iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Irish tenants used maps, ledgers, and court records to challenge rising rents. Their evidence helped create the world’s first Land Court. That history leaves a durable question: who controls the record? joguldi.substack.com/p/coming-soo... Subscribe for more essays.

joguldi.substack.com

Coming Soon: The History and Future of Data Activism

The Irish War Over Rent shows us that playing other peoples' games is nothing new

0132

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

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

072

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.

22710

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.

111

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

023

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 ❤️📚

153

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Thanks, Eileen! That's a terrific idea. I understand rent control has legs in NYC right now...

010

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!

194

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?

021

Reposted by Jo Guldi

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

051

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?

021

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.

072

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/...

020

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

0103

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.

032

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.

0215

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

0125

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Thanks Eileen. We’re all okay but a little shaken, esp our CDC friends and neighbors.

120

Reposted by Jo Guldi

Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

Look around, the case for more, not less, liberal arts education remains stronger than ever.

19517

Reposted by Jo Guldi

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.

1452

Reposted by Jo Guldi

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/

14536107

Reposted by Jo Guldi

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. 🇺🇸

6152549610029

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

040

Reposted by Jo Guldi

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…

108731

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Let me know if you ever need a reader. I like where you’re going with this, and I think it’s vital to describe so many of the things you touch here. I’ve been troubled by the cavernous silences.

110

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

I believe it! Are the chapters drafted yet or just in your head?

110

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??

060

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Exciting new threshold in dh!

130

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.

22711

Reposted by Jo Guldi

Michael Morrell @genuinemichael.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

I wish more of my neighbors in Western North Carolina realized this.

0125

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

I really appreciate the share! Greetings from holiday in Amsterdam, Wilko.

000

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!

020

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

000

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Man just let us get out of this hiring freeze. I’ve written memos about it already.

010

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Great writing and research, Michael! Love seeing this kind of detail and thought from Texas (my home).

110

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.

120

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

"The world is beautiful, and outside it there is no salvation."

000

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Most surprising of all is his address to the landscape -- say the landscape of sunbathing on the beach -- as a perpetual present where people aren't required to perform duties to family or the state. The "unbearable" sublime, for him, is wandering the hills of Florence.

100

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

I'm astonished to find something like the corollary of Henry David Thoreau. Unbridled odes to beauty, truth, the body, the power of love.

110

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.

110

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.

021

Jo Guldi @joguldi.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

How fun! Thanks for sharing, and great to meet you, Wilko. Would love to be tagged as you post more.

110