I'd like to echo this. Wikipedia can be a useful source--but since the authors are mostly anonymous, no one takes any public responsibility for what they write. There is a direct connection between accountability and quality (something that is true for the administration of government and business as well).
All best,
Kevin
---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:08:43 -0400
>From: "Stephan A. Schwartz" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Presentism - fact or fiction
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>As a general rule I would suggest that scholars not use Wikipedia as
>a reference. It can be appallingly inaccurate, particularly on any
>subject around which there is controversy.
>
>-- Stephan
>
>
>
>Stephan A. Schwartz
>Email:
>[log in to unmask]
>Personal Website:
>www.stephanaschwartz.com
>Schwartzreport:
>www.schwartzreport.net
>Explore - Schwartzreport Column:
> www.explorejournal.com
>
>
>
>
>
>On 22 Oct 2008, at 09:55, John Philip Adams wrote:
>
>> Presentism (literary and historical analysis) From Wikipedia, the free
>> encyclopedia
>> Jump to: navigation, search
>>
>> Presentism is a mode of historical analysis in which present-day
>> ideas and
>> perspectives are anachronistically introduced into depictions or
>> interpretations of the past. Some modern historians seek to avoid
>> presentism
>> in their work because they believe it creates a distorted
>> understanding of
>> their subject matter.
>>
>> The Oxford English Dictionary gives the first citation for
>> presentism in its
>> historiographical sense from 1916, and the word may have been in
>> use in this
>> meaning as early as the 1870s. Historian David Hackett Fischer
>> identifies
>> presentism as a logical fallacy also known as the "fallacy of nunc pro
>> tunc". He has written that the "classic example" of presentism was the
>> so-called "Whig history", in which certain eighteenth- and
>> nineteenth-century British historians wrote history in a way that
>> used the
>> past to validate their own political beliefs. This interpretation was
>> presentist because it did not depict the past in objective historical
>> context, but instead viewed history only through the lens of
>> contemporary
>> Whig beliefs. In this kind of approach, which emphasizes the
>> relevance of
>> history to the present, things which do not seem relevant receive
>> little
>> attention, resulting in a misleading portrayal of the past. "Whig
>> history"
>> or "whiggishness" are often used as synonyms for presentism,
>> particularly
>> when the historical depiction in question is teleological or
>> triumphalist.
>>
>> Have any of you teachers thought about going back to colleges and
>> universities and getting some more degrees in education?
>> John Philip Adams
>> Texas
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Anne Pemberton
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 7:41 AM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: History as TRUTH
>>
>> James,
>>
>> Not sure if it is mentioned in 1491, but in the earlier book, "The
>> Invasion
>> of America" by Francis Jennings, it is mentioned that archeologists
>> have
>> found evidence that the Chinese visited the west coast of South and
>> perhaps
>> Central America. There are suggestions that they ventured as far
>> north as
>> San Francisco.
>>
>> Columbus was a map-maker who wanted to get very rich by discovering
>> the
>> shortest route to the Spice Islands for whatever country would
>> finance his
>> adventure.
>>
>> Bear in mind that those who were going west to fish the various
>> banks of
>> North America were taking on the same perils in just as small, or
>> smaller,
>> or craft than Columbus did. It's a matter of whether one is a
>> seafaring man
>> or not.
>>
>> If Columbus was such a "worthy man of his times" why was his
>> governorship of
>> an island withdrawn for unsavory practices with the Natives?
>>
>> It not a matter of presentism, its a matter of debunking childhood
>> myths.
>>
>> Anne
>>
>> Anne Pemberton
>> [log in to unmask]
>> http://www.erols.com/apembert
>> http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
>>
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>
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Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Department of History
James Madison University
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