We constructed a corpus of digitized texts containing about 4%
of all books ever printed. Analysis of this corpus enables us to
investigate cultural trends quantitatively. We survey the vast
terrain of ‘culturomics,’ focusing on linguistic and cultural
phenomena that were reflected in the English language between
1800 and 2000. We show how this approach can provide insights
about fields as diverse as lexicography, the evolution of
grammar, collective memory, the adoption of technology, the
pursuit of fame, censorship, and historical epidemiology.
Culturomics extends the boundaries of rigorous quantitative
inquiry to a wide array of new phenomena spanning the social
sciences and the humanities. Speakers often do not state
requests directly but employ innuendos such as Would you like to
see my etchings? Though such indirectness seems puzzlingly
inefficient, it can be explained by a theory of the strategic
speaker, who seeks plausible deniability when he or she is
uncertain of whether the hearer is cooperative o