I would say to show that your source is credible!
Good Day!
The best way to determine the authors point of view when researching for a thesis paper is to think of what he wanted to say by checking the whole paper and perhaps his recent history of publication. This will give you a good idea what did the author mean by some things he wrote.
During the 19th century, Prince Klemens Von Metternich was one of the most hated man in Austria-Hungary and the one responsible for the 1848 Revolution. The words of Prince Metternich meant that the idea of change and reform had already been planted by the French Revolution and it was a matter of time for a new revolution to sprout.