Читать книгу Why Rome Fell - Michael Arnheim - Страница 39

There are two disquieting opposite tendencies current among writers on ancient history. One tendency is of undue negativity, what may be called the pooh-pooh mindset, dismissing out of hand ancient evidence, sometimes relating to whole periods. The danger here is that one may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The opposite tendency is one of excessive uncritical acceptance of certain ancient evidence. The danger here is even greater, resulting as it may in a distorted or even completely false image of the period concerned. Though this tendency is the diametric opposite of the pooh-pooh tendency, the two tendencies sometimes coexist, surprisingly enough, even in the works of the same writer.