I am sure this has been discussed before me, but Gaddis' comment on how historians have not heard the actual cannon fire of a battle, nor the voice of Lincoln, struck me as odd because Gaddis mentions very recent events, but fails to speak about the advent of the internet and mass media. Now we can hear Malcom X speak and we can listen to the actual music that filled bars and people's homes during the 1930s. Technology is erasing that safety bubble of detachment from the historian's subject. Gaddis almost seemed to relish the idea that people historians are better than people there at the moment. But as Genovase discovered, people are what make up history and it is people that history is founded upon. People during the moment in time may not be as astute as historians viewing the moment at a later point, but it is through those people that historians get the whole picture.

When I read the book I seemed to get a backlash against those that had criticized Gaddis by saying "You weren't really there, you don't know what it was truly like." And Gaddis I think goes too far in assessing historians'importance and the relative importance of those involved in the moment. With the internet and immense real-live footage available to us, historians might become less detached and become what Gaddis seems to fear most: a biased observer.