How can we evaluate a country's historians for independence?
Upvote:7
Caveat: I'm not a trained Historian, just someone who's read a lot of history books over the years, and has learned this the hard way.
First off, every writer has bias. Know that going in.
So if you want to find your writer's bias, you have to learn a bit about them. Where did they grow up and go to school? Are they from an ethnic minority in their country, or from the dominant group? Did they grow up benefiting from the power structure, or oppressed by it? Are they active politically (and thus liable to be pushing an agenda for their own benefit)?
Next you have to learn a bit about the country (major chicken-and-egg problem here!). If you know a bit about what's going on politically in a country, you know what people there want to believe, and what is uncomfortable for them.
Armed with all this, there's one good rule of thumb: there's roughly an inverse relationship between how uncomfortable information is for the writer and his presumed audience, and how much you can trust it. I'm not saying you can't trust any positive statements a person makes about their own culture. But if its exclusively positive, and/or exclusively negative about some culture that isn't their own, your mental shields should go up.
To take an extreme example from perhaps your own history: I'm not an expert on SE Asian history. But if I see a Khmer writer (particularly an avowed Communist or Socialist) who insists the Killing Fields have been way overblown, I'm going to be more than a little bit skeptical. Its likely to be both in his own interests, and something he'd personally prefer to have been true (regardless of the facts).
On the other hand, if the same thing is said by an expatriate historian of ethnic Chinese Cambodian or devout Cambodian Buddhist descent, and his work isn't chiefly known due to promotion from folks in the group in my previous paragraph, I'd be a bit less guarded.
(Pro tip: this works for yourself too. Be extra careful about stuff you want to believe)
More post
- 📝 Who first precisely measured the length of the year?
- 📝 In the late 1800s how did American Indians portray resiliency in the in the midst of oppression?
- 📝 Why did Yamamoto reprimand Nagumo after Pearl Harbor?
- 📝 Percentage of the draft pool that were conscripted during WW2 and Vietnam
- 📝 Why is communism hated by some ppl?
- 📝 Where can I find detailed accounts of cash-less payment in medevial and ancient times?
- 📝 Was there a battle were Russians forces rallied around a religious icon to achieve victory?
- 📝 Was there the idea of "peaceful Crusades"?
- 📝 How common was the German desire for revenge for the humiliation of 1918 armistice?
- 📝 What was the status of Arab Christians during the crusades?
- 📝 At which point in time did the majority of German population become aware of the Holocaust?
- 📝 What is the basis of Russian criticism of Antony Beevor's work?
- 📝 What uniform is Alexander Duncan McLennan wearing?
- 📝 Are there archaeological sites of Drusus‘ campaign 9 BC?
- 📝 Did the local population in North Africa resent the presence of the Germans during the Second World War?
- 📝 What kind of object is pictured in these two Roman fresco wall paintings?
- 📝 How did Europeans really conquer the Americas?
- 📝 Who were the Huns and/or Xiongnu?
- 📝 How can I properly learn the history of a country whose language I don't speak or read?
- 📝 Can Bill Clinton run for president of France?
- 📝 How did commoner children address commoner adults in the middle ages?
- 📝 Did Poland help Germany take Czechoslavakia before Germany invaded Poland?
- 📝 Why did so many Saxons emigrate to England?
- 📝 What damage did anti-tank rifles hope to inflict on tanks in WW2?
- 📝 Short or long Roman numerals?
- 📝 Is there a standard authority on the textual history of the authors of antiquity?
- 📝 Where did the Gabare Jahangiri Dynasty assert authority?
- 📝 Can you tell me if my Father, a Lt Colonel, was paid during WW2?
- 📝 What is the historical name(s) for area between Syria and Mesopotamia?
- 📝 Why the European Union choose to use a Nazi flag?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How can we evaluate a country's historians for independence?
- 📝 How can I evaluate the relative fiscal burden on different groups in the US, for various periods between 1790 and 1846?
- 📝 How do modern historians evaluate Sherman's "Total War"?
- 📝 How can Germany be blamed for World War 1?
- 📝 Is History a subject where certain knowledge is accepted by all historians or can any event be a source for debate?
- 📝 How common is nostalgia for the colonial perod in countries which gained independence in the 20th century?
- 📝 How can I check/get a BCE calendar for a particular year?
- 📝 How do historians and linguists know how to pronounce the names from non-phonetic scripts?
- 📝 How did German unification affect existing sentences for criminal convicts?
- 📝 How did Nazi Germany produce such an impressive portfolio of officers for WW2?
- 📝 How did medieval manors handle population growth? Was there room for more fields to be ploughed?
- 📝 How was titanium transported from Soviet Union to Area 51 for Oxcart?
- 📝 How long did it take for a diplomat to travel between Berlin and Vienna in the 1770's?
- 📝 How come every culture on the planet has a different calendar, yet follow the same system for a week?
- 📝 How do historians verify historical claims?
- 📝 How do historians know the details of a seemingly private event?
- 📝 How did ancient empires account for slow propagation of information e.g. in their legal codes?
- 📝 What historical reasons did the Nazis give for hating the Jews? How did they identify non-practicing Jews?
- 📝 Can Bill Clinton run for president of France?
- 📝 How can prices be compared over time?
- 📝 How long did it take for a letter to arrive in England in the 1830s?
- 📝 How well can cavalry fight infantry?
- 📝 In the first half of 20th century, how was gold inspected for authenticity?
- 📝 Can it be justified that an economic contraction of 11.3% is "the largest fall for more than 300 years"?
- 📝 When and how did the West lose its dependency on the USSR for Titanium?
- 📝 How profitable was India for the British Empire in the 1800s?
- 📝 How were taxes collected for traveling merchants in the middle ages?
- 📝 What are the main reasons historians give for the Soviet Union's collapse?
- 📝 How common was it for people to live 80+ years in the 17th century?
- 📝 How common was it for un-documented ships to bring settlers to the American colonies 1700-1750