From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods

by Martha C. Howell, Walter Prevenier

Among the books designed to teach aspiring historians proper procedures for their work, this volume ranks high....Readers will especially appreciate the care taken to show the link between methodological innovations and the historical contexts in which they occurred. ― Choice From Reliable Sources is a lively introduction to historical methodology, an overview of the techniques historians must master in order to reconstruct the past. Its focus on the basics of source criticism, rather than on how to find references or on the process of writing, makes it an invaluable guide for all students of history and for anyone who must extract meaning from written and unwritten sources. Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier explore the methods employed by historians to establish the reliability of materials; how they choose, authenticate, decode, compare, and, finally, interpret those sources. Illustrating their discussion with examples from the distant past as well as more contemporary events, they pay particular attention to recent information media, such as television, film, and videotape. The authors do not subscribe to the positivist belief that the historian can attain objective and total knowledge of the past. Instead, they argue that each generation of historians develops its own perspective, and that our understanding of the past is constantly reshaped by the historian and the world he or she inhabits. A substantially revised and updated edition of Prevenier's Uit goede bron , originally published in Belgium and now in its seventh edition, From Reliable Sources also provides a survey of western historiography and an extensive research bibliography.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Reference, Writing, School, Theory, World History

224 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

Reviews

[Book Worm · Rating 1 out of 5]

Is there is anything worse to read than the work of a pompous academic?
Absolutely....the work of two pompous academics.

In "From Reliable Sources" by Howell and Prevenier, we get a double-barreled dose of the ramblings of two authors who confuse and dissuade rather than educate and edify.

These authors are more focused on demonstrating their knowledge of a broad swath of topics than they are on teaching by making focused, concrete points on historiography and historical method. As a result, they get lost in their words, and the reader is left wondering, "Huh? What the hell did they just say?"

Good writing is disciplined, focused, and well constructed.

This book is undisciplined, poorly organized, rambling, unfocused, verbose, repetitive, circuitous, and unclear.

Examples:
---Sentences run on and cover too much ground for the reader to comprehend without numerous re-readings.
---Terms introduced without being defined.
---Works referenced and cited without context and without being introduced.
---Topic sentences: Are well-accepted as a stratagem for guiding a reader. Howell and Prevenier apparently never mastered that skill in their English Composition 101 course. Their paragraphs begin and end arbitrarily and rarely is the point of the paragraph clear.
---The text is laden with typographical errors that confuse and distract.

This book is in sore need of an editor. It's 150 pages long. Properly edited, it would reduce to about 90.

[Stacy Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this is a good introduction, it doesn't really go beyond that.

[Gentry Sneed · Rating 2 out of 5]

Feels like my professor asked me to read ‘History for Dummies’. There were some good points but I was overall bored.

[Allie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading these reviews made me sad lowkey. I thought there was a lot of value in this book even tho I got bored sometimes bc that’s just the nature of intro level material. I hope the authors don’t read them and get sad

[Liz De Coster · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a tough one. On the whole it was a good introduction to research methods for history, but while the overall approach seemed geared towards aspiring history majors, some of the examples they used didn't seem likely to inspire students at that point in their career. It may be that the book is 15 years old and popular history topics have changed since then; it may be the authors are pulling from their own experiences; I may be underestimating the author's intended audience. There were one or two chunks in the "historical interpretation" and "historical knowledge" section I might pull for use with a class, but I wouldn't assign the whole thing.

[John Beeler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Helpful, but incredibly boring.

[Frederick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful source of information and a great way to start your study of history. This was required reading in my first history class in grad school but I wanted to re-read it to refresh some of the things it taught me. I recommend for this for any student of history, any serious student. It will open up your eyes.

[Lorilie B · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not gonna say the book wasn’t useful or helpful, it was. However, reading through it is an incredibly arduous task. The book has good points on basic historiography and analyzing and examining sources, but it’s so dense. The repetitive nature of the writing also makes it hard to focus. Better to skim than to read in-depth.

[Matt Ely · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good primer on the many questions you need to answer in beginning historical projects. It won't provide answers for exactly how to do it, but it will let you know some of the roots of the debates in the fields and what sort of objections you might find to your work. The references are a product of its time, but, as we learn, so are all historical documents.

[Aisha Manus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry as heck. Also sometimes the explanation or definition didn't actually explain or it used a nonsensical statement. I wouldn't recommend.

[Allen Erni]

I want to read this

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book described the interesting history of the discipline history, but many of the discussions of sources felt outdated.

