Historians of cultural identities have to be particularly cautious in their use of historical sources. Explore this statement in relation to autobiographies.
In the study of history it is always extremely important to scrutinise a source with the utmost care. This is especially true when examining autobiographies. Autobiographies can give an extremely useful insight into a historical subject. For example Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' would be extremely useful for a historian of cultural identities studying Nazism to gain an insight into Hitler's beliefs. But it is now widely accepted that much of the information contained in Hitler's autobiography was inaccurate. This illustrates the need for such caution when using the genre, but also this reflects the presence of advantages and disadvantages to the use of autobiographies. Both should be taken into account.
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