http://airminded.org/2008/06/20/the-madness-ends-here/ Airpower and British society, 1908-1941 Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:12:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.5 http://airminded.org/2008/06/20/the-madness-ends-here/#comment-77164 Brett Holman Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:16:00 +0000 http://airminded.org/?p=516#comment-77164 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 ... 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 …

]]> http://airminded.org/2008/06/20/the-madness-ends-here/#comment-77120 Dan Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:50:51 +0000 http://airminded.org/?p=516#comment-77120 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. 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.

]]>