Some older histories were written by people who had lived in China for years and recorded accounts told to them in conversation. Their methods drew academic suspicion, especially from the late 1950s through the 1970s. Later scholarship has corroborated a number of those accounts. That gives a reason to reconsider material previously dismissed because its collectors were not professional historians. Those confirmations encourage greater confidence in the remaining stories, although that is a judgment about accounts that remain unverified.
Notable Point · 5:46-8:23
Reassessing older narrative histories of China
Later corroboration gives grounds to revisit older histories collected through conversation and encourages greater confidence in accounts that remain unverified.