The document discusses methods for learning from (dis)similarity data with a focus on both historical and contemporary datasets, including a medieval social network with over 6,000 transactions and career path clustering from labor market data. It introduces concepts such as distance metrics, optimal matching, and self-organizing maps (SOM) to analyze and organize data effectively. Additionally, it highlights the Sombrero R package that implements stochastic variants of SOM for non-vectorial data, providing tools and diagnostics for users.