ABSTRACT
The historian of the nineteenth century is fortunate in the possession of a system of checks and balances. The richness of his material, compared with the material available for the study of earlier centuries, allows him to compare these main types of material. The value of newspapers is perhaps greater than historians have been willing to admit. The exploration of archives and the search for unpublished material have led to a certain exaggeration of the superiority of archival sources. The reports of diplomatists were often based upon information obtained from sources which are anonymous at all events to the historian of a later generation. The foreign correspondents of the most important European newspapers were often men of greater ability than the members of the diplomatic service; they moved, as a rule, in a wider society and were in a better position to hear news.
