Archival Quality Communication
AQQ for Today, for Tomorrow, and for ever . . . .
History is not based on facts. A fact is something that is produced by historical research, not something the historian finds ready-made. Jacques Barzun, one of the great minds of the past century recognized this when he wrote:
"Nothing flatter than a fact, a lonely, unbefriended fact, rising out of a warehouse mind."
Jacques Barzun, God's Country and Mine: A Declaration of Love Spiced with a Few Harsh Words. (1954; New York: Vintage, 1959), p. 148.
This is an Archival Quality Communication
The Title Page in History
Archival Quality Communication
AQC for Today, for Tomorrow, and for ever . . . .
AQC for Today, for Tomorrow, and for ever . . . .
The title page of a book, almost without exception, is the single most important page in the book. If you found a loose page from a book blowing in the wind and picked it up, you might, if you could read the language written or printed upon it, find it exceedingly interesting. In fact the first thing you would want to know is where it came from. By that I mean you would not want to know what window it blew out of, but who the author was, and the title of the book of which it was a part. The title page is the seal of authenticity of a book. It states not only the title of the book, but usually the author (or at least a name he chooses to go by), and when and where it was published. There are books without title pages, but first and foremost they are a problem to be solved, not a source for answering other questions. In olden days title pages nearly always included the date, often in Roman numerals; most of our contemporary books place the publication date on the reverse of the title page, and for this reason the verso may be considered an extension of the title page.
The ideal title page states not only the title of the book, but usually also the author, an important consideration. Often this is more important than the title, since titles by different authors may be identical, but only rarely does an author write two different books under the same title. Other information often includes the publisher, place of publication, and the date. The title page may include a short listing of the other writings and accomplishments of the author. It will usually tell you which volume of a multivolume work it is. There may be an indication of the status, profession, or position of the author, or his affiliation with some society. (e. g., Dr., Prof., Gen., M. D., Ph.D.)
There may also be other additions to the title page. There may be an epigraph, that is, a short quotation from some other work of literature. Epigraphs sometimes give a clue to the author’s intention in writing the work. It may provide a clue to his learning; for example it may be poetry, perhaps in Latin or Greek. Sometimes there are engravings, or decorative art work. Opposite the title page there may be a frontispiece, which fairly often is of the author, or some person he is writing about. Other images may include maps, pictures of towns, buildings, battles, and so on. All of these can be clues telling us more about the subject of the book; but also the author’s interest, and how he approaches the subject. An history with a frontispiece of King George will almost invariably have a different point of view than one with President George. Sometimes the significance of the artwork is not apparent, but is must have meant something to someone, and it may be important to find out what.
The difference between title pages of different editions of the same work can be very instructive. Unless it is a photographic reprint, only rarely will title pages be identical. Sometimes, finding that the book he expected to be obscure, the book that he hesitated even to put his name on, has suddenly become popular, an author will put his name (or even his real name) on a book that was anonymous in the first edition. Sometimes the title itself will change; there are many reasons for this. The new title page often has a new date, and we want to know it; it is certainly an indication of continued or renewed interest in the book.
This is an Archival Quality Communication,
James Duvall, M. A.
The original essay was written 10 July 2007
Knowledge Work = Question and Answer
Archival Quality Communication
AQC for Today, for Tomorrow, and for ever . . . .
A body of knowledge, both the activity of knowing and what is known, consists of answers (i.e., assertive acts of thought) together with the questions they are meant to answer. R. G. Collingwood, the most important philosopher of the past century, writes:
This is the logic of the historian: the Logic of Question and Answer. On this subject there will be more Archival Quality Communication.
James Duvall, M. A.
History Research
Boone County Public Library
Burlington, KY
AQC for Today, for Tomorrow, and for ever . . . .
A body of knowledge, both the activity of knowing and what is known, consists of answers (i.e., assertive acts of thought) together with the questions they are meant to answer. R. G. Collingwood, the most important philosopher of the past century, writes:
My work in archaeology . . . impressed upon me the importance of the "questioning activity" in knowledge: and this made it impossible for me to rest contented with the intuitionist theory of knowledge favoured by the "realists". The effect of this on my logic was to bring about in my mind a revolt against the current logical theories of the time, a good deal like that revolt against the scholastic logic which was produced in the minds of Bacon and Descartes by reflection on the experience of scientific research, as that was taking shape in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The Novum Organum and the Discours de la Methode began to have a new significance for me.
They were the classical expressions of a principle in logic which I found it necessary to restate: the principle that a body of knowledge consists not of "propositions", "statements", "judgements", or whatever name logicians use in order to designate assertive acts of thought (or what in those acts is asserted: for "knowledge" means both the activity of knowing and what is known), but of these together with the questions they are meant to answer; and that a logic in which the answers are attended to and the questions neglected is a false logic.
