TUG OF WAR, WHO KNOWS BROOKLYN? BY BEN MCGRATH is a very comical argument of whom is a better historian, John Manbeck or Brian Merlis. Neither are not trained in the field nor are seen as official historian by the government or people. However, this does not prevent them from acting as such or fighting about who is superior. Both man show little credentials other then living in the area of Brooklyn and having family ties to it. Both choose to write about objects in Brooklyn that they find interesting in their own opinions  and I quote “I do neighborhoods that aren’t  like, all gentrified, I could come out tomorrow with a ‘Park Slope, Then and Now’ book and make twenty thousand dollars. But no: I did East Flatbush. I’m doing Canarsie.”. History is a very delicate subject, most would say that it is written in stone and therefore is not delicate. However, the flaw in this is erosion, that stone will at one time become sand and anything that was craved on it will do so too. The Great library of Alexandria held the greatest amount of knowledge in the ancient world and in the fire much was lost – important events, locations, technology, documents, manuscripts, logs, maps – all that were taken for granted was gone in an instant. It took years to collate and copy all the work that were in there, some from the last remains of even older texts that were preserved. Only what survives is history that we know of, there will always be the history that was lost or seen as unnecessary. Then there is the history written by the victor, a bias history that shows only one side view of events.

So, here we have two people, who are driven to write about a subject that they have very personalized views on.  Reader may mistake it for real history, however as previously stated, the writers show only what they want. Some readers, who has not read the newspaper article about them, will think about Brooklyn in a every different way than what it is or was.

It is the same as showing only the tops of buildings that are clean and unaffected by people vs showing the sidewalk and the bottom of the building that may be covered in graffiti and garbage. Two sides of the same coin, but one is light and the other is bleak.