Nanohistory is built with a very firm historiographical theory foundation. It Is not modelled primarily on making any kind of relationship link between points in a network, but seeing the creation of such a link as an assertion of a perceived historical fact. In this respect, the link - an event - is the smallest datum historians could model with a degree or certitude. Moreover, the idea that this notion of an unnamed event lies at the heart of an approach to historical research data that allows computational techniques to excel at what they're good at - organizing data - while also empowering what human researchers do best: interpret. Nanohistory is a tool that allows historical scholars a means to manage their data in a way that takes into account the vaguarities of historical names for events, and to trace historical evidence across wide spectra of source materials. And, importantly, to not only build a more comprehensive data account of historical evidence and assertion (where possible), but to track and understand that research itself as a networked event. Similar tools allow for the creation of relationships, but either lack an historical theoretical foundation, seek to simplify approaches to the event model itself, or fail to adequately construct a cohesive and robust computational approach to chronology. Nanohistory's simplistic entity list, its fairly restrictive verb vocabulary, and its approach to temporal limiting of events, creates a powerful intepretive approach to tracking views of cultural networks over time.

Why Nanohistory? Compared to Other Tools?