Culture · 6 pages · 12 min

Why memory is a source that needs another source

A memory is evidence of a recollection. Dates and public facts still need a second check.

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From the opening

A memory is a source for what a person recalls and for the meaning they now give an event, and it is shaped by retelling, by later knowledge, and by the questions asked. Historians use it, and they put another source beside it before they treat a date or a public sequence as settled. The opening covers recollection is not self-checking, a log, a letter, another witness, and echoes are not independent.

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Inside

Recollection is not self-checking
A log, a letter, another witness
Echoes are not independent
Lonely memory stays marked as lonely
Where the idea stops applying
A distinction worth keeping

Sources

Corroboration of testimony against documents
Elizabeth Loftus on recollection as reconstruction

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Why memory is a source that needs another source

From the opening

Inside

Sources

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