Mud, Blood and Poppycock

[Jonathan Saunders]

and presumably his publishers would have checked through much of what he states before publishing it.

I wouldnt think they care much for facts or Corrigan's reputation as a military historian. Just as long as he is controversial and sells books seems to be the order of the day.

[Gunner Bailey]

I doubt if that is the case. Perhaps one of our author pals could comment.

Mick

Me too. I can't believe publishers would put out any history book without either having checked some of it themselves or getting a peer review done. After all, it's normally the publisher that gets sued before the author (Unless in the case of WW1 there's nobody around who could be bothered)?

Come on guys - do you really believe publishers spend shedloads of money printing and pubicising books without checking any content???? Perhaps there's scope for me to publish my thesis on Field Marshall Haig being re-incarnated as Elvis (well, they are both history). If nobody checks we could publish anything.

Gunner Bailey

[Jonathan Saunders]

Come on guys - do you really believe publishers spend shedloads of money printing and pubicising books without checking any content????

The name David Irving springs to mind amongst others.

[Gunner Bailey]

The name David Irving springs to mind amongst others.

Not really sure you've picked a representative subject there Jonathan. Would all history authors like to be compared with David Irving? I'd rather check with Richard Holmes, Peter Hart, Gerald Gliddon etc.

Gunner Bailey

[bmac]

I can't believe publishers would put out any history book without either having checked some of it themselves or getting a peer review done.

You asked specifically about publishers and it seems like Jonathan has answered your question quite adequately. Who the author might be is irrelevant.

[Gunner Bailey]

You asked specifically about publishers and it seems like Jonathan has answered your question quite adequately. Who the author might be is irrelevant.

From your personal experience can you name any publishers who publish any history books without proof reading or contents checking?

Gunner Bailey

[PMHart]

Hi chums,

I fall halfway between the camps here. Our books at W&N (Gordon & I share that publisher) are thoroughly copy-edited, proof checked and if you are a new author sometimes peer reviewed (not the case with either of us). Sometimes the proof checker can be an international expert - my editor and I try to use Alex Revell's firm whenever possible. Alex certainly knows more than I ever could or will about almost everything. Our editors are often military historians in their own right - this is the case with both of us.

Nevertheless I doubt that supplied statistics would be checked except for intenal consistancy by the copy editor. One point to make is that through human error some mistakes always get through - as in my current book 'Aces Falling' where Southampton midfielder and ENgland dynamo Alan Ball flies again on page 56 (a tribute to his 56 Squadron?) instead of Albert Ball! My fault oooppps!!!! They also cheerfully converted Plumer to Plummer!! Aaarghghh!

However I understand what BMAC means about that particular statistic. I think Gordon's book is excellent but that statistic is a bit wooly. He is just trying to point out in a very general non-scientific way that Normandy (where we were fighting a very small part of the German Army which had already been drained and beaten by the Soviets) was still a very bloody affair, but that we choose not to fixate upon it in the way we (and I do mean me too) fixate about the Great War.

By the way I wish to apologise to my Scottish friend Tom McKlusky. I was trying to be light hearted and funny in a previous posting, a besetting sin, and I did drift into what I now see was a patronising manner. He took it very well and is thus a star! I still disagree with him but that's not the point! Memo to self: Stop trying to be funny!

Cheers,

Pete

P.S. I still can't stand Phil B. - I only hope it's still mutual!!!!!!!

[bmac]

From your personal experience can you name any publishers who publish any history books without proof reading or contents checking?

I don't think any amount of proof reading/contents checking, however perfect, would have made much of a difference to Mr Irving's work. Some publishers get what they deserve. Can I think of any books where obvious errors have not been picked up on during this process? Yes. Is this anything to do with the earlier discussion of MB&P? I don't think so.

I am thoroughly in agreement with Peter Hart's paras two and three (intrigued by para 1, para 4 has nothing to do with me and I don't understand the PS but that has nothing to do with me either so what do I care?)

PS I take it we are not talking about the Alex Revell signed from Braintree and currently playing for Brighton and Hove Albion. Kinda like the idea of him doing a quick bit of proofing at half time whilst regaling the lads about the finer points of British aerial tactics c. 1918 and how they now apply to the use of wing backs in the modern game. Or perhaps not.

[Joan and Terry]

I read as far as page 98 in the softback version of Mud Blood and Poppycock,when I came across the article on Unit sick rate where Gordon Corrigan gives out a load of percentages,the final remark he makes is "saving shot and shell the Western Front was a remarkably healthy place to be throughout the War"That I am afraid was all I could take,the book will now go to our youngest Grandson for him to take to school for the History section of the library.I have read quite a few books on WW1 and have to admit this is the first book I have failed to finish.

