel guides with historical GIS. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Historical Geographical Information Systems, tourism history, travel guides, state socialism, Cold War, toponym disambiguation, Baedeker, Čedok
in
Digital Humanities Quarterly
volume
17
issue
2
pages
16 pages
publisher
Alliance of Digital Humanities Organisations
external identifiers
  • scopus:85163000938
ISSN
1938-4122
project
The Gateway Guide: A Transnational Book & Tourism History, 1950-1975
DigitalHistory@Lund
DigitalHistory@Lund
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
375ef190-c0da-4860-b25d-7e22731d09ee
alternative location
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/17/2/000679/000679.html
date added to LUP
2023-05-27 08:01:28
date last changed
2025-01-13 04:45:52
@article{375ef190-c0da-4860-b25d-7e22731d09ee,
  abstract     = {{This article demonstrates the value of “scalable reading” of historical travel guides, combining traditional close reading with computer-assisted distant reading. Aiming to scrutinize the persistence of older tourist attractions under communism, we analyse guidebooks intended for similar audiences but produced under different political regimes. More specifically, we compare three travel guides to the same geographical area produced between 1905 and 1959: one to communist cold war Czechoslovakia, one to democratic interwar Czechoslovakia, and one to the Habsburg-era Czech lands and Slovakia. We analyse the geographic distribution of attractions by geolocating the guidebook toponyms and visualizing them with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This distant reading is complemented with a hermeneutic analysis grounded in a close reading of the guidebook text. The combination of these approaches documents the similarities in the symbolic representation of the country’s attractions across political caesuras and provides a methodological template for future explorations of travel guides with historical GIS.}},
  author       = {{Bechmann Pedersen, Sune and Johansson, Mathias}},
  issn         = {{1938-4122}},
  keywords     = {{Historical Geographical Information Systems; tourism history; travel guides; state socialism; Cold War; toponym disambiguation; Baedeker; Čedok}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{05}},
  number       = {{2}},
  publisher    = {{Alliance of Digital Humanities Organisations}},
  series       = {{Digital Humanities Quarterly}},
  title        = {{Historical GIS and Guidebooks : A Scalable Reading of Czechoslovak Tourist Attractions}},
  url          = {{http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/17/2/000679/000679.html}},
  volume       = {{17}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}