ORIGINAL: mdiehl
True, information is lost over time.
Well, yes, but information is also gained, in a sense, over time, at least in the short run.
Consider Samuel Eliot Morrison's stuff. Most of it was researched from 1944 through 1950 by a huge staff. In the interim between the research/publication of the volumes, alot of new primary source material has been uncovered. So, while the information was always there (and potentially slowly being lost), it was never available in any form in the west until much more recently.
Your habit of quoting part of another persons post, removing the originator from the quote, and then repeating the rest of the post as if you would present new
information is one of the reasons I dislike you mdiehl.
You sometimes have really interesting contributions to a topic, but you sadly ruin the value of those contributions by such a behaviour.