The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Category: Society & Culture...
Posted Thursday, February 10, 2005 at 03:09 PM [GMT-6]

If you ever wondered what blogging might have been like had it been around in the 17th century, look no further than the The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Pepys was a prolific diarist who lived in London; his journal of daily life in the mid-1600s has been published extensively in treeware form and is available on the web in various places. What makes the preceding website unique is that it publishes one entry per day, just like the original journal, with the month and day corresponding to the original material, albeit 443 years later.

For example, here's today's entry (it was Sunday for Sam):

Each entry contains links to various annotations which are clarifications and explanations provided by knowledgeable readers. In this sense, the Diary is quite similar to a wiki...a collaborative effort at building up a body of knowledge about a specific subject.

To paraphrase George Santayana, those who ignore history are doomed to reblog it.

Tip o'the hat to the oddly charming Fishing Guide to the Stars, who probably will say that he knew I was going to link to him.