Thanks Vinny!vnatale wrote: ↑Mon Sep 26, 2022 10:15 amAs far as his alleged biases go? He does have a PhD in history and the US Army did have him teaching the book's exact subject matter to cadets at West Point. He also, I believe, served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I'd say that by an unbiased view that he'd be considered creditable.glennds wrote: ↑Mon Sep 26, 2022 9:25 amVinny, I appreciate that you're an avid reader and that you share passages that were particularly thought provoking to you.
If you were to indicate the name/author of the book at the beginning or end of the quoted passage, it would help keep things straight, especially if multiple books are involved.
BTW, the one I was asking about turned out to be Sjursen's A True History of the United States. I haven't bought it yet or decided if the author's message may be a product of his own biases as Kbg suggests.
You have a good suggestion but there are oftentimes not that many passages that are responded to. So I'd rather use the exception method wherein if someone like you wants to know where it comes from you ask and I will let you know. Otherwise it'd be a lot of extra work on my part with no benefit to anyone.
Regarding Sjursen's book, when there is a large sample base of Amazon reviews, I'm inclined to go with crowd wisdom and see where the majority of the reviews point. In this case they're very good, but the nature of the critical reviews show a pattern of complaint around the author's political biases i.e. attacking conservatism and defending far left ideologies.
This combined with a provocative click-baity title is where my reluctance comes from. If you've finished the book I'd be interested in your impression of the author's objectivity.
The subject matter is interesting to me, so long as I can access it in a manner as free as possible from political bias, look-back through woke eyes, or Zinn/Chomsky wannabeism.
Thanks DS for setting up the book recommendations section!