Chapter 3, ‘Beyond the Tracks’, which reveals newly created open-source data based on nineteenth-century British census, map, and railway station datasets, and offers insights into the day-to-day impact of railways on patterns of residence.
About the book
Living with Machines is a data-driven history of the coming of the machine age in the long nineteenth century. It has developed out of one of the largest interdisciplinary projects in the humanities, which was funded by the AHRC via UKRI’s Strategic Priorities Fund and undertaken by the project team based at the Alan Turing Institute, the British Library and five university partners. The book harnesses the combined power of massive digitised historical collections – from maps and census returns to newspapers – and computational analytical tools to examine the ways in which technology altered the very fabric of human existence on a hitherto unprecedented scale.
In the spirit of experimentation, the book’s innovative, enhanced open access edition will feature interactive maps, datasets and visualisations, digital notebooks, video, audio and images, to be published on UoL Press’s instance of the Manifold digital scholarly publishing platform.
It therefore offers historians a wealth of accessible material illuminating the human, social and cultural consequences of the industrial revolution in Britain. For digital humanists, cultural heritage professionals, librarians and archivists it is a rich example of the potential and methods of making collections available for digital scholarship.
Experimental and collaborative review and development
As well as testing out new formats and features for this book, we’re embedding experimentation into the publication process itself. A key part of this is that the completed draft chapters will go through a form of open, community peer review. A panel of reviewers will transparently review and comment on the material online using Manifold’s annotation tools and engage in live dialogue with the author team, all of which will be published as part of the final project.
We’re pleased that we can make the chapters openly accessible while they’re being reviewed for all to read in advance of the book’s official publication in 2025.Commenting on the open review process, Ruth Ahnert, author and PI of the Living with Machines project, said:
“We’re really excited to participate in this new form of review as it expands on the collaborative ethos that underpins this book and the project that gave rise to it. We believe that the final product will be made all the richer by inviting in multiple views and kinds of expertise”.
Ruth Ahnert, author and PI of the Living with Machines project
Stay tuned! More chapters will be released later this year. Look out for further announcements on our website and sign up to our newsletter or follow us on social media (Twitter/X or BlueSky) for updates.
The University of London Press is supported by the School of Advanced Study, University of London.
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