The Way We Write History Has Changed

Archives are where collections of papers are stored, usually within a library’s inner sanctum: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s papers, say, at the New York Public Library. While libraries have become central actors in the digitization of knowledge, archives have generally resisted this trend. You might spend weeks, months, or, like Caro, years working through all the boxes, taking extensive notes and making some (relatively expensive) photocopies.