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Jo Guldi

@joguldi.bsky.social
1.4K followers 308 following 146 posts

Professor of Quantitative Methods at Emory. Data scientist, writer, historian. Newest: The Long Land War (2022), The Dangerous Art of Text Mining (2023).

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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 17h
AI didn’t save me from work. It replaced repetitive Canvas labor with cumulative intellectual work. Lesson for universities: use machines to reduce paperwork—and the savings to bring humans back into the room. computationalhistory.substack.com/p/how-ai-sav...
computationalhistory.substack.com
How AI Saved One Professor from Drudgery
Implications for Administrators
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
What happens when AI breaks our ability to establish what actually happened? I talked with Shae about Wikipedia across 300+ languages, AI’s English-language bias, provenance, and why we need a right to a verifiable past. Historians and archivists belong in the AI conversation.
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Well, this was dangerous. A preorder sale led me to @joshspecht.bsky.social on property, @jeannasmialek.bsky.social on Maria Edgeworth, and Andrew Whelan on destroyed records and power. @duttonbooks.bsky.social’s THE WAR OVER RENT connects all three. PREORDER25
Four actual covers—The War Over Rent, Property Values, The Invisible Hand of Maria Edgeworth, and Destruction of Documents—with 25% off eligible B&N preorders through September 11, code PREORDER25.
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Turning Points is out—and our Trento conversations are in print. My chapter asks: Was that anecdote typical? What did the archive omit? The digital turn didn’t make interpretation obsolete. It made its problems newly visible. www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi... @toffolosandra.bsky.social
degruyterbrill.com
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
A good excuse to preorder books! B&N is offering 25% off all preorders for Rewards Members through Sept. 11 (+10% for Premium Members). That includes The War Over Rent, Data by Design, and The Father of the Man. Preorders matter to authors. Code: PREORDER25 ❤️📚
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
The idea that rent should simply go up and up is much newer than we tend to imagine. The last time it was promoted with abandon, it helped bring a country to the brink of revolution. Cover reveal today! joguldi.substack.com/p/the-rent-w...
joguldi.substack.com
The Rent Wasn’t Always Like This.
A new book and a cover reveal!
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
As America approaches its 250th anniversary, we’re asking whether historians can tell a common national story. I think the better question is: Where do historians actually agree? #America250 #AI #History #HistoricalConsensus open.substack.com/pub/joguldi/...
open.substack.com
America at 250 Needs Better Questions
As America debates whether historians can tell a common national story at 250, we’re finally developing tools to ask a different question: Where do historians actually agree?
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Jim Clifford @jimclifford.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Louis at Computational History republished our Working Papers in Critical Search launch today. @joguldi.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/computat...
open.substack.com
Journals Are Dead. Up with Github. Up with Transparent Research.
Why we created a site for Working Papers on Critical Search
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
What if climate change, AI, democratic decline, and inequality are all versions of the same problem? My latest essay: open.substack.com/pub/joguldi/... (computationalhistory.substack.com⁠)
open.substack.com
The Future Is Built
If AI is remaking everything, what are the dependencies that ensure human survival?
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
I'm so excited to announce, with Jim Clifford, a Working Paper Series on Critical Search. We'll be publishing our own and others' experiments with AI, design, and pedagogy in a format built to reward quick turnaround and rapid ideation -- forging a track from lab to the world of journals.
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
What if the first great generation of data activists were not in Silicon Valley, but nineteenth-century Ireland? open.substack.com/pub/joguldi/...
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Historians warned against cherry-picking. But now others are making big historical claims at scale—and shaping public debate. We need a response. Critical search. Disciplined selection. computationalhistory.substack.com/p/beyond-che...
computationalhistory.substack.com
Beyond Cherry-Picking: Scaling Historical Arguments
Why Historians Must Enter the Age of Big Claims
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Coming in 2027 from Dutton: THE WAR OVER RENT. A history of tenant struggle, data activism, and how ordinary people used records, maps, and evidence to challenge concentrated power. Booking talks from Dec. 2026 onward: AI, tech ethics, urbanism, housing, civics, universities.
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
AI’s hardest problems — retrieval, ground truth, alignment — aren’t just technical. They’re historical. The future of trustworthy AI may depend on historical methods. computationalhistory.substack.com/p/ai-needs-h...
computationalhistory.substack.com
AI needs historians as much as historians need AI
Digital history did not fail in isolation—it failed just before the world discovered how much it needed it.
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
Digital history didn’t fail; it stopped short. It built archives, not cumulative research programs. Now AI is asking the questions DH left unresolved. Computational history is what comes next. computationalhistory.substack.com/p/the-lost-p...
computationalhistory.substack.com
The Lost Promise of Digital History
And why computational history is now needed more than ever
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
Look around, the case for more, not less, liberal arts education remains stronger than ever.
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Erika Hall @erikahall.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
I can't stress enough how studying philosophy at a liberal arts school prepared me for my career. Logic problems, organizing abstract concepts, neural nets and models of cognition, language and conversation, the nature of experience. Honestly expected never to see a trolley problem again tho.
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Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
3 tabs opened, a note-pad with a to-do-list in front of you, and a pair of spectacles handy. Surfing on the #earlymodern internet in 1622. #skystorians
Detail of a copperplate print showing Carlos de Bastida y Biedma. The monk is sitting at his working desk, surrounded by opened books, and other objects. Source: https://dev.hab.de/portraits/werk/28624/
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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
Is it too late to give Sacha Baron Cohen an Oscar for this? Not a damn lie told. 🇺🇸
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
This is cool. Johannes Uhl and colleagues use historical maps and settlement data to generate a dataset of the approximate date of every road in the United States. Check it out: arxiv.org/pdf/2506.16625 @jhuhl.bsky.social
arxiv.org
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Joanne Freeman @jbf1755.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