R. G. Collingwood, Autobiography, p. 30-31.
This is the logic of the historian: the Logic of Question and Answer. On this subject there will be more Archival Quality Communication.
James Duvall, M. A.
History Research
Boone County Public Library
Burlington, KY
What the Traveller Didn't See . . .
Archival Quality Communication
AQC for Today, for Tomorrow, and for ever . . . .
Marco Polo is probably the most famous traveller in history; certainly in Europe. He spent much time in the Orient, but it is amazing what he didn't tell us. I once spent a number of years reading the Travels. I took the book to work and read a chapter or two on each fifteen minute break. Most of the chapters are extremely short, and it is a very long book. I spent longer than necessary because I changed jobs at least twice in that time, and lost the book for a stretch of several years, but did eventually complete it. I spent so long at it that I developed a curious relationship with the book, a kind of proprietary feeling, and so I always react with interest anytime Marco or his book is mentioned.
My impression of the book, besides the interesting curiosities he speaks of, is that it is the journal of a merchant. He is interested in cost, value, and merchantable wares. He is greatly interested in natural and domestic resources; he seems to have been the first to tell the West about coal; but he also speaks of other minerals, such as cinnabar, and oil. Interesting customs are his bread and butter. He wishes to report them back to the Qa'an. According to Polo there were many towns in Asia at that time which practiced cannibalism. Many of them ate their dead relatives, ostensibly to keep the person's spirit in the family. Polo uses the phrase "they eat him up rump and stump" a number of times; certainly a colourful way to express the idea.
E. M. Forster has written an interesting essay on the book. He speaks of the great impression it made in Europe, and remarks:
Of the early travellers who came to America many returned home and wrote reports of the wonders of the new country; but, as they travelled here only in summer, they omitted to speak of the New England winters, and many settlers found the hard way just how difficult these could be. One wrote of the glowing accounts, after bitter experience: "truly they wrote in strawberry time."
Travel narrative is is not history, it is a form of autobiography. A traveller sees only what he sees. He may talk to people who tell him things that he does not see, but then he is dependent on them, and his critical faculties to determine the truth of what he hears. Traveller's accounts can provide important clues to what was going on in a certain area, like a snapshot. Nevertheless, the traveller does not always understand what he sees, and often he is deliberately given misleading information. The locals may want him to think the place is better than it actually is, or to have a little humour at his expense. The traveller will notice some things that the locals know so well they don't pay much attention to them; on the other hand, he will not understand some of the things he sees (or doesn't see), but assume he does, and so he will not ask for the essential piece of information that would give him true understanding.
It is also obvious that no matter how far one goes, and how long he stays, a single person can only see a tiny fraction of a country as huge as ours. It is very easy to think that what we see is all there is. I can illustrate this easily. Francois Michaux travelled through Kentucky in 1802. His memoirs are perceptive and valuable. He still did not see everything: I notice that he says Kentucky farmers did not keep sheep because it was too difficult to keep them in the wilderness. It was difficult; but I find in the estate inventories at this time that many of our local farmers have ten to fifteen sheep, some more. They all have spinning wheels and looms, but without sheep's wool these will be of little use. Michaux was observant and his observations are valuable, it just happened that he did not see sheep as he travelled through the Commonwealth. His conclusion, that farmers did not keep them, was unjustified. We can understand how he came to this conclusion, but we cannot accept his word about what he didn't see . . .
I notice that many of the accounts of travels down the Ohio River are accepted by various historians without question. Does Mrs. So and So, or General Whimsy, state such and such about a town along the river? Writers will gratefully accept almost any statement as truth in the most uncritical fashion. It is true that all of these accounts are of great interest to us. The good historian can find a way to use almost any observation he finds. Nevertheless, there are limitations inherent in this type of literature, and any statement read should not be used without criticism. We must always be aware of what the traveller didn't see.
This is an Archival Quality Communication
James Duvall, M. A.
Researcher
Boone County Public Library
Note: Forster's essays can be found in Abinger Harvest: Essays on Books, People and Places (New York: Meridian, 1955)
You can read Michaux's Travels online.
AQC for Today, for Tomorrow, and for ever . . . .
Marco Polo is probably the most famous traveller in history; certainly in Europe. He spent much time in the Orient, but it is amazing what he didn't tell us. I once spent a number of years reading the Travels. I took the book to work and read a chapter or two on each fifteen minute break. Most of the chapters are extremely short, and it is a very long book. I spent longer than necessary because I changed jobs at least twice in that time, and lost the book for a stretch of several years, but did eventually complete it. I spent so long at it that I developed a curious relationship with the book, a kind of proprietary feeling, and so I always react with interest anytime Marco or his book is mentioned.
