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Carlin spends a lot of time telling you where he gets information, who he's quoting from, how reliable they are, what the historical consensus is, etc. In a wor
by mastax 5y ago
Carlin spends a lot of time telling you where he gets information, who he's quoting from, how reliable they are, what the historical consensus is, etc. In a word, historiography.
That's not to say he never gets anything wrong, he and his researchers aren't steeped in the subject for their whole careers so they'll miss things. He is biased towards the exciting stories and sources, but usually qualifies them with "I'll tell you this fun story but historians disagree about X Y Z because of A".
I'll have to look into the criticisms but my impression just from listening is far better than any other pop history.
- rjtavares 5y agoFrom what I read, historians generally like him. The main criticism is that he sometimes uses outdated sources or oversimplifies stuff.
- UncleMeat 5y agoI've heard somewhat mixed things from my historian friends. But you'll be happy to hear that "sometimes uses outdated sources or oversimplifies stuff" is a common criticism of basically all academic history written outside of the last 20 years, so he is in decent company.