Unlocking Global Memory

Theory and method courses in the humanities and social sciences have for many years stressed the importance of the primary source. The best evidence is the original evidence, and oral sources apart, it is documentary. 1 Some of it finds its way into archives where it may become a check, via footnotes, on the ways in which scholars have interpreted events and evolved causal explanations. In its own right it may, with the aid of a scholar’s imagination, pose questions, suggest causes and lead to the evolution of theories.