The SAGE Handbook of Web History

摘要

The SAGE Handbook of Web History is a rich and varied handbook that seeks to map the entirety of Web History as a field. Edited by two of the field's frontrunners, Niels Brugger and Ian Milligan, the volume includes no less than 40 chapters written by scholars from history, programming, social sciences, media studies, communication, cultural studies, computer science and digital humanities. This variety reflects the multifaceted nature of web history as a field but also the editors' willingness to let the volume reflect this richness. In the handbook they have aimed to show the duality of web history in that the volume encompasses both histories of the Web (this is by far the theme in the majority of the entries) and histories using the Web as a record. The volume does an excellent job in placing emphasis on the centrality of web archiving to web history, explaining how archiving the Web differs from archiving of other sources and why this makes the archival research infrastructure different, including new kinds of challenges and opportunities for historical (web) research. The chapters are organized into six parts; The Web and Historiography; Theoretical and Methodological Reflections; Technical and Structural Dimensions of Web History; Platforms on the Web; Web History and Users, some Case Studies; and lastly The Roads Ahead.