Identifying garbage history books — Sarah Paine

[DwarkeshPatel]

EDIT: SARAH PAINE AMA –

Tomorrow (Jan 30th) the third and final episode in the lecture series drops! For a limited time after the release, Sarah will be answering your questions in the comments. Really excited for this one!

[sba]

She’s my favorite. She explains things so clearly and succinctly, but but also you could tell she has a real passion for what she’s doing.

[lampshade]

People forget that a lot of important information, is still locked behind language barriers. We're not at the stage in our society yet where everything has been translated to every language so everyone can know about one another. So it is very important to at the very least get your information, from someone who has read information directly from that countries language.

[ColorMeAya]

This is so important. I’m a Russian historian with a focus on 1810 - 1991. I had to learn French, German, Japanese, and Russian to understand just wwii.

[marks]

She's absolutely correct. My High School teacher was a retired History Professor (wanted to near his daughter and her family, but got bored at home, so he taught high school AP History). He made us turn in the textbooks and insisted that every paper we wrote be based on actual information from the sources of that era, not a book someone wrote a hundred years later with a lot of biased opinions. At the time we were studying the American Civil War. I read actual letters, battlefield reports, personal journals, and newspapers of the era to write my papers (and he was brutal, grading us like freshman college students). When I got to college, I was able to CLEP all my first- and second-year history courses because of him. I'm retired now and I still love history. I especially enjoy these online lectures from people like Sarah Paine.

[liddytheweeb]

She has the most calm yet clearly exited “I’m so glad you asked” energy. You can tell she’s passionate about what she’s talking about.

[tommcgee]

This sounds so obvious but (I’m embarrassed to admit) is a blind spot for me. Thank you for illuminating.

[davidpagan]

Theology does this. The main scholastic work is in German, Italian, and French. At the PhD level, you must be proficient in either two or all three languages to do the requisite work and interact with primary source material. It's not just history or political work but liberal arts writ large that require that.

[sleepinglady]

She speaks as if she has not a second to waste with untruths. Right to the source, benefit, point of topic up front. Captures your attention right away. Love it!

[gregorturner]

i just finished a degree here in australia and one class we were blessed with a german professor come in for a presentation. afterwards i asked her a question that had been puzzling me. where were all my educational books and studies american? especially as it was an international subject (HR) her answer, because all the big publishers are american. This lead me to watching an HR video on youtube and having to correct the producer because he was teaching incorrect laws. why because it was based on american HR laws. which have nothing in common with australian workplace laws and even less with say japanese or chinese workplace laws for HR.

[dankspain]

This is sooo true, most history books that don’t reference documentation on the subject language or even a source are not worth considering.

[savetheturtles]

I took a class on the Old Testament in college, and it was so fascinating. The professor focused on the Hebrew meanings of everything and actually spent time in the middle east. It was so interesting how much I had learned about the OT in the past was actually a mistranslation of Hebrew or a misinterpretation of the English translation of the Hebrew Scriptures!

[KaitoGillscale]

As someone who has a degree in political science, it is ABSOLUTELY imperative that you source and cite from inside the country you speak about. She’s completely correct. My thesis paper covered the differences between America’s healthcare system to those of countries who’s GDPs were far lower than Americas (taking into account population) and without my citing diagrams and charts from within the government’s records…I likely would have scored far lower. When you come to any foreign country looking to analyze them, you have to adopt that country’s worldview and history to understand why their current events are indicative of their past. Political science is the study of the past influencing the present, and without you being able to look back and know what caused a nation to be where it is, understanding them is impossible.

[عبداللهباجنيد]

Middle Eastern studying politics abroad she is just on point I had alot of foreign well respected in their field scholars about middle east yet alot of their assumptions are so far from truth as they don't have the cultural background of it I would say it should be a must if you wanna work in embassies or in political position in foreign affairs not only learn the language and live there for some time

Exactly the same strategy of graham hancock books! He writes about Amazonian archaeology and never speaks to a single Amazonian archaeologist

[AliveBoldTV]

This is why I encourage students to take study abroad seriously. I am so grateful that I went to study Arabic & even though I was obviously not fluent, it opened my understanding so much to share space and engage with history in real time. It was the start of an adventure through humanity I could have never imagined.

Get in the game!

[anymouse]

This is my first introduction to Sarah Paine. May God bless you for introducing her through your media presence and God bless her for her clear and understandable work.

[somerandomname]

I would love to read a book about America with no English sources translated back into English. I'd probably slap my knee and go "Ha yes that's exactly what we are like!"

[pchvgel]

I once had a guest Professor at my university, lecturing about data protection and privacy. All his sources were american, he even only covered US laws

I'm german. At a german university. At the very least i'd have thought he'd mention EU laws for that topic

[alexandragrace]

I studied ancient history, and from the very beginning we learned Ancient Greek (classical, but also a little of other dialects across time and the region). Although I don’t remember and can’t translate much Greek anymore, it left me with a massive lifelong love for history and languages and an appreciation for the sentiment of this clip! You really can’t get the full picture from a foreign translation!