Take a Look Here …

… at this post by Andy Hall at Dead Confederates.  It’s a really interesting exercise on how one weighs evidence as one struggles to construct a narrative that tells us what happened.

In recent years memory studies, which rest on some of the same principles as the practice of deconstruction in literary studies, look at various accounts and determined what shaped those accounts.  These studies have been very valuable, yet I still say the hardest thing for a historian to do is to find out what happened in the first place.  That some people misunderstand what good historians do by claiming that it’s all a matter of pick and choose according to some predetermined agenda or ideology say this in part as a way to evade the real spadework of scholarship.

Take a look at Andy’s post and see what you make of the two accounts he presents.

The Sunday Question: Why Read, Why Comment?

There’s a good deal out there about why bloggers blog, and bloggers, as is their wont, comment on why they blog (or don’t blog).  However, it is safe to say that one reason bloggers continue to blog is because people read the blog and respond to the blog, often in the comments section (there’s a secondary comment area that’s not readily apparent because it does not take place in the comments section, but suffice it to say that I’ve seen extensive discussions about blogs and blog posts on various discussion groups; sometimes those discussions even give rise to blog posts because the blogger is able to identify an audience he/she knows will respond).