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Originally Posted by Von Poop
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.
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 Ian 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.
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If Hastings and d'Este did, why have their findings been so seriously questioned over the last decade? 'Flavour'? Perhaps but I wouldn't give them too much prominence. I prefer attempts at scholarship which I've found singularly lacking in tv 'documentary', particularly since the gleichschaltung of the BBC. On the whole the people who were there and don't talk about it seem to me to be the most eloquent.
'Simplistic'? Don't assumptions tend to be? Isn't this a matter in which you are not without sin? The first thing I do with history texts is look at the bibliography.