At The Front By Newton Baker

When you think of history, Historians always come to mind at least for myself. Historians are what bring history to the everyday person, they do the research and look into documentations of historical items, gather and compile information for knowledge as well as for the general population to gain knowledge of historical facts such a teachers and history majors. At least that is the view I have taken on what a historian does, I know there is so much more than that but that is a short version of my thoughts on what they do. Historians often use primary sources to gain knowledge on their subject of choice. With Primary source you have firsthand accounts of the time. Such as The speech “At the Front” by Newton Baker. Is him speaking about his …show more content…
But in looking though I found a secondary source in the form of a documentary about the “The War of the World: A New History of the 20th Century” which could still be used for many primary source martial so maybe documentaries can be both a primary and a secondary. Because the author was not born in the time, there for he did not witness nor use his five main senses for that part of history. Ferguson states what he has found with others findings and the research he has done. Therefore does his own writing on the subject it is secondary, he is also the narrator of the film. Now you can say that with the photos and short video clips used with in the film it would have …show more content…
I could still see a historian viewing this and taking photos and having questions or agreeing with unbiased parts of the film. With the extra tidbit that Niall Ferguson is in fact historian, make you think that he would stick more to the facts and be less bias then say someone such as Morgan Freeman who is an actor and a voice over for many things. Which leads me to a question I have come to realize I keep asking myself more and more; what I am getting myself into I love history I have a passion for history I want to be a historian one day, but I better get my butt in gear and learn all this citation stuff and how all these fact checks and all that work. I need to start finding Historians to talk to and make sure I am getting myself into what I think I am. Which brings me to a question I have to ask with my last source I found, to me it would be a secondary source because it is written by someone that did not live in that time, and was written with facts, but it is an article written by someone who studied the time period so even though it is fact would it be primary or secondary because it was written by a historian? The article in question is “The Great War: Shaping the 21st century” From what I read I do not see any form of bias it looks like a list of facts, but in looking at the outline for what makes a primary source this says it is a secondary. That is why I brought it up here because it seems to confuse me. I am assuming it to be a secondary