Source bias begins with what evidence a historian can reach

Bias does not make a source unusable; the danger lies in reading without recognizing it. Tribals, Battles and Darings underrepresents Canadian and Australian ships because COVID prevented access to their primary records. A reader who misses that stated limitation could mistake an archival constraint for a judgment that only British ships mattered. A smaller declared preference also affects evaluation: books that name cruisers and capital ships but reduce destroyers to a bare count receive a lower assessment. The same method applies to Gorshkov: identify audience, purpose, available evidence, preferences, and omissions before accepting the narrative at face value.