Books by David Irving

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michael mills
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Re: Books by David Irving

#181

Post by michael mills » 16 Jul 2012, 05:55

You have no idea how Kershaw used Irving's work
I most certainly do, since I have read the book by Kershaw. Perhaps you should refrain from making libellous accusations in support of your own agenda, whatever it may be.

Kershaw used Irving's work as a source of data, in this case material from the Hewel diary which Irving had quoted in "Hitler's War".

His use of data from "Hitler's War" is confirmation that Irving's books do contain reliable factual material, regardless of Irving's specific interpretations. It shows that reputable historians continue to use Irving's work as a source of factual data, despite the claims made by Evans that nothing in that work can be trusted due to Irving's alleged falsification of documentary sources.

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Re: Books by David Irving

#182

Post by Orwell1984 » 16 Jul 2012, 06:01

michael mills wrote:
You have no idea how Kershaw used Irving's work
I most certainly do, since I have read the book by Kershaw. Perhaps you should refrain from making libellous accusations in support of your own agenda, whatever it may be.

Kershaw used Irving's work as a source of data, in this case material from the Hewel diary which Irving had quoted in "Hitler's War".

His use of data from "Hitler's War" is confirmation that Irving's books do contain reliable factual material, regardless of Irving's specific interpretations. It shows that reputable historians continue to use Irving's work as a source of factual data, despite the claims made by Evans that nothing in that work can be trusted due to Irving's alleged falsification of documentary sources.
So your real name is Ian Kershaw? Pleased to meet you Mr. Kershaw. I've enjoyed your works
Your bluster is very amusing as is your view of libel. You're obviously not a lawyer.
Again it is you who are placing the determination of how "reliable" Mr Kershaw found Irving's work, which is the crux of the matter.


michael mills
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Re: Books by David Irving

#183

Post by michael mills » 16 Jul 2012, 06:19

Obviously Sir Ian Kershaw found that Irving had used material from the Hewel diary in a correct manner in "Hitler's War", otherwise he would not have quoted that book as a source for that material.

In his text, Sir Ian Kershaw used material from the Hewel diary, and cited three sources for that material:

1. Institut für Zeitgeschichte (the diary itself)
2. Irving's "Hitler's War"
3. His own book on Hitler.

If he had considered that all the material in Irving's "Hitler's War" was falsified to some extent, as claimed by Evans, then he would not have cited that book at all.

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Zebedee
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Re: Books by David Irving

#184

Post by Zebedee » 16 Jul 2012, 08:53

michael mills wrote:Obviously Sir Ian Kershaw found that Irving had used material from the Hewel diary in a correct manner in "Hitler's War", otherwise he would not have quoted that book as a source for that material.

In his text, Sir Ian Kershaw used material from the Hewel diary, and cited three sources for that material:

1. Institut für Zeitgeschichte (the diary itself)
2. Irving's "Hitler's War"
3. His own book on Hitler.

If he had considered that all the material in Irving's "Hitler's War" was falsified to some extent, as claimed by Evans, then he would not have cited that book at all.
That's not what Evans said. And it's fairly amusing that Kershaw has also gone to find the original to doublecheck.

As Evans did write, in the conclusion of his report in the libel trial, "Not one of his books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject. All of them are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about."

Kershaw going to find the original mentioned by Irving, because Irving cannot be relied upon to accurately represent what he is quoting from, is exactly what Evans meant.

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Re: Books by David Irving

#185

Post by Boby » 16 Jul 2012, 09:58

Not one of his books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject. All of them are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about."
Richard J. Evans is a charlatan.

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Zebedee
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Re: Books by David Irving

#186

Post by Zebedee » 16 Jul 2012, 11:28

Boby wrote: Richard J. Evans is a charlatan.
Whatever he is, we should, at least, be accurate in how we represent Evans' stated professional opinion of the worth of Irving's works rather than making unsubstantiated misrepresentations about those opinions. Otherwise, people may feel that there are certain personal belief sets influencing yet another thread about Irving. And that would be unfortunate in a forum dedicated to truth and accuracy. Truth and accuracy which are, all too frequently, lacking in Irving's works.

It's a very low bar when we applaud a historian for quoting from a primary source without distorting, misrepresenting or blatantly lying about what it says.

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Re: Books by David Irving

#187

Post by Boby » 16 Jul 2012, 11:50

The problem is that Irving's books were investigated in search for "manipulations, distortions and misrepresentations". For my knowledge, this doesn't happened before and I doubt will happened again. So, it was an absolutely exceptional situation for a historian to see his works analyzed beyoned typical 2-3 pages comentary in "peer-reviewed" journals.

