New Book from Adrian Goldsworthy: How Rome Fell

[Jona Lendering]

I don’t think that authors should stop making theories simply because people in the past were wrong. We need theories to be tested, dissected, and critiqued. And of course they have to be published before we can do that.

Of course you are right, and I was exaggerating a bit. Still, I think testing could be done a lot better. It is absurd how many people believe they are historians once they start quoting the right sources and secondary literature. Tom Holland is a case in point, and the same can be said about Adrian Goldsworthy. But ever since Max Weber's ‘Kritische Studien auf dem Gebiet der kulturwissenschaftlichen Logik’ we (should) know better. I have seen too many logical errors, especially by British and American historians.