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

yeah whatever it was fine

[Brandy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was assigned reading for my Research graduate course. It was dual, 20 years out of date and boring. I am fully aware textbooks are often uninteresting, this one was exceptionally boring.

[W.E. Linde · Rating 3 out of 5]

I see two very different sides to this book. On one side, where the authors described the nuts and bolts of history and historiography, the book is exceptional. Authors Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier are clearly exceptional scholars and instructors. The relatively dry subject of how historians go about their work is made readable, understandable, and often enjoyable.

I felt, however, that Professors Howell and Prevenier broke down when attempting to cast these fundamentals onto a larger canvas. What I mean by this is that their illustrations came across as often unclear in some cases, or weak in others. This was particularly so in Chapter 5, The Nature of Historical Knowledge. Perhaps it is because the book is intended as a primer for those just entering the field, but I was left unsatisfied by their discussions on Causation and Causal factors. There was plenty of solid scholarly writing in this chapter too, but I found that by the time I finished the book I had the sense that the illustrations within were incomplete.

Overall, I learned quite a bit, and would recommend to others interested in historiography.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is definitely an important source book for history students, because it not only offers insight into source criticism and comparison but gives the historiography of, well, historiography. I only give it three stars, however, because it gets lost in itself. The text presupposes a level of literacy and writing ability such that anyone able to read it on that level can deduce the main points without the excessive, tangental examples. The last two chapters, or 62 pages, were summarized nicely in the last 7 pages of the final chapter, and really that was all that needed to be included. Even the first three chapters, more about the "hands on" part of writing history, could have been more tightly written and presented.

All in all, even at a graduate level (I read this for undergraduate, pre-senior thesis) this book would be a bit much, a bit too specialized - and in some ways too archaic. I will be sticking with the simpler but much more educational Writing History: A Guide for Students by William Kelleher Storey.

[JD Waggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is basically a textbook introduction to the history of the study of history, what it means to study history these days (well, a decade ago, when this was published), and what that means to those interested in the discipline. It tries to cover it from all historical angles, but you can tell the authors are medievalists (which is fine by me!). It's very good for historiography and an overview of theory, but it's very dense/dull sometimes and can seem a but disconnected. Also, I have no idea what's going on with their choice of pronouns that don't have an antecedent; a whole preponderance of "she"s going on, which I'm not used to in abstract examples.
The bibliographies in the back are really great and handy, though, so I would love to give this a three and a half stars for sheer usefulness, but it gets demoted to three stars for erudite pompousness.

[Al Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

At only 150 pages this book is easily accessible by Historian and amateur alike. Howell and Prevenier have organized a concise but excellent guide to finding, examining and critiquing sources both document and relic for historical inquiry.

Sadly, in the age of the Internet and "Wiki-geniuses" source critique has been reduced in the public sphere and many journalists, commentators, and even some "experts" will cite resources that are far from reliable.

Understanding the process is key to evaluation and interpretation. The methodologies presented in Reliable Sources are not constricting and don't require a Rankean level of exclusion and filtration, however, the process guidelines will help provide with more accurate results and an end product that is in itself a "Reliable Source."

[Tommy /|\ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall, the material presented in the book is quite excellent. One particularly good section was that on modern storage techniques for information and data. However. Every point is backed up with examples - multiple examples. For each and every point. In some areas, these points are repeated again, where techniques and concepts overlap from previous areas and perspectives. This made the text feel VERY repetitive. Almost to the point of being unreadable. The book could certainly have utilized a more frugal editing prior to publication.

[Isaac · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read the first 42 pages. Some useful observations, lots of ramblings. As a novice in this area, I'm not in a good position to critique, but at least it introduced me to some of necessary concepts for being a good historian. Could do with a clearer logical structure and writing that was interesting and engaging.

[Matt Friedman]

A good introduction to historiography, with a good overview of the discipline and whatt I felt was a fairly balanced conclusion rooted in critical realism (though the authors don't use that word in the text).

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

what you already knew about historical methods, consolidated into book form. filled with delightful examples, and a strong 'history of the discipline' section.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not necessarily for the Grad level student, but a good introduction for new comers.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly interesting, as such books go.

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like this would be a much better survey text in an upper level undergrad methods course or an intro grad historiography class than the typically assigned That Noble Dream.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for a class on social studies methods. I finished it a long time ago, so I can't really remember the details, but I'd give it a solid, "It was okay."