On 3/17/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
That's only true for unpublished primary sources, though. Plenty of primary sources (e.g. memoirs, diaries, etc.) are quite easily verifiable, if not always reliable.
They're reliable if they're being treated as a primary source (Eg, Lord Kent wrote on the 14th of March 1932 that the Germans would invade the next day). Treated as a secondary source (Germany invaded England on the 15th of March 1932 [1]), they are unreliable.
Steve
[1] Lord Kent's diary, 14th of March 1932
Which is only part of the picture, of course. Certain primary sources are quite reliable (or as reliable as anything else we have, anyway) -- for example, Guicciardini's History of Italy is a primary source, but is generally considered to be a highly reliable one.
In any case, all sources should be cited; we can then examine their reliability on a case-by-case basis.
Kirill Lokshin