Organizing and considering a project for the Digital Humanities is no simple task. I have been brainstorming, and thinking about a manageable project for the overwhelming amount of history surrounding World War 2.
First, I wanted to create a large database for World War 2 history nuts like me and others. But, as I searched I realized how naive I was to even consider being able to create a database surrounding the mountain of information that is World War 2. I wanted to create a database which could reflect the history of World War 2 in a non bias fashion. I was hoping to combine primary and secondary sources from every perspective of the war to create a better understanding of specific events that occurred. Doing this would take years of work, and It is ignorant to suggest that myself could do it alone.
Since my passion for World War 2 history is still unharmed, I do wish to continue doing a project with something surrounding World War 2. After going through the GIS tutorial and learning the way around Google Earth, it got me thinking with a new lens.
1) I could still create an online database of World War 2 history, but I would have to be a lot more specific. What I hope to do is pick significant battles and operations that took place in European front, and contribute the different countries perspective regarding those battles. For instance, I could include Operation Barbarossa and the sources surrounding the event. I can include both the German perspective, and the Russian perspectives like I previously wanted to in my first ideas. This way, it would be much more specific and it is something I could do in a shorter time frame. With Google Earth, I could illustrate where exactly these events occurred, the battle strategy, and how it actually played out.
2) I could create a small database. Figure out the complexities of building a site, and just databasing specific Battles of World War 2.
Those are my ideas thus far.
Let me know if you think these ideas seem logical or even possible.
Digital Humanities- Kyle Garland's History Blog. 
Kyle, your approach is wise. Think big, and then think about how to get a bite-size chunk that is doable within our timeframe, but may be scalable later.
Hey, a fellow WWII history nut! We are a large and slightly nerdy crowd.
I definitely understand where you’re coming from with trying to get knowledge and information down to a manageable size. Your idea about focusing on specific battles seems like a really solid approach, and I especially like your idea about including perspectives from both sides. So much of the time topics in history have to be learned twice from opposite perspectives to get the fairest picture possible.
What do you think about focusing on one thing (a person, a military unit, a town, etc) and following it throughout the war from start to finish? Band of Brothers follows Easy Company and hits a ton of historical touchstones along the way. With the right choice, you could combine the specificity you’re looking for with the bonus of telling a human interest story as well as a historical one. I find that its usually the WWII memoirs about a specific place/person/group that are the most engaging.
Hey Kyle,
I think it would be wise to start with figuring out how to set up a site etc. by creating your small database, say with only one or two things in it, and then after seeing how long/how complex that is to start in on a bigger event—as you mentioned, Barbarossa. I wouldn’t worry too much about incorporating maps just yet if that’s not your number 1 priority…Or you could choose to do just the maps, as I think the two options are individually enormous.
Good luck!
Hi Kyle,
Nice project idea! I’m also interested in World War 2 so I think your project will be great. I know it’s still early on in the process, but I have a few questions for you. What kind of documents do you plan on including in your database? It’d be cool if you compiled a bunch of first hand accounts of the battle from each side, but then you’d run into a language barrier, especially if you want to do Operation Barbarossa. Also, I was wondering if you had a specific audience in mind for your project. Is it going to be more for your everyday historical researcher, or will it be mainly for academia? Good idea on picking on battle, although Operation Barbarossa is still pretty huge! Perhaps you could go even smaller in scale and use a single battle from the operation, like the Battle of Kursk for example. It’d be really interesting to see the specific battle strategy mapped out like you suggested. Good luck!
I really like your idea about having the viewpoints of other nations incorporated into your project and have come up with a suggestion. I believe your feelings that the wealth of information is much too large for any one person. So how about this. Perhaps you could focus exclusively on battles which are inherently identified as “Canadian”. For example, something like Vimy Ridge. Exclusively focusing on this you could built your project on source material, interviews, logs, etc that are Canadian. This would provide you with information that is relevant to your interest, reduce the information you have to process and make the availability of information on that topic more likely (Given that we live in Canada there’s likely fifty books on Vimy Ridge in the UoG library, if not more).
Now this next step I’ve considered is a little riskier, but I think that it could potentially add substance to your project and achieve the various perspectives angle you’d hoped for. Also, it will exploit the internets ability to have other people help you build your project, as Professor Ross has stated. What if you opened up your project and allowed people from various countries to make submissions to your assignment similar to your own, only geared towards the historical perspective inherent in their society? Russians submitting Russian perspectives and so on. I really feel that soliciting this kind of participation allows your project to accomplish both thinking big and thinking small. This would also eliminate any sense of your sites history seeming hollow or one sided.
What do you think?