Historians should seek to make their writing based on as firm of factual footing as possible and make it clear when they are making an inference due to limitations of the archive. But historians constantly work with material that has factual errors and they do not tend to consider this to be a death sentence for a particular work.
I find that a huge number of people have very strong opinions about how historians work and have never actually spoken to one.
The large bulk of historians I speak to, whether tenured or tenure track or at various different institutions, do not arrive at the same conclusion that you do.
EDIT: We've hit the depth limit but I do not believe that I am more qualified here. I believe that professional historians are and that people should go speak to a bunch of them before developing very strong opinions about historical writing. I do not believe that this is a clubby toxic attitude but instead is valuing expertise and experience.
Historians should seek to make their writing based on as firm of factual footing as possible and make it clear when they are making an inference due to limitations of the archive. But historians constantly work with material that has factual errors and they do not tend to consider this to be a death sentence for a particular work.
I find that a huge number of people have very strong opinions about how historians work and have never actually spoken to one.
The large bulk of historians I speak to, whether tenured or tenure track or at various different institutions, do not arrive at the same conclusion that you do.
EDIT: We've hit the depth limit but I do not believe that I am more qualified here. I believe that professional historians are and that people should go speak to a bunch of them before developing very strong opinions about historical writing. I do not believe that this is a clubby toxic attitude but instead is valuing expertise and experience.