Commonwealth Series, Vol. 5. Salem Press, 1987. Reproduced in History Resource Center.

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Boston, New York, San Francisco: McGraw Hill

Balestracci, D. (1999) . The Renaissance in the Fields: Family Memoirs of a Tuscan Peasant.

There are two types of sources, primary and secondary. Primary sources are the most reliable because, in the largest part, they were written by the person being studied. They could be a copy of a speech, or personal papers and letters in their own handwriting. Or they come from public records, church records or other first hand documents that provide the hard facts that are needed to write History. The farther back in time you in your study of History, the harder it becomes to find primary sources. Time takes its’ toll on everything. Clay tablets, papyrus, and paper are no exceptions. Another thing to take into account is that the farther back you go, the less people you find that were literate that could write their version of what happened. The literate usually came from the urban upper classes and the clergy. When people from the lower, mostly rural, classes did bother to keep records, they usually had it written down by a third party. This started changing in Renaissance Italy. According to Balestracci (1999), “Just as some customs and tastes trickled down from the upper classes to the lower ones, so to did the taste and the practical necessity for writing spread to rural populations”(5). Secondary sources are what someone else had to say about the primary sources or their account of a speech or some other event the person being studied was involved in. Many early History books were commissioned by someone to call attention to his achievements, and to have himself shown in the finest light possible. History, after all, is the story of the winners

Take for example the case of Plutarch, scholars have suggested that as a Greek living under Roman rule Plutarch might have had a political as well as a moral motive for writing his comparisons of important Greeks and Romans, that he was reminding his countrymen that they could boast of statesmen in their past as great as those of their Roman masters. Others have surmised that by depicting the virtues of noted Romans Plutarch was trying to reconcile his people to their subjugators. Whatever other reasons the author may have had, it is well to remember that he repeatedly emphasized his instructive intentions.

Davidson, W.D., & Lytle, M. D. (2000) . After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection

University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press

Some topics in this essay:
Historiography History, According Balestracci, Davidson Lytle, History Decline, Island Nations, Romans Plutarch, Greeks Romans, Joseph Toynbee's, Jackson Turner's, Gale Research, writing history, primary sources, gale research 1997, study history, names dates, event person, “old historians”, roman empire, upper classes, gale research, “new historians”,