Finding Truth in History

2.14.2011

Assignment #4
To search for truth in history means to put in a lot of work. One would need to go through piles of books and scholarly reviews, researching to find contradictions and different opinions. Then one must start analyzing the sources of these opinions and only then can they begin to decide what is truthful and what is not. In this assignment, we were supposed to look at scholarly reviews of two very important books in the modern understanding of the “Black Death.” In this process, I began by going onto the University of Minnesota website and going into the library page. I ended up on a site titled “Book Review Index Online Plus.” I entered the titles of each of the books, and began to read the short reviews of each book. I looked for reviews that explained both the essential facts the author mentioned as well as ones that explained the author’s main points.
I rejected most book reviews that failed to give me a grasp of either the book or the main arguments of the book. Furthermore, I rejected all articles that did not give me an understanding of what the author was trying to use to back up their claims. Being selective in how I chose my reviews allowed me to gather the most relevant information and to focus on the main issues that existed between the two books. It also gave me the luxury of seeing the more important differences that existed between two books that take opposite approaches to opposite arguments about the same topic.
The reviews that I used for Cohn’s book were:
Sharon T. Strocchia’s review in the 2004 Journal of Social History
Daniel Mallecks’s review in the 2003 History: Reviews of New Books
The reviews that I used for Benedictow’s book were:
Mary Lindermann’s review in the Summer 2006 edition of Renaissance Quarterly
Cohn’s review in the 2005 N Engl J Med
The most interesting of all these reviews, for obvious reasons, is Cohn’s review on Benedictow’s book. It is here that we find the major differences...