Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 29/04/2026A model like GPT-5 or Claude that is told to “act like Lincoln” will throw in some 19th century diction, but underneath the top hat it remains a 2026 chatbot optimized to be helpful to contemporary users. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 29/04/20262. “Chat with Abraham Lincoln” is a ruse The second false start is a variant on one that is currently being pursued by a range of educational-focused AI startups: the idea that you can “talk to Abraham Lincoln” or “ask Cleopatra why she did what she did.” 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 29/04/20261. Vintage LLMs do not replace historical sources The most obvious false start here would be to assume that talking to a historical language model can somehow replace real reading in primary sources. ... they are best thought of as offering new ways into a reading of the actual sources. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 29/04/2026"More than this: I suspect that by sometime in the 2030s, they will be part of an entirely new field of humanistic research." 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 29/04/20263. Standalone chatbots are just the tip of an iceberg for what Historical LLMs will be able to do. When combined into simulations (of debates, historical decision-making, legal cases, etc) they have the potential to become valuable research tools. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 29/04/20262. In this sense, language models are historical texts themselves. Ghostly digital palimpsests, if you will. The idea of a Historical LLM might sound niche, but in truth, history is inherent to what they are. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 29/04/2026Ben writes that "1. Academics like myself have tended to systematically underrate just how humanistic the frontier of AI research actually is. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 29/04/2026A must-read post by @ResObscura on whether vintage LLMs mark the beginning of a new humanistic field. Certainly they are changing the way we must think about archiving and collective voices accessible from past documents. resobscura.substack.com/p/are-vintag...resobscura.substack.comAre "Vintage LLMs" the start of a new humanistic field?Thoughts on Historical Language Models and Talkie-1930 700
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 28/04/2026Very excited about work by Nick Levine, Alec Radford, and David Duvenaud on "talkie" - a vintage LLM. Here's their post introducing it: talkie-lm.com/introducing-...talkie-lm.comIntroducing talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 21/04/2026So often in awe of the way that people in the past were prescient - but sometimes it's fair to think "they thought WHAT?" contingentmagazine.org/2026/04/16/t...contingentmagazine.orgThey Thought What?Unpacking the history (and present) of science 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 25/03/2026weird research encounter of the day: someone looked at the alphabet and thought, “great, but it needs more goblins.” honestly, correct. sammlungenonline.albertina.at/objects/1064... 021
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 09/03/2026The Carletti book is out (www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...), and with it my very raunchy article. Here reviewed in the Corriere Fiorentino (Corriere della Sera)! Enjoy (but not too much!). 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 05/02/2026Doing research using pharmacopeias, drugs, or the history of medicine? Tomorrow's First Fridays Pharmacopeias features Stuart Anderson about his recent book, Pharmacopeias, Drug Regulation, and Empires: Making Medicines Official in Britain's Imperial World, 1618-1968. dm mcooley@hamilton.edu to join 000
Reposted by Mackenzie CooleyDaphna Oren @daphnao.bsky.social · 22/01/2026Competition for the best essay focusing on early science, medicine, technology, and other forms of natural knowledge across the globe before 1800. #EarlyModern 🗃️ 031
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 21/01/2026Please submit essays via email to earlysciencesforum@gmail.com by February 15, 2026 with a cover letter stating your name and the title of the article; the winner will be notified in the spring of 2026, in plenty of time to arrange for travel. 021
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 21/01/2026Please follow the ESM style guide and make sure that your paper has been anonymized. ESM publishes images in color and black-and-white; the author will handle permissions. 121
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 21/01/2026The prize is sponsored by the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge. We invite you to submit unpublished essays between 6,000 and 10,000 words in English that are not under consideration at another journal. 120
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 21/01/2026The winner will be strongly encouraged to attend the 2026 History of Science Society Conference in Edinburgh on July 13-16, 2024 as the prize will be awarded at the Early Sciences Forum Meeting. ... 220
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 21/01/2026The author of the winning essay will receive a $200 award and the piece will be published as an article in Early Science and Medicine subject to peer review; the committee will provide mentorship throughout the process. ... 110
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 21/01/2026focusing on early science, medicine, technology, and other forms of natural knowledge across the globe before 1800. We welcome submissions from early career research and also from more senior scholars... 110
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 21/01/2026spreading the news about the Cambridge Early Modern Science and Medicine Essay Prize 2026 Competition! Early Science and Medicine and the Early Sciences Forum of the History of Science Society's prize competition for the best essay... 124
Reposted by Mackenzie CooleyScott K Taylor @scottktaylor.bsky.social · 06/01/2026New article in RQ where @mackenziecooley.bsky.social uses the relaciones geograficas so show how the Columbian Exchange was, at a local level, uneven and idiosyncratic emspanishhistorynotes.wordpress.com/2026/01/06/c...emspanishhistorynotes.wordpress.comCooley, “A Patchwork Colombian Exchange,” RQ Winter 2025Mackenzie Cooley, “A Patchwork Columbian Exchange: Ecological Imperialism, Animals, and the Relaciones Geográficas of New Spain,” Renaissance Quarterly 78.4 (2025). 021
Reposted by Mackenzie CooleyDr Surekha Davies, Historical Monster Consultant (she/her) @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social · 18/01/2026Oh, so you mean present-day exhibitions of early modern objects? I'll have a think. This volume co-edited by @mackenziecooley.bsky.social, @annatoledano.com, and @duyguyildirim.bsky.social (someone needs to encourage them to hang out here!) may have leads: www.routledge.com/Natural-Thin...routledge.comNatural Things in Early Modern WorldsThe essays and original visualizations collected in Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds explore the relationships among natural things - ranging from pollen in a gust of wind to a carnivorous pitche... 263
