Books Today vs Yesterday

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: sterckxe
The biggest change has been the 'Net - if I want to investigate the Battle of Breitenfeld today it would take me less than an hour to dig up all the relevant books and websites containing a wealth of info. Back in the eighties we had unreadable Schiller. I rest my case.

But the easy access to data on the net also creates a new reality that we’ve not seen before. In the past usually it was only the extreme detail oriented scholars that had the energy and knowhow to spend years digging deep into the archival material to put together an in depth book on their topic of interest.

These days a lot of the publications made are half assed works when compared to the time, care and love that went into older works on similar subjects in the past. Unfortunately this new reality is probably here to stay, since the scholarly community that would review and judge someone’s work in the past is no longer such an extremely detailed group of individuals.

The information age has opened up knowledge to the masses, and unfortunately most of them are lazy when it comes to getting the minutiae right. So sure knowledge is more accessible, and getting the history right is probably much easier these days. But the down side is the professionalism level of those who write the histories has suffered dramatically, as has any form of print professionals these days.

Jim

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
But the down side is the professionalism level of those who write the histories has suffered dramatically, as has any form of print professionals these days.

<edited a typo - we wouldn't want that in a debate about accuracy now, would we >

I don't see it - I really don't. Many “definitive books” on WW2, written in the fifties and sixties, are full of factual errors and omissions and it’s only in the current millennium that people like Carlo D’Este, Rick Atkinson, Max Hastings, Anthony Tully and many others have written deeply researched works that truely can be called definitive.

To give you just one wargame related example of the type of material that was available back then : exactly 50 years ago Avalon Hill published their D-Day game. Only after it got published it became apparant there was an entire US division missing in the OOB. This because the single book they had available as background material had somehow forgotten to list it.

I still remember how hard it was to get your hands on *any* books about an obscure subject in the eighties so you cherrished them and as they were often your single source of information they became "the bible" on that subject and that's where I think this "things used to be better in the olden days" idea comes from. My memory of how things *really* used to be is just too good to succomb to that notion.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[ilovestrategy]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: sterckxe
The biggest change has been the 'Net - if I want to investigate the Battle of Breitenfeld today it would take me less than an hour to dig up all the relevant books and websites containing a wealth of info. Back in the eighties we had unreadable Schiller. I rest my case.

But the easy access to data on the net also creates a new reality that we’ve not seen before. In the past usually it was only the extreme detail oriented scholars that had the energy and knowhow to spend years digging deep into the archival material to put together an in depth book on their topic of interest.

These days a lot of the publications made are half assed works when compared to the time, care and love that went into older works on similar subjects in the past. Unfortunately this new reality is probably here to stay, since the scholarly community that would review and judge someone’s work in the past is no longer such an extremely detailed group of individuals.

The information age has opened up knowledge to the masses, and unfortunately most of them are lazy when it comes to getting the minutiae right. So sure knowledge is more accessible, and getting the history right is probably much easier these days. But the down side is the professionalism level of those who write the histories has suffered dramatically, as has any form of print professionals these days.

Jim

I cannot agree with this. Books today are no worst or better than yesterday, just different. Maybe they were more detailed, but they were also a lot more dry and boring to read unless you were a scholar.

A good example is my collection of books on Alexander, Xenophon and the Barbarians of Middle Asia that were published all in the 1920s. Very detailed, yes but VERY dry material. Only an ancient history freak like me enjoys them.

The format today is much better IMHO. Books have illustrations and maps. The History Channel had a show(before they stopped doing history) called Batttle 360 that had CGI showing the adventures of the Big "E". I felt like I was in a dive bomber at Midway while watching it.

I stand by my statement. Books today are not better or worst. Just different.

[caaraa]

Factual errors are a completely different story. Like you, I can deal with the grammar but factual errors make me want to throw whatever I'm reading in the trash.

[Perturabo]

There's also a questions of countries opening up their secret archives and writers from some countries finally being allowed to write truth instead of propaganda.

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: Perturabo
There's also a questions of countries opening up their secret archives and writers from some countries finally being allowed to write truth instead of propaganda.

Wasn't there a story in the news recently about Putin "asking" Russian researchers to not dwell too much on the black pages of Russian history ?

The best security remains a Kafkaian approach to archiving : make it so bureaucratic, convoluted and complex that people run around all day without getting anywhere. Been there, done that. For details : ask Viktor Reijkersz from Advanced Tactics fame what he thinks about the Belgian Army archives

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[hbrsvl]

warspite 1.-Wow, you really stirred things up-I love it!

After reading all the replies, 99% of which I agree with, I'd like to remind everyone of an old adage: "Don't believe everything you read in"... newspapers, books and now text messages, etc.

One comment about Morison. I believe he did make some corrections in his later volumns-not many, but some.

An example of what drives me(as well as others) to dispair is in the text of Alan D. Zimm's "Attack on Pearl Harbor", pg.255 He refers to "Halsey's 5th Fleet" Does the author not know or is it just an editing mistake, or what?

Thanks to all, Hugh Browne

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: hbrsvl

warspite 1.-Wow, you really stirred things up-I love it!

After reading all the replies, 99% of which I agree with, I'd like to remind everyone of an old adage: "Don't believe everything you read in"... newspapers, books and now text messages, etc.

One comment about Morison. I believe he did make some corrections in his later volumns-not many, but some.

An example of what drives me(as well as others) to dispair is in the text of Alan D. Zimm's "Attack on Pearl Harbor", pg.255 He refers to "Halsey's 5th Fleet" Does the author not know or is it just an editing mistake, or what?

Thanks to all, Hugh Browne

Warspite1

Certainly no intention on my part to start a fight - it was a genuine question, brought on by my increasing frustration at rarely being able to buy a book without there being obvious, glaring errors of a factual nature. I did a review for Amazon fairly recently on "Destroyer Down", the book having really hacked me off for its multitude number of issues - and that was just in the first couple of chapters.

[pelle75]

ORIGINAL: ilovestrategy

I major in ancient history. For me, the most detailed accounts for ancient history like Alexander and Xenophon are books written in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Seems like only wargamers are interested in numbers and exact order of battles these days, the historians these days are mostly concerned with "soft" information (not data)? At least that is the impression I get (as a non-historian).