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Old 12-20-2015, 10:54 AM   #5
issybird
o saeclum infacetum
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FatGuy View Post
I want American and Japanese History ebooks that I can be certain has been verified by a professional publisher so I can read without worrying.
I'm afraid you're out of luck, then. Publishers don't verify the information in the books they publish. If you're lucky, the writer has an editor and a copy editor who know something about the subject and catch egregious errors, but that's not all that likely.

However, at least the traditional publishers aren't publishing books by anyone at all, so there's that assurance. The writer can be assumed to have some competence in his or her field, but even that's not definite. Flimflams and outright hoaxes have been published by the majors. Think of The Education of Little Tree just as one example off the top of my head.

So what you can and should do is check the credentials of an author. But even that's not a certainty; Doris Kearns Goodwin, recommended upthread, is both a Harvard PhD and a plagiarist.
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