Raised in Missouri and now based in Boston, my hobbies include bee-keeping and charlatan-hunting.
Please let me know if any of my contributions or edits seem amiss. Know that I try my best and I'm honest. Thank you to those who have cleaned up my typos or stylistic mistakes.
Blessed be the reference librarians.
Preferred Historic Method
editCite: a)primary sources b)oldest excellent secondary sources (i.e. give credit where credit is due) c)recent secondary sources and other helpful sources in between, but mostly "cite what's right" meaning most references should verify one's findings and/or be helpful for other scholars who come after. Quality over quantity.
It seems a naive and whiggish notion to trust that the most recent work will be the best. Recent scholarship can be great but will also be the further removed from the period and effected by each new layer of zeitgeist (as we always must be by our own times). Pressure to cite recent work will tend to push things toward consensus and status quo, and in some cases, mediocrity or the repetition of mistakes, and the first citations culled often seem to be the older ones even if they are the best. In my studies, I have found no one who can best GL Burr's genius as expressed in 1890, 1911, and 1914, except contemps like Robert Calef, Reginald Scot, Friedrich Spee. Heinrich Kramer begins his Malleus Maleficarum by opposing the canon Episcopi thru quotations from Thomas Aquinas. If a recent hardback about Thomas Aquinas fails to mention his influence on witchcraft theory, should we distrust our own eyes? No, the primary source is best and for secondary confirmation we're lucky to have a brilliant 1890 essay by GL Burr.
A challenge to academic historic scholarship seems to be the obvious incentives to cite mentors, colleagues, and the people we befriend at conferences. This is a natural friendly instinct, and thus needs to be checked. Instead of working toward a consensus view, we should be concerned whenever there seems to be widespread agreement. Double-blind peer review can only work if we are already cultivating healthy disagreement and diversity of opinion at the root.