It is simply nonsense to take Irving books as completely unreliable just because some minor errors/misrepresentations/partially distorted evidence. All historians worked in this manner.

If you take the patience to search for every footnote of Evans works (or Kershaw, or other historians) you will find a lot of the same.

One has to check carefully when quoting historians. Irving is not an isolated example. I know of people blindly follows whatever comes from Kershaw, Evans or Tooze. But that happened because 95% of general readers are ignoramus of primary sources and literature.

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Zebedee
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Re: Books by David Irving

#188

Post by Zebedee » 16 Jul 2012, 12:24

The unusual thing in Irving's case was that he was the one who brought forth his works for such scrutiny. He claimed that he was just incompetent rather than dishonest. The judge disagreed. On appeal, a further three judges disagreed with Irving's contention that he just made a lot of unfortunate errors.

There is a huge difference between human error and deliberately falsifying, misrepresenting or distorting based on personal bias or political beliefs. Many historians get caught with the former - they issue errata and move on. Irving, on the other hand, is one who has been found to be perpetrating the latter.

Of course, one should check where possible sources before taking something as completely accurate and correct. When one is facing a historical writer who has been found guilty of deliberately making errors so as to mislead, distort and falsify the historical record, how much more so is that true?

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Re: Books by David Irving

#189

Post by Boby » 16 Jul 2012, 12:38

Irving, on the other hand, is one who has been found to be perpetrating the latter.
And this is the crucial point: how we know that historians are honest without knowing if they used sources in an appropiate manner? Who would take the huge task of searching for every source?

The answer is: no one.

But I don't think Irving distortions are so great. Some claimed "falsifications" are in fact just different opinions of historical events.

I might add that Evans was well-paid for his report: £250,000. Hardly a "neutral" expert!

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Zebedee
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Re: Books by David Irving

#190

Post by Zebedee » 16 Jul 2012, 13:18

Boby wrote: And this is the crucial point: how we know that historians are honest without knowing if they used sources in an appropiate manner? Who would take the huge task of searching for every source?

The answer is: no one.

But I don't think Irving distortions are so great. Some claimed "falsifications" are in fact just different opinions of historical events.

I might add that Evans was well-paid for his report: £250,000. Hardly a "neutral" expert!
You may not appreciate the role of the neutral expert in a British court Boby. The expert is answerable solely to the court. If he'd found that Irving had made honest mistakes, he was duty bound to write a report which said that. His professional judgement and standing was placed on the line. In fact, as costs were awarded against Irving, he should have been paid by Irving for the report, but sadly Irving wrote a cheque which he could not cash and I believe that Evans was paid by Penguin's insurers instead. I've no idea whether your figure is correct I'm afraid, but I'll take it on trust :)

As someone who reads a lot of academic articles and part of the 5%, I'd imagine it's something of a rhetorical question that you're asking about how errors and mistakes are picked up? Even using Irving as an example, one can look at peer reviews of his work which highlight problematic aspects of his use of archival sources (where they could be identified of course) dating back to his first works. It's part of the peer review process.

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Takao
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Re: Books by David Irving

#191

Post by Takao » 16 Jul 2012, 14:19

Not being familiar with the British court system, I was under the impression that Evans was a expert witness for the defense(Lipstadt), as such, would he be paid by the defense(only to be paid by the plantiff if he is ordered to pay court costs - which Irving was) and expected to present a report that would be favorable to the defense(I mean Lipstadt would not hire a neo-nazi to write a report to support her defense, nor would Lipstadt use a report that would harm her case rather than help it)?

Still, regardless of Evans's "neutrality", if his report erroneous it would have been easily proven in court, however, such was not the case, and the report, IIRC, held up fairly well under cross-examination.

michael mills
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Re: Books by David Irving

#192

Post by michael mills » 16 Jul 2012, 14:27

Zebedee, the real issue is why Kershaw cited Irving as a source at all.

Obviously he would not have used Irving's book "Hitler's War" as a source of data if he had agreed with Evans' claim that "all of [Irving's books] are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about".

Note that the book by Kershaw was published in 2007, well after the conclusion of Irving's court action against Penguin, in the course of which Evans made his aggressive claim.
Kershaw going to find the original mentioned by Irving, because Irving cannot be relied upon to accurately represent what he is quoting from, is exactly what Evans meant.
If that is what Kershaw did, then he must have discovered that Irving had accurately represented the particular passage from the Hewel diary that he (Kershaw) was using in his text. Since Irving had accurately represented the Hewel diary, and had not falsified it, that proves that Evans' claim about Irving's work was grossly exaggerated, probably maliciously so.

