Mark D. Jordan quote: “Historiography cannot, by itself, answer the question about the criterion for pedagogical authenticity. So much is obvi…”

“If, in order to obtain a correct and complete answer to a given question, all other things being equal, one construction requires a shorter observation time than another construction, we can say that it is more efficient for this question.”

Jacques Bertin (1918–2010) French geographer and cartographer

Source: Semiology of graphics (1967/83), p. 139: Bertin’s definition of efficiency as cited in: Naomi B. Robbins (2009) Creating More Effective Graphs http://www.ssc.ca/ottawa/documents/SSO2009FallRobbins.pdf

“You must pursue facts for their own sake, but penetrated with a vivid sense of the problems of your own time. This is not a principle of perversion, but a principle of selection. You must have some principle of selection, and you could not have a better one than to pay special attention to the history of the social problems which are agitating the world now, for you may be sure that they are problems not of temporary but of lasting importance.”

Arnold Toynbee (1852–1883) British economic historian

Source: Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884), p. 32

“Some of the finest addresses by counsel I have ever heard have been delivered in the Committee Rooms at Westminster… In my judgment it would be difficult to conceive a more satisfactory and impartial tribunal for the disposal of practical questions than a Select Committee of either House. The Lords Committees especially impressed me with their business-like procedure and the ability of their chairmen.”

Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan (1873–1952) British judge

Source: A Man of Law's Tale (1952), In London, p. 59

“To be sure, we have to face at this point an important question; but it is a practical, not a theoretical question; it is the question of whether or not to accept the new linguistic forms. The acceptance cannot be judged as being either true or false because it is not an assertion. It can only be judged as being more or less expedient, fruitful, conducive to the aim for which the language is intended. Judgments of this kind supply the motivation for the decision of accepting or rejecting the kind of entities.”

Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) German philosopher

Source: Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology (1950), Ch. 3. What does acceptance of a kind of entities mean?

“It is inherent in the unity of past and present that Marxist historiography must continuously turn to fresh aspects to explore and re-explore and fresh questions to answer… This examination must cover everything from general principles to specific facts, because both are all the time being brought into question by others. We have to answer them not by denunciation – always a bad counsellor – but careful scrutiny and investigation.”

Irfan Habib (1931) Left Leaning Historian

Irfan Habib, ‘Problems of Marxist historiography,’ Social Scientist, Volume 16, Number 12, December 1988

“He who would form a correct judgment of their tone, must hear first one bell and then the other.”

Filippo Baldinucci (1625–1697) Italian art historian

A chi vuol dar buon giudizio del suono, bisogna il sentire l’una campana, e l’altra.
La Veglia. (Ed. Milan, 1812. Opere, Vol. XIV., p. 213).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 241.

“It was the technique of a man who selected thoughts as one might select pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. In due course they would be reassembled together so as to make a clear and coherent picture. At the moment the important thing was the selection, the separation.”

Agatha Christie book Third Girl

Third Girl (1966)

“When you stop selecting by ability you have to select according to some other inevitably less satisfactory criterion.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

The Path To Power (1995)

“The materials collected in this volume are intended to acquaint the student with economic principles as they are manifested in the tangible facts of economic life. A few extracts of primarily theoretical character have been included to represent important aspects of contemporary or historic thought; but for the most part the selections are not so much authoritative formulations of economic laws as concrete case-material embodying such laws, or affording a background of information which the systematic treatises on economics can hardly give and which the teacher certainly cannot often assume that his students will possess.”

Leon C. Marshall (1879–1966) American economist

James A. Field, Leon C. Marshall and Chester W. Wright. Materials For the Study of Elementary Economics https://archive.org/stream/materialsforstud00mars#page/n5/mode/2up, University of Chicago Press, 1913. Preface

“The materials collected in this volume are intended to acquaint the student with economic principles as they are manifested in the tangible facts of economic life. A few extracts of primarily theoretical character have been included to represent important aspects of contemporary or historic thought; but for the most part the selections are not so much authoritative formulations of economic laws as concrete case-material embodying such laws, or affording a background of information which the systematic treatises on economics can hardly give and which the teacher certainly cannot often assume that his students will possess.”

Chester W. Wright (1879–1966) American economic historian

James A. Field, Leon C. Marshall and Chester W. Wright. Materials For the Study of Elementary Economics https://archive.org/stream/materialsforstud00mars#page/n5/mode/2up, University of Chicago Press, 1913. Preface

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