Gale News and Teams

Uncovering New Angles and Arguments with Text Mining

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│By Georgia Platt, Gale Ambassador at Lancaster University│

Six months ago, I knew nothing about Digital Humanities or text mining. It wasn’t really a topic covered in my undergraduate degree in History, and I’d always been a bit unsure of the place technology has in historical research. Then I began my MA in Digital Humanities, which I chose to try and engage with these technological aspects of humanities studies that I hadn’t had the opportunity to explore before. I spent the first ten weeks of this course doing an intensive text mining module, and it revolutionised my approach to historical study.

If you’re curious about text mining but don’t know where to start, or are a digital humanities sceptic looking to be proved wrong, this blog post is for you. I will start with some basic theory of what text mining is and what kinds of questions it can answer, then I’ll put my practical skills to the test with an example from my studies in Victorian crime and punishment.

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History, Politics and Memory: Ostalgie in Contemporary German Society

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│By Matt Hudson, Gale Ambassador at the University of Durham│

October 3rd, 1990 became a symbol of post-Cold War optimism. As the reunification of Germany was marked with joyous celebrations, liberalism had emerged victorious. The collapse of the stagnant East German regime heralded not just the end of totalitarianism and censorship, but also the triumph of ‘people power’.

This picture appears naïve in today’s climate. In the former East Germany (German Democratic Republic or GDR), economic progress since reunification has not prevented voters from supporting the far-right AfD in their droves. Ostalgie, meaning nostalgia for life in the GDR, served as an early warning sign that the so-called ‘end of history’ was a misnomer.

But when did Ostalgie become an observed phenomenon? How did disaffection with life in a united Germany arise? And has this nostalgia been misinterpreted by western reporters?

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Hacking History Workshop Delivers Future-Ready Skills

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A montage of photos from the Hacking History workshop

|By Chris Houghton, Head of Academic Partnerships| In June, Gale delivered its fourth Hacking History event at the Dahod Family Alumni Center at the Castle, in central Boston. The hackathon showed participants that digital humanities is not just about using technology in the humanities. It’s about building practical, transferable skills, applicable in many careers: finding … Read more

Benevolence and Blame: The Question of Race in America’s Early-Twentieth-Century Tuberculosis Crisis

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| By Alice Shadbolt, Gale Ambassador at the University of Liverpool |

Between 1915 and 1940, tuberculosis posed one of the most urgent public health crises for North America and Europe. However, its impact was far from evenly distributed. In the United States, mortality rates amongst Black communities were consistently higher than those recorded amongst white Americans, a disparity that became a central preoccupation of contemporary public health discourse.

Drawing on Gale’s Public Health Archives, which preserves the reports, policy documents, and educational materials produced by municipal and state health departments, this post examines how these institutions approached and explained this disparity. A close reading of these documents reveals how language was strategically deployed to redirect responsibility onto Black communities themselves, pathologising race and obscuring the lived implications of racial inequality.

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Gale Fellows Present their DH Research at the Socio-Economic History Society Conference

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Blog Post Author with the Gale–SEHS Fellows

| By Masaki Morisawa, Product Solutions Consultant | On the sunny weekend of 9–10 May 2026, the 95th National Conference of the Socio-Economic History Society (SEHS) took place at Senshu University’s suburban Ikuta campus. More than 300 members gathered for the event, presenting and discussing topics as varied as promissory notes in Edo-period Japan, American … Read more

Interpreting the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons and Global Security in Declassified British Intelligence

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│By Eleanor Turner, Gale Ambassador at the University of Leeds│

Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence offers unique insight into how governments understand and respond to global security threats. The emergence of nuclear weapons in 1945 fundamentally altered the structure of international politics, leading governments to rethink what military conflict could escalate to and the devastating consequences of deploying nuclear weapons. Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence shows how the British government strategised to overcome these changes.

Joint Intelligence Committee: memoranda 21-41. February-September, 1957.
Joint Intelligence Committee: memoranda 21-41. February-September, 1957. MS Cabinet Office: CAB 158: Ministry of Defence and Cabinet Office: Central Intelligence Machinery: Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee later Committee: Memoranda (JIC Series) CAB 158/28. The National Archives (Kew, United Kingdom). Declassified Documents Online: Twentieth-Century British Intelligence, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/KBZRTF084274961/TCBI?u=leedsuni&sid=bookmark-TCBI&xid=36c0c368&pg=137&xty=open

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Contours of Connection: Exploring India–Africa Ties Through Memory, Movement, and Meaning

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│By Anushka Srivastava, Gale Ambassador at the University of Delhi, India│

India-Africa relations are strengthening in a new global scenario, driven by economic complementarity, strategic alignment, and a shared focus on multilateralism. In 2025, India strengthened its ties with Africa through several high-level visits. Prime Minister Narendra Modi undertook a significant five-nation tour in July 2025, in Ghana and Namibia, and President Droupadi Murmu made a historic visit to Angola in November 2025.

Understanding the long-standing relationship between India and Africa requires exploring the historical documents that shaped early contact, mobility, diplomacy, economic networks, and political exchange. For this, Gale Primary Sources offers unparalleled access to documents that illuminate how people, commodities, and ideas moved between the two regions.

This blog post traces these linkages through four lenses – historical, diplomatic, economic, and political – using illustrative citations from Gale Primary Sources collections.

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Laughing at Your Professors: Disruptive Behaviour in Early Modern English Universities

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│By Benjamin Armus, Gale Intern│

From the raucous atmosphere of college sports to emergent subversive online cultures, the university experience has always been defined by a tension between institutional discipline and youthful rebellion. However, a rejection of decorum is by no means a modern invention; the halls of Oxford and Cambridge four hundred years ago were frequently just as rowdy, and more dangerous, than the campuses of today.

To capture the spirit of these interactions, we must turn to the paper trails left behind by the students and masters themselves. Drawing on the extensive archives within Gale’s Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) and British Literary Manuscripts Online, this post will examine a selection of primary texts – from jestbooks to memoirs.

By analysing these firsthand accounts, we can understand the deeper function of humour and violence, revealing how these disruptive behaviours shaped the social and intellectual climate of the early modern university.

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Small Books, Big Ideas: Eighteenth‑Century Miniatures in ECCO

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│By Eleanor Leese, Acquisitions Editor, Gale Primary Sources│

As an editor at Gale, I’ve been lucky enough to visit some of the most prestigious archives in the country, but nothing has been as exciting as when I was invited to see the conservation lab at the British Library. By sheer good luck, the week that I was there they were working on their collection of miniature books ahead of scanning them for Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Part III which sparked something of an obsession in both myself and the rest of the Gale team.

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Critical Thinking in Business Studies using Gale Primary Sources

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│By Brendon Ndoro, Gale Ambassador at the University of Cape Town│

In Business studies, it is easy to assume that success is all about securing the best return on investment. However, true academic and professional success requires a deeper, more analytical approach: critical thinking.

The foundational concepts explored in the study of business ethics, particularly covered in the “Business Ethics”1 textbook by Jimmy Winfield, George Hull, and Greg Fried, will be used to explore the topic of critical thinking and how it can be used to distinguish between what is merely profitable and what is genuinely right.

The Times Digital Archive offers us the ability to travel back in time, providing us the opportunity to audit the reasoning of past business leaders and equip ourselves with the logical tools needed to succeed today.

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