Question

Which text is valuable for gaining context about a historical event but is unreliable as "evidence"

Answer 1

textbook

Answer 2

Great question! Although the answer to your question really depends on what you're writing your paper for, the anthology and encyclopedia are very helpful in providing background information but are generally not accepted as credible sources.

Textbooks may also be considered unacceptable evidence, depending on your topic, teacher, and the level of your course. Textbooks are considered tertiary sources, or sources that synthesize and summarize information instead of using primary evidence to support a certain point of view (secondary source) or communicating the point of view of someone who was actually present during a specific time period (primary source). The textbook was an acceptable source during my history coursework in high school and in the introductory classes of my undergraduate work in history. Textbooks or any other tertiary source were no longer considered acceptable in either my upper-level history courses or my graduate courses in history. The same pattern goes for the classes I taught and tutored for while I was working on my graduate degree.

Historical novels can provide some context but it would probably be best to exclude these from your research process. These books are certainly fun to read but the fictionalization tends to get in the way of the historical truths.