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 03/09/2025The first meeting is this Friday and features mini-presentations on our new Special Issue (hopp.uwpress.org/content/66/2) and meet-and-greets with new collaborators.hopp.uwpress.org 010
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 03/09/2025Have an odd pharmacopeia that you’d like to consult on? Could the platform assist you in your studies of related materials? Interested in contributing to the growing dataset? We meet on the first Friday of the month at 9:30 am NY time via Zoom. Email mcooley@hamilton.edu for the link.hopp.uwpress.org 110
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 03/09/2025Join the Historical Pharmacopeias community for our monthly conversation - “First Friday Pharmacopeias.” Conducting research on materia medica? Interested in HP (dalme.org/collections/...)?hopp.uwpress.org 111
Reposted by Mackenzie CooleyLiverpool Distribution Services at Liverpool University Press @lupdistribution.bsky.social · 25/08/2025A new week means a brilliant selection of new titles from our distributed presses. First up, "Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue" from Lever Press's ASIANetwork Books collection. Find it here: bit.ly/3Vcoc47 @leverpress.bsky.social @mackenziecooley.bsky.social 087
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 17/08/2025The first two chapters - by Maria Portuondo and Joe Dennis - show the making of two different guidelines. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 17/08/2025We go back in time with @lxslcs.bsky.social's elegant chapter on the precedents for the guidelines, "Imperial Territorial Data before the Age of Print: “Illustrated Guidelines.” 110
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 17/08/2025How did states a world apart develop similar documentary techniques to know the dominions under their control, and how do these techniques help us understand the state in question? 100
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 17/08/2025Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, centrally appointed imperial officials in both China and the Spanish Americas were instructed to gather, compile, and submit information about the locales they administered, following a centrally issued, itemized compilation guideline or questionnaire. 100
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 17/08/2025A mini-intro to the first part of our book, "Knowing an Empire" with @leverpress.bsky.social services.publishing.umich.edu/Books/K/Know... 136
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025Sources drawn from the originals, and artwork designed by Olivia Buckton and June Lee, mentored by Zoë Sadokierski, University of Technology Sydney School of Design. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025"Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue" unveils how these two vast empires developed comparable systems to gather, order, and wield knowledge about their local worlds in the process of empire-building. services.publishing.umich.edu/Books/K/Know... 101
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025Thank you to everyone who took part in the conversation at the core of this book. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025Last but not least, we need global histories that aren't all about loose connections. World history is full of similar inventions to solve similar problems. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025As a Europeanist by training, may I also say that we need to take seriously the scale of Chinese history, and what we can learn from scholars who have navigated its incredible documentary troves. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025We need more serious conversations about the early modern world that take seriously the deep knowledge of area studies without missing parallels and connections. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025Barbara E. Mundy, Qun Che, He Bian, Jeremy Mikecz, Mårten Söderblom Saarela, Marcella Hayes, Zhang Xianqing, Stuart M. McManus, Niping Yan, and Dejanirah Couto. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025Please check out the great chapters by María M. Portuondo, Joseph Dennis, Alexis Lycas, Shih-Pei Chen, Patricia Murrieta-Flores, Diego Jiménez-Badillo, Mariana Favila-Vázquez, Mario Cams, ... 300
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025Over the next few days, I'll be posting about each part of the book: Knowing the State, Structures of Knowing, Knowing Space, Knowing Nature, Knowing People, Connections and Transfers, and Empires of Informal Knowing. 001
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025Through a new methodology of “juxtapositional comparison,” we read the difangzhi 地方志 (local gazetteers) of China and the relaciones geográficas of the Spanish world in parallel. 001
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, officials in both empires compiled large quantities of structured data on the climate, topography, natural products, languages, religions, and more of their locales, creating a vision of their empires as diverse yet unified. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025This is a book about how two vast empires, separated by thousands of miles, developed comparable systems to gather, order, and wield knowledge about their local worlds in the process of empire-building. 000
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025It has been a delight to work with Huiyi Wu, The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and @leverpress.bsky.social during the research, writing, and publication of this book. 020
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025"Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue" is now out! It's open-access via Lever Press. Please check it out here: services.publishing.umich.edu/Books/K/Know...services.publishing.umich.eduKnowing an EmpireKnowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue unveils how these two vast empires, separated by thousands of miles, developed comparable systems to gather, order, and wield kno... 833
Mackenzie Cooley @mackenziecooley.bsky.social · 14/08/2025Such a pleasure to work with Lever on this book! 010
Reposted by Mackenzie CooleyLever Press @leverpress.bsky.social · 13/08/2025KNOWING AN EMPIRE by @mackenziecooley.bsky.social & Huiyi Wu is now available! This ASIANetwork Books collection reveals the dynamic dialogues between early modern China and Latin America through a new methodology. Start reading: services.publishing.umich.edu/Books/K/Know... 295