From the replies I have read,you either like or dislike the book,I fall into the latter.

Joan

[bmac]

Right, book reserved at the library. Having read the reviews on Amazon I just couldn't bring myself to actually pay for it. The good Major will, however, get his plr fee.

[Jonathan Saunders]

You asked specifically about publishers and it seems like Jonathan has answered your question quite adequately. Who the author might be is irrelevant.

Thanks for stating the obvious on my behalf Bill.

Re Alex Revell - a very poor second half substitute last Saturday - he should have kept to the world of publishing.

Regards,

Jon S

[Gunner Bailey]

Thanks for stating the obvious on my behalf Bill.

Jon S

Actually Jon, your answer could not have been representative of publishers in general and is a case of an exception not proving a rule. How do you actually know what work David Irving publishers did / do? If you have personal knowledge, I'll accept what you say otherwise not. Peter Hart's answer confirms my knowledge of what publishers do, and matches my personal knowledge of work in the media and corporate publishing.

Gunner Bailey

[Guest mruk]

Oh, do you mean 'subjectivity' when referring to the Haig diaries.

Regards,

Jon

No, I actually meant objectivity, and that of the limits of objectivity and truthfulness when compromised by ideological bias, and that which the historian wants or wishes his or her readers to hear. However, if you mean 'subjective' in its philosophical context, and Sheffield's own position to his sources and their context, then I sincerely hope that he does reveal something new, and not fit the facts to suit his own agenda or purposes. This can only stimulate and further debate, though I doubt that any interpretation will prove anything but independent and self-serving. He does, after all, have a number of points to prove--professional historian or not.

Kind Regards,

Dave

[Jonathan Saunders]

Actually Jon, your answer could not have been representative of publishers in general and is a case of an exception not proving a rule. How do you actually know what work David Irving publishers did / do? If you have personal knowledge, I'll accept what you say otherwise not. Peter Hart's answer confirms my knowledge of what publishers do, and matches my personal knowledge of work in the media and corporate publishing.

Gunner Bailey

You asked a question and I gave you an answer, which it appears you dont like. Thats fine, you are of course entitled to your opinion. I have no idea what work Irving's publishers have done but I do know that Irving is regarded as, shall we say, very selective with how he interpretes history and of course he is known to manipulate, some people have said blatantly lie, regarding figures and basis of his arguments. I expect at one time his publishers were very happy to print controversial material that would sell books and I dont imagine any level of substantiating facts or figures was ever a priority.

Regards,

Jon S

[AndyHollinger]

I must say this topic (which is a repeat of a repeat) is getting far adrift.

I think we've got our word "History" all tangled up in itself. Richard Adams wrote a book on Ieper's battles and I bought it ... poor me. He's a well known novelist and his book about Traveler is wonderful ... not so his piece on WWI. A Historian? No ... publisher check his facts ... no, why? Peer review - why? It's a nice little book that people who don't know about WWI will read and maybe follow up.

Now, we get to MBP. What many of you fail to see is that it's not History the same way an Acedemic writes it ... it's a Polemic. Somewhere I have Trotsky's book on WWI published in NYC in 1917 (he wrote it while he lived here.) It's published by a small, red publisher who spelled his name Trotzky. Think that's history? It's a Polemic. They quote facts and statistics ... much like MBP.

So, rather than get our u-trou in a tumble ... let's accept the work as an opinion piece and go on with our lives. If you want scrupulous facts checking, Peer Crucifiction, and iron clad research buy Acedemic level history (and TRY to read it) ... Interest based literature, Journalist based literature, writer based literature is great stuff ... but Barbara Tuchman is not (was not?) a historian.

Want history ... read my Forgotten Army on deposit at the National Army Museum in London. It will cure insomnia and has been labelled one of the leading casues of Narcolepsy in England. (Not Scotland - there, the leading cause is standing in line to see the Crown Jewel in Edinburgh Castle.) Want good reading, do Killer Angels - understand if you want opinion, you get in your face opinion - then read MBP ...

[Gunner Bailey]

I have no idea what work Irving's publishers have done

Regards,

Jon S

Thanks Jon.

GB

[George Armstrong Custer]

Not really sure you've picked a representative subject there Jonathan. Would all history authors like to be compared with David Irving? I'd rather check with Richard Holmes, Peter Hart, Gerald Gliddon etc.

Gunner Bailey

However, respected academic historian Sir John Keegan wrote, in review of Irving's biography of Goebbels:

"David Irving knows more than anyone alive about the German side of the Second World War. He discovers archives unknown to official historians and turns their contents into densely footnoted narratives that consistently provoke controversy... His greatest achievement is Hitler's War, which has been described as `the autobiography the Führer did not write' and is indispensable to anyone seeking to understand the war in the round. Now he has turned his attention to Joseph Goebbels... The result is a characteristic Irving book: 530 pages of text and 160 pages of relentless references..."

