Uh, a couple things to consider: a) This is an article in a magazine, not a research journal. The standards are inherently different. This is similar to the lo

Uh, a couple things to consider: a) This is an article in a magazine, not a research journal. The standards are inherently different. This is similar to the lower level of 'rigour' demanded out of scientific magazine articles, as opposed to research journals. b) Huge chunks of history consists of interpreting evidence. In so much as interpreting is a matter of opinion, this is pretty much an opinion piece. Historians really don't have any offer a citation to back up their interpretations. Certainly, it helps, but the point is that they offer up evidence (in the form of selections of contemporary journal entries), and then interpret that evidence, and present it to you. You're suppose to accept or reject (or wherever on the spectrum) this interpretation based on your critical faculties and own background knowledge. c) Since we actually do lack 'objective' measurements for huge amounts of things that we really are curious about in the past, all we have are anecdotes. We cannot perform experiments on the past. Archeology is limited. Conclusions drawn from normal historical methods are certainly limited, and heavily influenced by biases, but that's pretty much all we have to work with.