But the bottom line is that several years after Evans made his pathologically hostile claims about Irving's work, respected historians such as Sir Ian Kershaw are still using that work as a source of data, which means that they do not agree with Evans that "not a sentence in it can be trusted".

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LWD
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Re: Books by David Irving

#193

Post by LWD » 16 Jul 2012, 14:57

michael mills wrote:Zebedee, the real issue is why Kershaw cited Irving as a source at all.
Indeed.
Obviously he would not have used Irving's book "Hitler's War" as a source of data if he had agreed with Evans' claim that "all of [Irving's books] are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about".
Leaving asside the question of the accuracy of Evans' claims you are not correct. If he checked Irving's work to see what he had to say about the matter then he needed to site it. Indeed if we look at:
michael mills wrote:... In his text, Sir Ian Kershaw used material from the Hewel diary, and cited three sources for that material:

1. Institut für Zeitgeschichte (the diary itself)
2. Irving's "Hitler's War"
3. His own book on Hitler. ...
The fact that he double checked it with the source is somewhat telling and of course does not support the contentions you made. i.e.
michael mills wrote:Obviously Sir Ian Kershaw found that Irving had used material from the Hewel diary in a correct manner in "Hitler's War", otherwise he would not have quoted that book as a source for that material.
...
If he had considered that all the material in Irving's "Hitler's War" was falsified to some extent, as claimed by Evans, then he would not have cited that book at all.
Kershaw going to find the original mentioned by Irving, because Irving cannot be relied upon to accurately represent what he is quoting from, is exactly what Evans meant.
If that is what Kershaw did, then he must have discovered that Irving had accurately represented the particular passage from the Hewel diary that he (Kershaw) was using in his text. Since Irving had accurately represented the Hewel diary, and had not falsified it, that proves that Evans' claim about Irving's work was grossly exaggerated, probably maliciously so.
Again you assume things well beyond the evidence. The problem with Irving's work is not that all of it is wrong it is that you can't trust it unless you double check it. The above usage is completely consistent with that evaluation of Irving.
But the bottom line is that several years after Evans made his pathologically hostile claims about Irving's work, respected historians such as Sir Ian Kershaw are still using that work as a source of data, which means that they do not agree with Evans that "not a sentence in it can be trusted".
Or not.

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Re: Books by David Irving

#194

Post by Zebedee » 16 Jul 2012, 19:41

Takao wrote:Not being familiar with the British court system, I was under the impression that Evans was a expert witness for the defense(Lipstadt), as such, would he be paid by the defense(only to be paid by the plantiff if he is ordered to pay court costs - which Irving was) and expected to present a report that would be favorable to the defense(I mean Lipstadt would not hire a neo-nazi to write a report to support her defense, nor would Lipstadt use a report that would harm her case rather than help it)?

Still, regardless of Evans's "neutrality", if his report erroneous it would have been easily proven in court, however, such was not the case, and the report, IIRC, held up fairly well under cross-examination.
Hi Takao,

the report itself sets out the criteria under which the expert witness system functions in the UK.
In reaching this conclusion, I have understood that my overriding duty is to the
Court. My paramount obligation, as I have been advised by my Instructing
Solicitors, is to assist the Court on all matters within my expertise regardless of
whom my instructions are from and who is paying my fees. I confirm that this
report is impartial, objective and unbiased and has been produced independently
of the exigencies of this litigation. I believe that the facts I have stated in
this report are true and that the opinions I have expressed are correct.
The report may be found in full here. As you say, the expert witness is tested in court under the adversarial system by both sides. In a libel case here in Britain, it is fairly standard for the loser to pay costs so Evans would have been assured of being paid regardless of the outcome. Once commissioned, the report could not be hidden away if it presented findings that did not agree with Lipstadt's 'but it's true' defence.

----

michael - I'm afraid I agree with LWD. Your reading of Irving being cited seems a little at odds with a nod in his direction for providing the steer to a source and then a check of Irving's homework. And that is, in essence, the problem one is presented with when reading a work by Irving; namely, trust.

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Re: Books by David Irving

#195

Post by JamesL » 17 Jul 2012, 02:44

Zebedee - thank you for the link. I am going through the report now.

I did come across a comment I found interesting.

"I was startled to find that the 1991 edition of Hitler’s War can only be read at the desk in the Rare Books Room of the British Library that is reserved for literature deemed by the Library to be pornographic." Section 1.5.4.

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