The accuracy of a historical source.The policy of containment as response to the postwar tensions between the US and the USSR - Essay Example

To evaluate the accuracy of a historical source,one of the first considerations is the author.An author's credentials in the field are an indication that the material may be objective.However,that alone is no guarantee. If it is a primary source it is open to interpretation, but if it is a secondary source an interpretation has already been made. The source of the material will often be an indication of its reliability. If a writing about FDR appears on a website called "IHateTheNewDeal.com", it may not be biased. As a rule, books that have been edited by an organization or peer reviewed material are less biased. After gaining confidence in the author and the source, the work needs to be critically examined.Determine who the intended audience is. If it is a general interest book, it may not be as accurate as a book that was intended for a college course. Read the text with a critical eye and look for overly passionate language or emotionally charged phrases. This is a sign that the author is injecting their own opinion. Does the material make sense If you can find holes in the author's arguments, then you need to crosscheck the writer's facts with other sources. See if the evidence that the author uses is factual and cited. If the sources of the facts are not referenced, the work may be suspect.George Kenan's policy of containment was a reasonable response to the Soviet problem in the years immediately following World War II. At that time Kenan had no reason to believe that the USSR had an official policy on world domination. Read More