George,

some people are primary-sources-freaks, and actually I am one of them. In fact, the primary sources provide the scholar, who comes after the events took place, with the information he cannot be acquainted with (as you said). Hovewer, they should not become a totem. First of all, sources which appear to be primary may in fact not be so. Secondly, primary sources may be only limitedly relevant to one's study. Last but not least, primary sources need be located and reached by the scholars. If one lives in Cincinnati and the sources are in Paris, the question arises: to go to Paris, or drop the subject altogether ? The answer is always difficult, and one should decide case by case.

On the other hand, it is the secondary sources which give you the state-of-the-art of your field, and be acquainted with them limits the risk of being repetitive (or making gross blunders). The secondary sources also help evaluating the primary sources, which of course are of uneven importance, and understanding which source is really primary and which is just old (or even contemporary with the events) but does not provide any original material. This of course prevents you from embarking into a painstaking and time-consuming work of critical assessment of the primary sources every time you need them.

Those secondary sources which do not show their sources in a clear way should be taken with a big grain salt or, in the worst cases, be discarded altogether. This helps limiting the problem you mentioned. And cross-checking also helps distinguishing the scholarly works based on primary sources from those recycling sources consulted by others. This helps keeping footnotes shorter, of course.

To sum up the Giorgio-thought on sources, I think one really needs both - primary and secondary. The ratio between primary and secondary sources varies from case to case. The real line is between good and bad, or useless, sources.

All the best,

Giorgio