A historian analyzes sources and weighs their reliability and accuracy. Emily<\/a> notes, \u201cDavid McCullough has been critiqued by historians for not being a \u2018real\u2019 or \u2018serious\u2019 historian.\u201d While McCullough\u2019s Johnstown Flood<\/i> is not a \u201ctypical\u201d scholarly work, he does occasionally critique or correct stories about the Johnstown flood. For instance at the beginning of chapter 7, McCullough writes that, \u201cSome survivors, years later, would swear it had been a bright, warm morning, with a spotless blue sky\u201d (183). In reality, the weather was \u201cfoul\u201d (184). In this instance, people have constructed a memory they honestly think they experience. It is a reminder that diaries and personal accounts, while probably not intentionally lying, may misremember the actual event. With \u201cevery one of them[survivors]\u2026brimful of tales of his experiences,\u201d there are bound to be mis-recalled facts or invented memories (207).<\/p>\n Another way facts are skewed is through willfully fabricated details. Much of this fabrication seems to occur in connection with the media. For instance, McCullough writes, \u201cwhatever the reporters may have lacked in the way of facts, they made up for in imagination\u201d (220). Sometimes a competing agenda\u2014whether it is selling more newspapers or maybe embellishing a story for appearances\u2019 sake\u2014can cause people to alter the facts.<\/p>\n Besides these two quotes being instances of unreliable memories and accounts of history, they are also two places where McCullough does enter into a more critical historian mode of writing. He does acknowledge that some sources he used had inaccuracies and tries to recreate the probable reality. Of course, for a scholar, this little earmarks are likely not sufficient. McCullough does not give specific citations, nor does he seem to critically analyze every source. This is largely because, as Emily noted, his is a popular history for a general audience. The book can be more entertaining than a theoretical and technical treatise. It can bring historical events, as Emily argues, \u201cto a broader audience than would otherwise be exposed to it.\u201d I wonder if there could ever be a combination of these two tracks? A rigorous, researched, and critical work that is not dry or inaccessible and still manages to entertain? This reminds me a bit of Robert Fisk\u2019s \u201cLet us rebel against poisonous academics and their preposterous claptrap of exclusion.<\/a>\u201d Essentially, Fisk argues that academics have set up obscure language and certain standards that say \u201cKeep Out\u2026This Is Something You[non-academics\/the general population] Are Not Clever Enough to Understand.\u201d Could there be a balance to these two sides or popular literature and scholarly work? Maybe McCullough\u2019s story could stand as it is, but in the back there is a list of sources and the decisions McCullough made about what to include and why? Granted, the work would be extraordinarily long, but it would allow the readers to choose how much they wish to engage in the work. They can simply read the popular story or they may dive into the thought process and analysis behind the work and research.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A historian analyzes sources and weighs their reliability and accuracy. Emily notes, \u201cDavid McCullough has been critiqued by historians for not being a \u2018real\u2019 or \u2018serious\u2019 historian.\u201d While McCullough\u2019s Johnstown Flood is not a \u201ctypical\u201d scholarly work, he does occasionally critique or correct stories about the Johnstown flood. For instance at the beginning of chapter … <\/p>\n