how to tell if a history work has quality

Look at the quality of his footnotes. They tend to seperate the good historians from the bad.

The quality of the footnotes could refer to several factors - but from experience, bad historians tend to have a sloppy style and tend to be quite gullible (Such as claiming somone has a certain vice, using his nemesis' diary etc.)

Originally posted by opuslola Thus, just whom first reported and copied the works of Seneca, or Plato, or Livy, etc.? Where were they found an just who found them? The above questions and others are but a few that need to be asked. Did the discoverer of the ancient documents have a motive to discover them, did he have access to 14C dating, or real etymology studies? Couuld he analyze the ink, etc.?

Edited by Cryptic - 19-Oct-2009 at 11:48

I know of highly respected researchers who passed through Australia in early times , and made good notes that are reported by highly respected Scholars without question as eye witness accounts of facts they saw and recorded . some of these accounts look excellent ,But these at times clash with other little known reports ,  found in diaries letters and local sources on the ground .

Today the original accounts are offered as facts by experts  who did indeed visit the areas , and are widely accepted by many quality  publishers  , and  yet IMHO often better accounts from locals are rejected , as the professionals mostly  accept the official versions , it can be hard to  tell which version is more correct , I live in South Australia and so did my family for many generations and find our collected histories are dismissed as unreliable , yet a German speaking "expert" who rode through the area up to 100 or more  years ago , usually  with a few non local Aboriginal peoples , covering 20 km a day on average , are at times  held as the final arbiter on many things , that should be mostly seen as no more than tourists snaps are today , not a  final draft history that often  kills off the real versions at times dismissed as unsupported unpublished unreliable

The facts can be tested , its a matter of having the time and money to challenge the establishment , it can cost heaps of time and effort / gold ,  to unseat a long held POV with nil reward of any kind for those who try

At times the original researchers did not speak English as a native tongue , and did not speak the Aboriginal Tongues ,  but used Aboriginals from other areas who spoke broken English ,  and the entire report is a mess , many were with one Aboriginal interviewing another from a different area ,  in broken English relaying the questions to a non English researcher , to be translated by 18/19th century British printer for consumption by white Anglo  ruling Elites  , with modern scholars to debate some  topics  and often   rejecting what I consider FAR better research , going down on many occasions based on the earlier researchers  badly flawed but widely accepted reports

While eye witness accounts from people living all their lives in an area are at times dismissed as unqualified , by  unknowns with untested evidence ,  that differs from the  official accepted accounts , , back to your original point , HOW do you know quality research , HOW  do you  know the research is researching quality material

How do you know the unofficial version may be far far more accurate even without the qualifications , in my experience its best to go back and test all the evidence from the ground up , very often mistakes are made in the first few steps and the end result is DOOMED to be flawed

Its a bit sad at times to see quality history over ruled by professional looking articles  , but all is not lost , the  historic "picture"  slowly emerge for those who seek and test and polish what we have , best never " swallow " anything even the very best researchers can be wrong , its no crime to be wrong or on the wrong path so to speak ,  unless its deliberate ,, there is always more yet to be revealed to even the best researched topics and the picture gets clearer all the time if ya keep looking , the more you can find

i always go right back to the very very very beginning and do my own research , and it takes years and years , sadly nobody will ever bother to repeat my efforts , and we are stuck with the official version for those who enjoy potted history

And there are;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain

Weird!

Edited by opuslola - 09-May-2010 at 19:02

DreamWeaver, you wrote;

"For example, my current research has lead me to study a text by the 13th Cebtury Lawyer Philip of Novara, his work on the War betweens the Ibelins and Frederick II on Cyprus and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Though Phillip was a noted partisan of the Ibelins and his work (an account of the events the civil war) often resembles a romantic tale at points in its hero worship of John of Ibelin, it is nevertheless a useful source that one must use. Even if events described as such in the source or conversations did not occur in the manner portrayed, the source itself still has value. The work itself intrinsically tells the reader something about the ideas and people who wrote it and read it."

NO! What you said above is a subjective opinion and not an objective one! You actually said "the source itself still has value." Why?

What if your source is not really a source, but just a figment of someone elses' imagination?

You see, you and others want it to be a "source!", this does not insure that it is actually one!

But, I am not at all familar with it, so you might well be correct! But, I would really look closely at anything and any person said to be connected to Frederick II?

I can suggest that anyone called a "Stupor-mundi" is playing with a problem, since any definition of "Stupor" leads one in an entirely different direction than we are now told!

A "dullard" might well be a better description of this person, if indeed he ever existed?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/stupor

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dullard

Again, it is but another example of the lack of "solid research!"

Regards,

Edited by opuslola - 14-May-2010 at 18:29

Are you infact a Post Modernist?


If so Im not going to bother discussing anything, it would be a waste of time.


Edited by DreamWeaver - 15-May-2010 at 11:06

Somebody who subscribes to post modernist theory.


I suggest you stay away from it if you arent.

Post Modernism is the bane of my existance, just as soon as I though it had been dealt with it rears its ugly head once more like some sort of historiographical hydra.