Includes bibliographies and index

The present book deals with the different processes involved in writing a good and authentic historical work. Right from the heuristic or the search for reliable and credible historical sources such as archaeological, epigraphical, numismatical, literary, and archival, it brings into relief the important features of analytical operations aimed at ascertaining the credibility of sources by way of external and internal criticism, synthetic operations aimed at finding out a connected, meaningful and, if possible, enlightening account of facts and forces, interpreting them properly, and finally the exposition, in a powerful and impressive style, of the fruits of all this research and thinking.