Quote:
Originally Posted by Squeeth
Appreciations, signal logs, tramping the ground? Surely less prone to being used to derive 'lessons'? Don't you agree that dissembling is a characteristic which bureaucracies foster?
|
But Hastings & D'estes (and hopefully any serious Historian) used all of the above, it's very simplistic to assume they didn't. Interviews with personalities can then give hugely more 'flavour' to a book, often lifting it out of the realms of a purely technical publication. (A type I willingly spend far too much time with... dropping off to sleep every 5 pages!).
Imagine the World at War TV series without all those often contradictory talking heads, it'd be no different to any of the recent boring ww2 'This happened then' type documentaries. I'm waiting for the new Richard Holmes book containing the full transcripts of interviews from the series (most of which, only a fraction was screened) and will be very surprised if it isn't enlightening regarding all important personal points of views and politics.
(sorry, cross-posted with above 2 posts)