My impression of the book, besides the interesting curiosities he speaks of, is that it is the journal of a merchant. He is interested in cost, value, and merchantable wares. He is greatly interested in natural and domestic resources; he seems to have been the first to tell the West about coal; but he also speaks of other minerals, such as cinnabar, and oil. Interesting customs are his bread and butter. He wishes to report them back to the Qa'an. According to Polo there were many towns in Asia at that time which practiced cannibalism. Many of them ate their dead relatives, ostensibly to keep the person's spirit in the family. Polo uses the phrase "they eat him up rump and stump" a number of times; certainly a colourful way to express the idea.
E. M. Forster has written an interesting essay on the book. He speaks of the great impression it made in Europe, and remarks:
Yet it is not a first-rate book, for the reason that its author is interested in novelties, to the exclusion of human beings. Herodotus was interested in both, and he is a great traveller in consequence. Marco Polo is only a little traveller. He could bring back thrilling statistics, he could also discourse quaintly about oddities, such as the one-eyed cobbler who moved a mountain near Mosul, or the exportation of dried pygmies from India, but he could not differentiate between men and make them come alive, and the East that he evoked is only a land of strange customs.Forster suggests that anyone who really wants to understand the East should read the Memoirs of the Emperour Babur, of whom he has also written an essay, which includes the delicious line: "One could scarcely travel two miles without being held up by an Emperor."
Of the early travellers who came to America many returned home and wrote reports of the wonders of the new country; but, as they travelled here only in summer, they omitted to speak of the New England winters, and many settlers found the hard way just how difficult these could be. One wrote of the glowing accounts, after bitter experience: "truly they wrote in strawberry time."
Travel narrative is is not history, it is a form of autobiography. A traveller sees only what he sees. He may talk to people who tell him things that he does not see, but then he is dependent on them, and his critical faculties to determine the truth of what he hears. Traveller's accounts can provide important clues to what was going on in a certain area, like a snapshot. Nevertheless, the traveller does not always understand what he sees, and often he is deliberately given misleading information. The locals may want him to think the place is better than it actually is, or to have a little humour at his expense. The traveller will notice some things that the locals know so well they don't pay much attention to them; on the other hand, he will not understand some of the things he sees (or doesn't see), but assume he does, and so he will not ask for the essential piece of information that would give him true understanding.
It is also obvious that no matter how far one goes, and how long he stays, a single person can only see a tiny fraction of a country as huge as ours. It is very easy to think that what we see is all there is. I can illustrate this easily. Francois Michaux travelled through Kentucky in 1802. His memoirs are perceptive and valuable. He still did not see everything: I notice that he says Kentucky farmers did not keep sheep because it was too difficult to keep them in the wilderness. It was difficult; but I find in the estate inventories at this time that many of our local farmers have ten to fifteen sheep, some more. They all have spinning wheels and looms, but without sheep's wool these will be of little use. Michaux was observant and his observations are valuable, it just happened that he did not see sheep as he travelled through the Commonwealth. His conclusion, that farmers did not keep them, was unjustified. We can understand how he came to this conclusion, but we cannot accept his word about what he didn't see . . .
I notice that many of the accounts of travels down the Ohio River are accepted by various historians without question. Does Mrs. So and So, or General Whimsy, state such and such about a town along the river? Writers will gratefully accept almost any statement as truth in the most uncritical fashion. It is true that all of these accounts are of great interest to us. The good historian can find a way to use almost any observation he finds. Nevertheless, there are limitations inherent in this type of literature, and any statement read should not be used without criticism. We must always be aware of what the traveller didn't see.
This is an Archival Quality Communication
James Duvall, M. A.
Researcher
Boone County Public Library
Note: Forster's essays can be found in Abinger Harvest: Essays on Books, People and Places (New York: Meridian, 1955)
You can read Michaux's Travels online.
The Past in the Present
AQQ for Today, for Tomorrow, and for ever . . . .
Fustel de Coulanges wrote:
"Fortunately, the past never dies for man. Man may forget it, but he always preserves it within him."
Fustel de Coulanges, The Ancient City (1864; Anchor ed., p. 14)
This is an Archival Quality Quotation
James Duvall, M. A.
Big Bone University
Think Tank & Public Policy Center
Big Bone, Kentucky
Nec ossa solum, sed etiam sanguinem.
Would you like to download The Ancient City?
http://books.google.com/books?id=2l8NAAAAIAAJ&dq=&pg=PP1&ots=XNXAYl4jj8&sig=3kFyEMGOGcKSSRRpPlzSUyLo4Yo&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Dfustel%2B%2522the%2Bancient%2Bcity%2522&sa=X&oi=print&ct=book-thumbnail#PPA1,M1
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