Name redaction prevents the understanding of historical events.

Evidence

History is about individual people doing things—and having things done to them. These people have names. That’s what’s so terrible about name redaction. You have the minutes of a meeting, and a paraphrase of what was said, but the heads are all lopped off. Name redaction is the decapitation of history. — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 920

Categorization

• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 920
• XREF: connects to: CIA redactions in documents often obscure critical information — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 161; Redaction can blur the meaning and impact of documents. — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 795; Secrecy suppresses knowledge, enforcing historical amnesia. — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 1085 (+5 more)

Library Connections

• Secrecy suppresses knowledge, enforcing historical amnesia. #corroborates (0.90) — Nicholson Baker, Baseless- My Search for Secrets in the…, 1085

Broader Connections

• Real history lacks tidy dramatic arcs and tidy causation. #expands (0.75) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 1173
• New theory requires recovering historical events erased from Western historiography #corroborates (0.70)
• Unwritten oral traditions can be destroyed more totally than literate cultures #corroborates (0.55) — , The Rod and the Child, 1479