News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on The Last Day of Constantinople. Parent comment

Re:The Last Day of Constantinople by vkou on Monday June 26, 2023 @04:54PM (#36485703)
It's not so much that Gibbon is out of fashion, it's that he is more often wrong than right. Good storyteller, if you want to read a story, but on his own, not a sufficient foundation if you want to learn something.

Learning about roman history from him is like learning from Aristotle or Freud. It's not all wrong, but there are better sources, and if that's all you read, you'll be way more confused than enlightened.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Last Day of Constantinople by DrPhish on Monday June 26, 2023 @06:02PM (#36486495)
>it's that he is more often wrong than right.

I hear this a lot, but I really haven't been able to find much...is there an "errata" of where he is wrong on specific things that are material events in history?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Last Day of Constantinople by WillPostForFood on Monday June 26, 2023 @07:32PM (#36487237)
Most complaints these days about Gibbon are more about the Enlightenment era biases and tone. We have an additional 250 years of research and archaeology of the Roman Empire to build more facts, but Gibbon is still worthy and informative.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The Last Day of Constantinople by namaria on Wednesday June 28, 2023 @05:33PM (#36512909)
History is about linear analysis of multidimensional phenomena. There is no way to increase objective accuracy over a certain honesty threshold. The only way to improve Historical knowledge is to consume the work of various competent analysts.
[ Parent | on HN ]