The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Popular Historians…

You may well recognize some of the following seven habits (though not in your own work, of course)…

1. Proactively ferret out all the tenuously-related marginal evidence you can which doesn’t quite contradict your book’s eye-catching historical headline (i.e. “Nostradamus – Leonardo’s grandson?”, etc). That’ll do nicely for Chapters 3 to 10!
2. Construct the cover and the final chapter of your soon-to-be-bestselling book before doing any actual research. Sinking such a high level of personal investment into your project should inspire you all the more to dig up a sufficiently impressive mass of wobbly evidence to support that doesn’t refute your basic claim.
3. Always remember that The End Justifies The Means… or rather that Your Book’s Conclusion Should Be Sufficiently Head-Turning That It Obviously Justifies Assembling Such A Shabby Dossier Of So-Called Evidence To Kind-Of Support It. (Publishers seem to like this kind of determination.)
4. Always think “Lose/Lose“. That is, if you cannot get around a single key piece of evidence (or indeed a single determined opponent) that is widely accepted as being solid, find ways to undermine the applicability or reliability of that evidence / person. You lose the problem, others lose the certainty – easy!
5. Never try to understand historical figures in context – people always do things for selfish / hidden agendas, and so can only sensibly be grasped as part of a conspiracy on one level or another. The only person in history without an agenda (not even for selling such a pup) is you! Oh, and if you repeat this mad mantra enough times in a row, you will start to believe it!
6. Look to other nonsensical books in broadly the same historical timeframe for examples of badly drawn arguments and aggressively misinterpreted non-evidence that you can adapt to your own needs. And don’t forget von Daniken, he’s the master!
7. Once you’ve published your broadly-workable argument (however questionable), move swiftly on to the next big book without so much as a glance over your shoulder. For example, once you’ve claimed that the Chinese navy sailed through a tiny dry canal to reach Europe, move onto how it was that the Chinese navy discovered America long before Columbus (if not the Vikings, etc). In fact, might it have been Chinese settlers who killed the Vikings? Wow, now you’re really getting the hang of this, well done!

Hmmm… is it merely a coincidence that this seems to echo how the ‘dodgy dossier‘ on Iraq’s WMD was apparently constructed, with (as some believe) poor old Dr David Kelly on the receiving end of Habit #4’s “Lose/Lose”?