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08-20-2018, 01:02 PM | #61 |
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I’m still reading this book - not my favorite... The historical event is very interesting, but all the embellishments (thoughts and feelings) annoy me, and make me doubt the accuracy.
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08-20-2018, 05:06 PM | #62 | |
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08-21-2018, 08:01 AM | #63 | |
o saeclum infacetum
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Most importantly, and what frustrated me most about Moore, was that she did her own original research; she undermined her narrative with all her descriptions of glances and so forth. Even for anyone who hasn't and doesn't want to read Kitz, the evidence of wholesale appropriation of Kitz's efforts is overwhelming. Entire chapters will have only a handful of footnotes, all but one or two to Kitz. It was also probably more obvious to me as I read one right after the other, but there was minimal rewriting. As Yogi said, déjà vu all over again. When I get a chance, I'll post an example. Then, there were the errors I detected. The Willis & Bates one was egregious, but I only found that one because I found the entire anecdote preposterous on the face of it, which led me to look into it - so I'd disagree that Bacon was "cleverer in his deceptions." There were others, though, from major to relatively minor. VAD stands for Voluntary Aid Detachment, not Voluntary Aid Department. Bacon took a guess and couldn't be bothered to verify. The US Navy prison was not in New Hampshire (the building is still there and it's in Maine). I could go on. My take was that Bacon was making a lot of it up, in a manner that Moore was not. I thought the book was grossly overwritten and the text inflated. One adjective wasn't used when three could be worked in. He'd go on and on about something that was a given. There was a whole lengthy paragraph explaining triage, for one example. That was unnecessary. As was his mnemonic for remembering the difference between starboard and port! How's that for condescension? Barss has been mentioned and it's worse that not only was he irrelevant, it was offensive that the explosion was made about him rather than others more directly involved. It also seems that he was included because Bacon already knew about him - but at least it was presumably his own research for once. Much of his Great War background was the stuff of cliche. I groaned at the mention of Wilfrid Owen. It doesn't get more tired than that. "'Dulce et Decorum Est' a line from the great Roman poet Horace..." As opposed to the minor Roman poet Horace? Why not just say Horace? My examples of overwriting and the irrelevant and the cliché-ridden go on for pages of my notes but I'll spare anyone still reading more examples. I'll stop now. |
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08-21-2018, 11:27 AM | #64 |
cacoethes scribendi
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Thanks for taking the time to explain, issybird, I was curious.
The port and starboard thing did stand out, didn't it. And not in any good way. If I tried to use that I'd probably manage to forget something I've known since I was a kid. The Portsmouth, Maine navy prison did not exist prior to 1908. The text in question is: "his privateering great-grandfather [...] while serving a few months in the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, prison, 104 years earlier." This text was relative to 1915, so 1810 ... which is a slight problem because the earlier description dated the imprisonment as 1813. I expect you are right about the Willis & Bates error, but while it seems unlikely it is conceivable that the company had a factory in Canada too. (Just saying that I wouldn't hang him for it without further evidence.) I can't think of any excuses for getting VAD wrong. I find your list interesting because there were half-a-dozen items that I checked up on as I was reading, out of curiosity, and they all checked out okay. This is certainly not a book I'd ever re-read, nor recommend to others, and I do wish we'd done the Kitz book instead, but it obviously didn't rub me the wrong way as much as it did for you and Bookpossum. Funny the different things that will irritate us. |
08-21-2018, 12:46 PM | #65 | |
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08-21-2018, 03:37 PM | #66 | ||
o saeclum infacetum
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08-21-2018, 06:24 PM | #67 |
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What other element do you need to say something's in dispute, besides one party disputing it?
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08-21-2018, 07:33 PM | #68 |
o saeclum infacetum
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My point was that although New Hampshire kept disputing it, the naval base was always in Maine, as New Hampshire was never on the winning side. You seemed to be saying that until the Supreme Court ruled in 2001 there was no definitive boundary. Not so, as the shipyard workers who paid income tax to Maine would attest.
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08-21-2018, 07:48 PM | #69 | ||
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So not only was the company in Halifax in Yorkshire rather than in Halifax Nova Scotia, but its involvement with the manufacture of helmets is at least in question. I would have thought that Liddle would say that the firm made the helmets if this were the case, but the only point being raised is that of design. While this is a minor aside in the whole book, such sloppy research has to call into serious question the entire work. |
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08-21-2018, 07:50 PM | #70 | |
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08-21-2018, 09:12 PM | #71 | |
cacoethes scribendi
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(* My previous said 1810, my maths is as bad as Bacon's ) I definitely agree with the sentiment, I'm just wary as to what I hang it off. My pick is the Christmas tree, although I don't think the tree was sloppy, I think it was a deliberate misrepresentation. |
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08-21-2018, 10:06 PM | #72 |
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I agree: the wording clearly implies that the tree had been sent every year from 1918 onwards.
There are so many examples of this sort of thing, perhaps trivial in themselves, that they, plus all the stuff about Barss because that was his real interest, plus the wholesale use of the research done and written up by Janet Kitz, all add up to a very bad book that purports to be history. You are quite right gmw - we certainly should have read the Kitz instead. |
08-22-2018, 10:18 AM | #73 | ||
o saeclum infacetum
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I've said I'd offer up passages from the two books for comparison and here they are. I'm not claiming this is the closest match, but it's one that particularly irked me, witness changing the word "gifts" to "presents" in the middle of a sentence that was otherwise largely lifted.
From Bacon: Quote:
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The fifth and last footnote for the chapter, I doubt anyone will be surprised to learn, is to Barss. All of the parts of Halifax that rely on Kitz as their source read like that. |
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08-22-2018, 11:08 AM | #74 | |
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If I saw work like this from one of my students, they would be failing my class and headed to honor court for plagiarism. |
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08-22-2018, 06:11 PM | #75 |
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Yes indeed. Somehow I don’t think that Janet Kitz would have agreed to such wholesale use of her work, if/when Bacon went to see her.
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