This is a question I've been thinking about since you asked it, and I'm hoping some of my other friends can weigh in, because it seems to me there's a bootstrapping problem: it's hard to evaluate the reliability of a source unless you have some background against to evaluate it against, and how do you get the background if you don't have an idea of how reliable a source something is? I have met people who spout off on subjects that they clearly have learned about from a couple of unrepresentative books--Second World War buffs are some of the prime offenders, here--who have decided the two books they've read are the final word on the subject and Won't Shut Up.
*ahem* Sorry, pet peeve.
Anyway, yes, this is a very good question and worth asking because everyone who writes has an opinion, and that opinion is conveyed in their writing.
I would also echo bedfull_o_books comment above. History is stories. (I just looked in Wikipedia, that unimpeachable source, while we're discussing sources, and they say this: "The word entered the English language in 1390 with the meaning of "relation of incidents, story". In Middle English, the meaning was "story" in general. The restriction to the meaning "record of past events" arises in the late 15th century. In German, French, and most Germanic and Romance languages, the same word is still used to mean both "history" and "story". "
I end up approaching finance that way too --"Look at the things people have gotten up to now! How wacky! What a story!"--which is why I have gotten so wrapped up in it. (At some point I should write a post about why exactly I got so sucked into finance.)
I think it's a sad commentary on the teaching of history that people learn to think of it as an annoying list of facts, figures, and dates memorized out of context.
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Date: 2010-02-15 06:53 pm (UTC)*ahem* Sorry, pet peeve.
Anyway, yes, this is a very good question and worth asking because everyone who writes has an opinion, and that opinion is conveyed in their writing.
I would also echo
I end up approaching finance that way too --"Look at the things people have gotten up to now! How wacky! What a story!"--which is why I have gotten so wrapped up in it. (At some point I should write a post about why exactly I got so sucked into finance.)
I think it's a sad commentary on the teaching of history that people learn to think of it as an annoying list of facts, figures, and dates memorized out of context.