How do historians deal with inconsistencies?
score:9
Those inconsistencies are exactly when historiography becomes crucial to historical understanding. Disagreement between sources raises questions about the quality of the sources and those who reported them. The risk of not addressing these issues is that erroneous information can become accepted, and must then be recast in light of the qualities of the sources.
For example, in the late 1800s when the historian H. H. Bancroft was working on his monumental Histories of California and Alaska, he employed a Russian-speaking researcher and translator named Ivan Petrov. This fellow discovered a number of archival documents about the Russian-American Company that Bancroft cited. Years passed and many other authors cited Bancroft. Much later, historians discovered that Petrov was the author of several fraudulent documents. Bancroft's credulity allowed his work to be tainted by clever fictions, and caused generations of confusion. Now, the only responsible means of using or understanding Bancroft's text is to incorporate the story of Petrov's deceit. Rather than ignoring or denying or emphasizing it, we simply regard it as a key aspect of the works it affected.
Sorry I have no citations, as I am not well-read in historiography.
More post
- 📝 What is the explanation of president Gen. Yahya Khan's role in the general election of 1970?
- 📝 Mesopotamia laws 196, 197 and 198
- 📝 Why did Yamamoto reprimand Nagumo after Pearl Harbor?
- 📝 Did the Austrians win a "great victory" at Belgrade in 1738?
- 📝 Who kept noble prisoners captured in battle?
- 📝 How common was it for archaeologists in past eras to believe in giants?
- 📝 Why could George Washington and the revolutionaries not stop Governor Tryon in New York Harbor?
- 📝 Did people practice multiphasic sleep in the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Has a government ever been elected with the full 100% of the votes?
- 📝 Was PepsiCo really sixth largest military force?
- 📝 What is the significance behind "40 days" that often appears in the Bible?
- 📝 Resources on the History of African Civilization
- 📝 Did anyone ever escape Nazi Germany through KdF trips?
- 📝 How much did Shah Jahan spend on Taj Mahal?
- 📝 "Hat Hair" in History
- 📝 Was having one breadwinner in the family feasible in the early 1900s because of greater pay, lower cost of living, or both compared to today?
- 📝 Why didn't cheese spoil when it was given as rations to soldiers?
- 📝 How were knee injuries treated in Ancient Greece?
- 📝 Why did Rome adopt Greek culture?
- 📝 Disappearance and reappearance of helmets in European armies circa 1600 to 1900
- 📝 What is the origin of Americans sometimes refering to the Second World War "the Good War"?
- 📝 What is the Greek inscription on the Nicaea gate?
- 📝 Could someone who had joined a monastery decide to leave?
- 📝 Does the HMHS Britannic wreck still have a grand staircase or any staterooms?
- 📝 Has an armed gang ever taken a medieval city?
- 📝 What are the key Syriac pieces of literature?
- 📝 What would a 9th-century German count do if he wanted to spend some time with his wife?
- 📝 During the Indian removal were native Americans fed rotten food and taken through diseased areas?
- 📝 Are there any records of Vikings burning each others 'island of boats' out of desperation?
- 📝 WWI: British blockade of Germany (and neutrals)
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How do historians deal with Historical Bias?
- 📝 How do historians deal with inconsistencies?
- 📝 How did people deal with ice on the roads during the horse-and-buggy era?
- 📝 How did the way commanders ask their troops to deal with the immediate death of their comrades vary by country/culture during WWII?
- 📝 How did the Swedish army deal with prisoners of war in the Thirty Years War?
- 📝 How did China deal with the Black Death during the second plague pandemic?
- 📝 How did Nazi concentration camp staff deal with survivors of gassings?
- 📝 How did historical peoples deal with choking?
- 📝 How did early colonial Australia deal with its gender imbalance?
- 📝 How did Germany deal with the East German communist Government structure after unification?
- 📝 How do historians and linguists know how to pronounce the names from non-phonetic scripts?
- 📝 How did the ancient Romans count with their fingers?
- 📝 How to identify this coin with a bust on one side and the letters S and C on the other side?
- 📝 How do historians verify historical claims?
- 📝 How do historians know the details of a seemingly private event?
- 📝 How does one wash with sand?
- 📝 How could temporary surrender of self-government help Newfoundland with its debts?
- 📝 How did France worsen its relationship with Turkey?
- 📝 How did Azerbaijan come to be allied with Turkey and Israel?
- 📝 How much contact did Sub-Saharan Africa actually have with the rest of the world since the beginning of civilization?
- 📝 How accurate did medieval historians think histories to be?
- 📝 How did the Falasha make contact with Jews outside Ethiopia?
- 📝 During the U.S. Prohibition, how did they get away with drinking alcohol?
- 📝 How was Christian intermarriage with the Muslim Turks viewed by the Byzantines?
- 📝 Was there any way to deal with infections in pre-modern times?
- 📝 How did the US "Greek" fraternity system at universities arise and what is its relationship with ancient Greece?
- 📝 How did lower classes with aspirations to high social standing greet each other in the Paris of the 1630's?
- 📝 How do historians treat gossip?
- 📝 How did agricultural productivity change in Italy with the fall of the Roman Empire and through the early Middle Ages?
- 📝 How close would a peasant from middle ages England ever come to interacting with the king?