This chapter analyses the impact of digital technology on historical research by identifying some of the critical methodological strands of the new computational digital history using Thomas Kuhn’s research on scientific revolutions. Digital methodologies have been described as posing a potential paradigm shift for historical research. Following Kuhn, the chapter describes the two ideal type responses within history to the challenges of the new computational digital history, where the disruptive digital methodologies are either being domesticated into traditional ‘normal science’ history as ‘digital history 1.0’, or a second revolutionary route where historical practice is radically disciplined into a paradigmatic ‘digital history 2.0’. As an alternative methodological middle way the study outlines ‘digital history 1.5’. This description combines a summary of digital practices already appropriated by most historical researchers with some of the new digital history’s central methodological elements as well as propose conceptualizations of emerging new mixed digital history practices such as search methodologies, digital source and resource criticisms.

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The introductory article to the special issue discusses terrorism and political violence in the Nordic countries and reviews the state of academic research on the topic. Even though the Nordic countries appear to have suffered from lower levels of terrorism and political violence than many other Western states, they have been less void and peripheral with regard to such phenomena than common wisdom and academic scholarship would suggest. While some notable acts of violence like the July 2011 attacks in Norway have been covered in research literature to a certain degree, other phenomena such as far-right violence in Sweden have attracted less attention. The article discusses the ways in which the analysis of Nordic countries could contribute to the field of research and how articles included in the special issue address existing gaps in literature.

This article provides a theoretical and empirical contribution to the political history of technology by articulating a new conceptual perspective on the power of technological things and through outlining a history of modern urban technological terror and terrorism. It introduces a user-centered perspective on technological politics in the form of 'subject histories of technology' which, contrasting with prevalent 'object histories of technology' on technological inventions and innovators, emphasize the self-fashioning power of technological artifacts. Through an overview history of technology of 'terrormindedness' covering the three subsequent waves of urban terror arising from aerial bombardment, nuclear weapons and substate terrorism it shows how technologies have been used by individual citizens to cope with the experience of man-made fear and insecurity. In conclusion it argues that the political history of technology should to the focus on community politics and system politics of big institutional technologies add an attention to the personal politics of the emotional and material power of small technical things.Keywords: technology of terrorism; technology in use; history of emotions; subjectivity; politics of technology; history of terrorism They were aiming for the towers. From across the sea they had come, a handful of civilians with their new missiles to wage war against the mighty military power. By attacking its greatest city and its towering symbols of pride and of power over men, they hoped to break the morale of the city and the nation and to force their humiliation. Their aim was true. Through the September sky the missile flew piercing the high tower that soon was burning. It was beyond the firemen's ability to save it and the tower, once among the highest in the world, fell down and was no more. Screams of terror and panic rose up from the citizens while shouts of glee and jubilation greeted it from their watching enemies. Urban terror, more advanced than ever before, had entered the world. Its impact was going to shape the city and the nation, and change the political map of the world.This event in the history of technology of terror was 'The Bombardment of Copenhagen,' inflicted by British troops, 2-5 September 1807, and which has been described as a precursor of the urban terror attacks of 11 September 2001. The immediate cause of the Bombardment was British fears during the Napoleonic wars that Denmark would support France. To thwart that possibility, the British told the Danes to give up their mighty navy as security for the country's continued neutrality. When Denmark refused, the British besieged Copenhagen. During three nights they bombarded the city with thousands of bombs and rockets, leading to its surrender and the loss of the Danish navy to the British.

The chapter introduces the main themes of “Digital Histories”. It shortly discusses the histories of digital history and the various research projects that resulted in this volume, as well as the main contributions of the individual chapters. Focusing on the most recent periods of development of digital and computational history, the introduction explains how this book contributes to advancing the larger field of history in two primary ways: firstly through conceptual explorations of the central issues characterizing the past, present and future of digital history research, and secondly by providing new empirical historical knowledge coming out of research using digital methods. The chapter surveys a number of key challenges and criticisms facing contemporary and future historians, including the digitisation of sources, metadata creation for digital source materials, digital source and resource criticism, and the various salient questions involved in organising digital history research.