[ SECRET POST #2225 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2225 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 084 secrets from Secret Submission Post #318.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - take it to comments ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

06. http://i45.tinypic.com/2ypfzbs.jpg

[chardmonster]

What you find after studying history for long enough (and by studying I mean actually reading books written by historians for those studying history, not sitting down and watching the history channel and reading books without footnotes) is that all ideas become antiquated somehow. All of them. Especially about sexuality.

[(Anonymous)]

You can get that impression from books without footnotes. Just has to be the right book. (And endnotes work perfectly fine as well.)

[chardmonster]

Oh, hell. Footnotes and endnotes are interchangable. That's not what I was talking about.

The problem is a lot of not-very-good history books get released. The kind that are playing up a certain agenda, a certain image of the past that might not be at all accurate. Books with footnotes/endnotes imply that the author actually had to look at primary sources and is willing to have other experts check their work.

A good example is one of Stephen Ambrose's later books, which you can read about here.

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

Stephen Ambrose had a hell of a reputation. If an actual trained historian with decades of experience is so sloppy when not held to a high standard, what are you going to get from a nonhistorian?

Of course there are excellent books written without footnotes. Barbara Erenreich, who was a historian before the whole Nickle and Dimed thing, released a political history without footnotes so as not to alienate readers. She did however put all her references in the back of the books listed by page number--basically she snuck her sources in. Other histories without references can also be good. But if the writer isn't working with primary source material be really careful. Read reviews by actual experts in the field. Know that popular history is often blatant propaganda with a tweed jacket on. There's nothing wrong with liking it but always check up on it.

OT

[(Anonymous)]

+1 on finding rigorously-written histories. David McCullough is one of the only popular historians I've seen who does this consistently and well.

But Stephen Ambrose! I love him. I used a sizable amount of his (earlier) work in my thesis, and subsequently had to defend my choice to cite a discredited historian's work (sigh).

Re: OT

[chardmonster]

Oh yeah, it's annoying as heck. I'm not sure what happened to him. : /

How'd you defend yourself? Was it Citizen Soldiers?

[(Anonymous)]

Never heard of these books... but China Mieville and Tanith Lee like them? Theosophy and Aztec mythology? Nice. I think I'll track them down.

Thanks for the rec, OP.

[(Anonymous)]

They're somewhat hard to find--I used the venerable Bookfinder.com to track my copies down--but worth the search. At the very least, nothing else in the fantasy genre is quite like them. Also, the Theosophy references are subtle, but if you know the particulars of the religion, you'll recognize them in the narrative.

[(Anonymous)]

I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for the Atlan series--they were some of the first SF books I ever read.

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't read these books yet, but the Obsidian and Blood trilogy, by Aliette de Bodard, is a fantasy/mystery trilogy about an Aztec high priest.