How to Secondary Resources That Directly Connect Content to Primary Sources?

by MrJonWalrus

I need help on the how of finding secondary history resources on any topic/period/area that specifically mention the primary sources they used for their conclusions. I don't mean a footnote or endnote, but explicitly referring to the source and it's pertinent part, and then building upon it. All but a few of the history books I have seen rarely ever work with the reader on primary sources. They just leave a thick reference section at the end, leaving out their exact thought process and argument based on the primary sources. How do I find those books which are interactive and active about their conclusions drawn from primary sources?

Example of what I'm looking for:

Historians have relied primarily on three major primary sources for our information on Sir Swordcelot, his diary, his lovers diary, and his milkman's diary. On his upbringing, his lover writes "Sir Swordcelot was born with his limp, a result of challenges during pregnancy" However, his own diary disagrees, stating "At age 6 I was run over by a car, crippling my right leg from the knee". Sir Swordcelot's account can be verified over his lover's account by the following accounts from relatives. <Lists snippets of accounts> etc, etc

Things I've Tried/thoughts:

Trying to think of a good search query. This has been unsuccessful because I don't have the vocabulary to specify exactly what I want. "History books based on primary sources" just sounds like every decent history book. "History books that explicitly refer to primary sources" just ends up giving me links to information on primary sources vs secondary sources.

You are not going to be able to find books listed like that, because that is not how historians classify books. They -do- discuss sources in the text (which seems to be what you are asking about) but they also include longer discussions of sources in footnotes (I will call them all footnotes), as well as brief source citations in footnotes. They would consider all of these forms of writing to be “books which are interactive and active about their conclusions drawn from primary sources”. (I guess. I am not sure what that means.)

The best discussion I know of the evolution of what he calls the “dual narrative” is Grafton’s The Footnote. What Grafton means by the dual narrative is that there is both a story (happening in the text) and a discussion of sources and why the writer thinks that this story is accurate. This story about sources is usually down in the footnotes, but sometimes lifted up into the text, if the writer thinks it is important enough. Grafton uses Ranke as the beginning of the modern way of writing history like this, not because he was the first, but because he claimed to be first, and was eager to publicize and teach this method of writing/researching. Ranke may have -claimed- that his footnotes let you see exactly the primary sources that anyone could look at and draw exactly the same conclusions from. Grafton points out that this is not actually how history is written, not even by Ranke. For one thing, Ranke used to read a bunch of stuff,write something, and then put the footnotes in. Later in his life he would have assistants do this, and they would sometimes have trouble finding sources to justify his points. (Grafton p 65.) Even when he did have notes, it was not always self-evident how this source justified what he was saying, something that his critics pointed out at the time. (Grafton, 67)

So the relationship between primary sources and what historians say is always “interactive and active” and involves the reader knowing enough to understand how the historian is using evidence to prove their points and to some extent taking them on trust.

An example. On page 91-92 of Kerim’s Electrified Voices there is a short discussion of two men who more or less created the modern naniwabushi form of performances. If you will follow note 24 to the end of the book (endnotes are a pain) you will see that to back up these two paragraphs he cites two English-language articles and one Japanese book. I can guarantee you he did not read those things then write the text. He wrote the text then thought about which of the many things he has read on the origins of this would make a good citation for this.

Later on page 92 Yasir says that naniwabushi was “dubbed by some the “Japanese Blues””. There is no note for this statement (even though it seems like there should be) but in the text he says that it is called the Japanese Blues because it was plaintive and performed for a working class audience. So he is defining the term up in the text, not down in a note, and apparently assumes that this is well enough known to not need a note, or, more likely, can’t think of a good cite to use for this.

There are some books that are more like what you are looking for. Lewis Sanctioned Violence, for instance. On pg 82 he starts discussing the idea of the duty of vengeance between states. It goes on for about 10 pages,and includes several long quotes from primary sources, which he explains at length, and there are about 20 footnotes for this section.

These may sound quite different, Lewis is what you are looking for and Yasar is not. Actually, they are doing the same thing. Each is writing a narrative, and explaining why they think what they think partly in the text, but also partly in the notes. I don’t think either of them would claim, like Ranke, that anyone who looked at these same sources would come to the exact same conclusions they do, or if they were to write notes for this section again they would do it exactly the same.

So, your question is that “All but a few of the history books I have seen rarely ever work with the reader on primary sources. They just leave a thick reference section at the end, leaving out their exact thought process and argument based on the primary sources.” Some books, like Lewis do work with the reader on their thought process and argument right up in the text (it seems to be more common in ancient history, where they have less to work with), but all of them are doing it if you read the footnotes and understand how to read the footnotes. Also,none of them are doing it, since you can’t really follow their though process back from what they write back to primary sources.

Note that this may be making you think that modern historical writing is built on sand, that it is not based on a Rankian one to one correspondence between statements in the text and unassailable primary source proof in the notes.

You might wonder if…

-Historians sometimes use a lot of footnotes or references to sources when they are not sure what they are saying is right, as sort of a defense mechanism.

-They sometimes cite some broad statement by another historian that does not itself have a primary citation thinking “X said this, and I can cite x rather than coming up evidence.”

-They sometimes think their citations provide proof for what they are saying, but if you ask them to trace their thought pattern five years later they would have no clue.

-They sometimes mistranslate things.

-They sometimes look for a citation to back up something they are sure is true, can’t find it, and leave it in anyway.

-They just flat out make mistakes. (but still have citations)

All true. Grafton is good on this.

Sources

Grafton, Anthony The Footnote: A Curious History. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1997.

Lewis, Mark Edward. Sanctioned Violence in Early China.Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.

Yasar, Kerim. Electrified Voices: How the Telephone,Phonograph, and Radio Shaped Modern Japan, 1868–1945. Illustrated edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018