Comments on: The madness ends here

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:31:44 +0000

Yes, that's the same process I went through: what are all these people talking about, surely it's Fuller not Russell! So I had to double check and make sure I wasn't the crazy one here.

By: Idle Historian

Idle Historian — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:20:09 +0000

I was just searching this to verify the quote (originally from my thesis as well) - which I also cited as Fuller. I was perplexed to see all the Bertrand Russell results pop up. The misattribution has clearly multipled and, I suppose, in the digital age will only continue to. Fortunately your website appeared in the search results, and I knew it would not guide me wrong!

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:16:00 +0000

Yes, I winced on your behalf when I read that bit! I agree about the echo -- the quotation this post is about is an example of that, even aside from the mistaken attribution. It's very widely quoted in secondary sources, and often is taken to stand for a great many primary sources. If you've only got room for a short discussion of the expected holocaust, that's fair enough, but there's plenty of diversity in the sources which it doesn't reflect. And many, many books only have room for a short discussion. Somebody should write a thesis about this stuff to set them all straight ...

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:50:51 +0000

I agree that Stansky's book is good, but I do think it raises traditional questions about the use of primary quotations from other published sources and what gets footnoted. With good reason - the sources are good - Stansky does make quite extensive use of quotations from other historians' work - including FitzGibbon's The Blitz and Mack and Humphries London at War. I don't have a problem with this - as you say, Stansky always makes it clear where these sources have come from, and I'm having to do the same sort of thing in my own writing at the moment. But I do think it's necessary to be hyper-aware of the historical echo effect in these circumstances - for example, in Stansky's claim (4) that until mid 1944 there were more British civilian than military deaths. The footnote here gives no source, but does note that the military total was ultimately much higher.