List of dubious historical resources
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The following is a list of historical resources (often cited as though they were completely historically accurate) that are widely considered to be of questionable historical accuracy.
- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
- The Calendar of Saints (in any edition)
- Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja
- Herodotus
- Histoire de l'Inquisition en France, shown to be a deliberate fabrication
- Historia Regum Britanniae, or History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth
- The Hitler Diaries, which were also a complete forgery
- Holy Blood, Holy Grail, used by Dan Brown as a resource in writing the novel The Da Vinci Code, which itself is dubious.
- The Liber Pontificalis
- Livy's histories of Rome
- Plutarch and other authors whose stated aim is to write exemplary biography
- Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic forgery
- Religious texts (the Bible, Qur'an, etc.), intended to support a particular doctrine
- The Scriptores Historiae Augustae, which some historiographers think was intended as a joke
- Wallace, an epic poem by Blind Harry
Many martial arts are also considered to be associated with fanciful oral histories, some of which have been published as fact. While some material is certainly accurate and factual, there is a great deal of dubious history concerning martial arts. One criticism is textual sources are not cited, which would otherwise allow readers to judge for themselves the reliability of claims.
Also in citing historical resources keep in mind that what may generally regarded as truth by one generation of historians, may become extremely controversial by the next generation, who may not only have more complete facts, but may also be looking at the situation with a different set of historical biases. Case in point, lots of things that have been written about the History of China, in particular the post-Song "decline", anything about Zheng He, the 1911 revolution, the interaction between China and Europe in the 19th century.
See historical revisionism for more discussion of the revision of historical opinion.