Keegan continued to value Irving as a source in his 'The Battle for History', however he did balance this with a clear caveat as to Irving's lack of a moral compass:

"No historian of the Second World War can afford to ignore Irving. His depiction of Hitler [in Hitler's War], by its relation of the war's development to the decisions and responses of Führer headquarters, is a key corrective to the Anglo-Saxon version, which relates the war's history solely in terms of Churchillian defiance and the growth of the Grand Alliance. Nevertheless, it is a flawed vision, for it is untouched by moral judgement. For Irving, the Second World War was a war like other other wars - naked struggle for national self-interrest - and Hitler, one war leaders among others. Yet, the Second World War must engage our moral sense. Its destructiveness, its disruption of legal and social order, were on a scale so disordinate that it cannot be viewed as a war among other wars; its opposition of ideologies, democratic versus totalitarian, none the less stark because democracy perforce allied itself with one form of totalitarianism in the struggle against another, invariably invests the war with moral content; above all, Hitler's institution of genocide demands a moral commitment."

Finally, Keegan's focus on why the Second World War 'must engage our moral sense' to a unique degree in the field of the study of warfare is, I think, a key to what differentiates academic historiographical approaches to the First and Second World Wars.

ciao,

GAC

[Take on me]

However, respected academic historian Sir John Keegan wrote, in review of Irving's biography of Goebbels:

"David Irving knows more than anyone alive about the German side of the Second World War. He discovers archives unknown to official historians and turns their contents into densely footnoted narratives that consistently provoke controversy... His greatest achievement is Hitler's War, which has been described as `the autobiography the Führer did not write' and is indispensable to anyone seeking to understand the war in the round. Now he has turned his attention to Joseph Goebbels... The result is a characteristic Irving book: 530 pages of text and 160 pages of relentless references..."

Do remember that this was almost certainly written before the Deborah Lipstadt libel trial during the late 1990s, in preperation for which Cambridge historian Richard J. Evans took a team of researchers to Germany and tore apart those '160 pages of relentless references' exposing Irving's research as flawed and untruthful.

Jon

[George Armstrong Custer]

Do remember that this was almost certainly written before the Deborah Lipstadt libel trial during the late 1990s, in preperation for which Cambridge historian Richard J. Evans took a team of researchers to Germany and tore apart those '160 pages of relentless references' exposing Irving's research as flawed and untruthful.

Jon

Yes, but Keegan's assessment of the academic value of much of Irving's work did not substantially alter after the Lipstadt trial, Jon - a trial at which Keegan actually testified unwillingly. His post-trial conclusions are that, the flawed Irving is still a better historian than the politically correct Lipstadt. Read Keegan's full post-trial assessment of Irving in the 'telegraph' here: Keeganarticle Keegan also made the point that the work and references of few academic historians - himself included - would emerge error free from the kind of scrutiny applied to Irving's by the highly paid R. J. Evans and his team of researchers. As Keegan concludes, it is aspects of Irving's character which constitute his own worst enemy.

ciao,

GAC

[Jonathan Saunders]

Thanks Jon.

GB

If you are going to quote me please do not insert a fullstop mid-sentence that alters the absolute meaning of my words.

[Guest mruk]

It's an old trick of the trade, Jon S, which I'm sure Gunner B meant unintentionally. I'm sure you've read the selective blurb on the back of dustjackets? Now take the blurb selected to describe Gary Sheffield...It reads like 'Historians R Us'.

Cheers,

Dave

[Gunner Bailey]

If you are going to quote me please do not insert a fullstop mid-sentence that alters the absolute meaning of my words.

Corrected..

GB

[Jonathan Saunders]

Corrected..

GB

I understand the accepted protocol to be "..." so that there is no misunderstanding that the words quoted are an extract of a sentence and should be read with that caution in mind.

[Jim Clay]

I'm sure Gunner B meant unintentionally

- shurely shome mishtake, Dave?

I understand the accepted protocol to be "..."

- or in email circles, I often see <snip> used for the same purpose. Language is devalued if it ain't used wiv like clarity. Innit.

Jim

[Gunner Bailey]

I understand the accepted protocol to be "..." so that there is no misunderstanding that the words quoted are an extract of a sentence and should be read with that caution in mind.

Well that would be a first. I've never seen that on any forum where clips are taken from other posts. I suppose the general rule should be not to make statements purely based on opinion and hopefully based on known facts. If I see someone standing there with a smoking gun in one hand and a hole in their foot, it's not for me to add too much to their pain.

Gunner Bailey.