Would it be appropriate to cite Winston Churchill as a historian? What is interesting in this case was not only was he actually a participate in history but was a bit of amateur historian as well. Though I'm pretty sure his work on the Second World War had a political agenda to get his name back into politics after being replaced by the Labor Party. Would it be okay to cite any of his work in an academic paper? Or since he is more of an amateur historian, is it something to be avoided? A lot of it is outdated as well but I'm trying to use him as an example of how the West looked down on Poland during the war. I'd love to hear some opinions!
Certainly, one could cite him in an academic paper. However, he is not, strictly speaking, a secondary writer in a lot of cases; his histories of conflicts he was involved in are primary accounts, and indeed, even autobiography. Moreover, I'd be careful making so clear cut a distinction between historian and primary author; especially in the case of many populist writers there is little to set them apart, certainly none of the objective rational analysis based on empirical evidence that one would expect from an academic account (and even here, one should not take academic sources at face value).
Really the thing here to remember, as with any source, is to use it for what it is useful for; very few sources, perhaps even none, will be utterly useless, but some offer things more useful than others. Take Mein Kampf for example; it is of extremely limited usefulness regarding the influence of Jews on German politics in the interwar period (ok, it gives you one view, but it is a very poorly evidenced and illogical view), but it is very good at telling you what Hitler and the great many who thought like him understood the Jewish influence to be.
If you're a history student, then for completeness sake I'd suggest that any subject majorly involving Churchill, you would be amiss to fail to cite the man himself, if only in a historiographical context and to establish the man's own argument (or at least, his later argument).
What if I was trying to use him as an example of figures who helped spread misconceptions relating to the Poles in the September Campaign? So I don't exactly claim he is a historian but a figure that shaped popular opinion? Can anyone recommend any historians that portrayed the Polish army in 1939 in a very negative light in any post war years books? I've already used Liddel Hart.
Certainly this would seem valid. If you're looking for other sources, German propaganda is likely to be a good one. Try looking up some copies of
Signal and see how the Poles were represented in that. As an aside, take a drink every time there is a picture of German troops advancing through a foreign village which has miraculously set itself aflame!
