Many researchers insist that computational methods will transform the historical profession, while an equally large number reject these claims as unwarranted hype. This study attempts to place the debate in historical and social context. The essay is divided into three parts. The first part offers a brief review of computational history. It asks whether the "computational turn" bears any resemblance to quantitative history and how it fits within the digital humanities. The second part describes the authors' recent attempts to apply computational methods to an existing project in the history of science using a standardized workflow. It demonstrates that each step of the workflow adds another layer of subjectivity. The third part reflects on what computational methods mean for the historical profession. It systematically reviews the positive aspects of computational history (open access, interdisciplinary collaboration, and new perspectives) as well as the negative aspects (inequality, fragility, and the threat of automation) and offers prescriptions based on the authors' experiences. T he digital revolution often evokes images of a technocratic future, but its impact on the past is equally profound. Computers have transformed not only the historical record but the historical profession as well. Historians have eagerly embraced digital tools and methods, and we now rely on computers for every single aspect of the trade, from collection and curation to analysis and interpretation. We can now teach courses, write books, and build careers without Abraham Gibson is a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Biology and Society at Arizona State University. His research examines the history of biology, the ethics of engineering, and the social impact of data science. He recently published Feral Animals in the American South: An Evolutionary History (Cambridge, 2016), and he is now writing a book about scientific holism during the interwar years.

From May 1720 through the summer of 1722, the French region of Provence and surrounding areas experienced one of the last major epidemics of plague to strike Western Europe. The Plague of Provence (or “Great Plague of Marseille”) represents a major eighteenth-century disaster that left in its wake as many as 126,000 deaths. Over the last three hundred years, commemorative artworks have memorialized the disaster and helped define how it is remembered. To help mark the tricentennial, this essay will examine a series of images portraying different aspects of the Plague of Provence. In particular, it will analyze how these images depict what I argue are two central themes in the art of the Plague of Provence: Marseillais civic virtue and the medical profession. Doing so reveals how these subjects were valued or perceived in the first decades of the eighteenth century, and why this matters today as we confront new contagious diseases including COVID-19.

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