So. Less ability to forecast hurricanes, and a crippled FEMA so you can’t get federal aid for the damage…
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Now if only they would publish the data on their findings so that we could understand the work of government and the sacrifices of public servants. Because every past government committee in a democracy committed to transparency publishes its findings, right??
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Exciting new threshold in dh!
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Profound personal statement about the power of the humanities, the risks associated with losing the university as a bridge to social mobility, and how much is at stake as we abandon the infrastructure of research. Thank you for writing this, Karin. We need the long form version.
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Michael Morrell @genuinemichael.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
I wish more of my neighbors in Western North Carolina realized this.
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
I do love that it was helpful to a China scholar, Tom! I’ve been hearing the same thing from sovietologists as well. Thanks for weighing in!
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
Super powerful Sunday meditation on America in despair by theologian Diana Butler Bass @dianabutlerbass open.substack.com/pub/dianabutle…
open.substack.com
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John Cusack @johncusack.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
Chicago
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
This is a remarkably thoughtful essay about standing ruins in urban landscapes today and what they mean -- a portrait of Austin's long battle to attract IT, and about international bulldozing as a way of life in our wasteful economy.
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
Reading Albert Camus's A Short Guide to Towns Without a Past (French edition 1950) -- new to me, but essays written from 1937 to 1950 in northern Italy and Algeria. I'm used to the dour short stories of Camus assigned in high school, but these are different.
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
Listen to my new podcast/interview with the brilliant young British folks at NovaraFM, where I talk about participatory mapping, land reform, and their fascinating histories -- "How to Redistribute the Globe" novaramedia.com/2025/06/13/h...
novaramedia.com
How to Redistribute the Globe | Novara Media
It's the Land, Stupid.
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Wilko Hardenberg @wilko.hcommons.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/05/2025
Modern xkcd.com/3089 #histodons
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Wilko Hardenberg @wilkohardenberg.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
FYI @joguldi.bsky.social
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
Delighted to be in Warwick -- nest that nurtured so many greats of history (EP Thompson, Ed Countryman, Maxine Berg) -- giving talks on environmental history and AI this week. Say hello!
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American Historical Association @historians.org · 22/05/2025
Check out the handout from the AHA’s Congressional Briefing on the history of deportation. Panelists @hidehirota.bsky.social, Ana Raquel Minian Andjel, & @yaelschacher.bsky.social shared policies concerning immigration & deportation throughout US history. 🗃️
historians.org
History of Deportation – AHA
This handout was created for the AHA's Congressional Briefing on the history of deportation.
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
My second talk at the University of Glasgow will connect the history of land politics to affairs in Scotland: “The Long Land War: Scotland and Ireland in the longue durée” eventbrite.co.uk/e/jo-guldi-t... (alt text: The Long Land War, 1881-1990)
eventbrite.co.uk
Jo Guldi, “The Long Land War: Scotland and Ireland in the longue durée”,
Jo Guldi, “The Long Land War: Scotland and Ireland in the longue durée”, Global History Cluster and the Centre for Scottish & Celtic Studies
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
I'm thrilled to be giving a series of lectures at Uni Glasgow in a few weeks! Here's one: "Will AI Kill Democracy or Spur a Democratic Revival?" eventbrite.co.uk/e/jo-guldi-w... (alt text: human silhouette with a question mark, robot head, and the slogan, "Crisis of Fact")
eventbrite.co.uk
Jo Guldi, Will AI Kill Democracy or spur a democratic revival?
Jo Guldi, "Will AI Kill Democracy or spur a democratic revival? The role of text mining for historical analysis", Global History Cluster
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American Historical Association @historians.org · 16/05/2025
AHA members @joguldi.bsky.social, Peter Roady, @laraputnam.bsky.social, @kalanicraig.bsky.social, Arlene Díaz, & Katherine McDonough were featured in an article in PNAS, one of the most-cited & comprehensive multidisciplinary scientific journals, on how historians use data science to mine the past.
pnas.org
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
The irony when people happy to use pronouns misgender me as "Joe," an honest mistake that nevertheless always makes my skin crawl a little. Mainly I think it just points to the fact that gender subtleties are hard for many of us.
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
wow, that's quite a letter.
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Katie McDonough @kmcdono.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
✨✨Maps & newspaper research from LwM & MRM teams (@danielwilson.bsky.social @joshrhodes.bsky.social @jonhistorian61.bsky.social @nottinauta.bsky.social @ruthahnert.bsky.social @npedrazzini.bsky.social @kallewesterling.bsky.social + more) featured in @pnas.org this week! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Historians use data science to mine the past | PNAS
Historians use data science to mine the past
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Thrilled to be featured (along with a few of the many rising stars of digital history) in this week's PNAS Front Matter: pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... "Historians Use Data Science to Mine the Past"
pnas.org
Historians use data science to mine the past | PNAS
Historians use data science to mine the past
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Bill McKibben @billmckibben.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Pope Francis moved last summer to make Vatican City the first nation to run entirely on solar energy. In his writing, he made it clear that the climate crisis was about power in all forms--and about human dignity. The world feels much poorer today billmckibben.substack.com/p/pope-franc...
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Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
“One must be mad among the sane, but sane among the mad.” Strindberg, Master Olof
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Matthew Kirschenbaum @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
Back at it today.
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Ian Petrie @icpetrie.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
I want a Brutalist Scabby
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Matt Johansen @mattjay.com · 18/04/2025
🧵 THREAD: A federal whistleblower just dropped one of the most disturbing cybersecurity disclosures I’ve ever read. He's saying DOGE came in, data went out, and Russians started attempting logins with new valid DOGE passwords Media's coverage wasn't detailed enough so I dug into his testimony:
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