Historians/History

Mr. Hitchens's Revisionism of His Own History

by Sean Wilentz

In his interview with the right-wing web magazine FrontPageMag.com, re-posted on HNN, Christopher Hitchens claims that his moment of truth about Islamic fascism arrived in 1989, and that by September 11, 2001, he had fully come to "[t]he realization that American power could and should be used for the defense of pluralism." He then says that after seeing the World Trade Center atrocities on television, he was exhilarated: "

Critics Comment on Bellesiles's Defense

by James Lindgren, Jerome Sternstein, Clayton Cramer

Bellesiles’s Weighed in an Even Balance suffers from the same problem that Arming America did: he seems to have a problem reading simple English and understanding it.  Unfortunately, it is Bellesiles’s own writing now that he misreads, not historical documents.  Oddly, Bellesiles repeatedly quotes his critics—but fails to cite where these criticisms appeared

Response to My Critics

by Michael Bellesiles

On December 18, 2003 Soft Skull Press is publishing a revised and corrected edition of Michael Bellesiles's Arming America. In advance of publication the publisher released to the media a pamphlet by Bellesiles which summarizes his response to his critics. The title of the pamphlet, Weighed in an Even

The Holocaust Few Remember

by Ruth Rosen

IMAGINE IF a producer from National Public Radio invited a scholar to speak about his new book on the Jewish Holocaust and then, to provide "balance," included another guest known for denying that the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews. Inconceivable, right? Yet this is analogous to what happened to Peter Balakian, a professor of American Studies at Colgate University and author of The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response (HarperColli

Turning Reagan into a Monument Is Only Going to Hurt the Conservative Cause

by Phillip Payne

Recently there has been a public flap, first reported in the New York Times but subsequently receiving a great deal of attention, over the CBS "biopic" called "The Reagans" that portrays the lives of the former president and first lady. Conservatives protest that the made-for-television movie is unfairly biased against Reagan. In the face of these protests CBS decided air the movie on cable rather than on its primary channel, causing liberals to denounce CB

Airbrushing History in the Ukraine

by Shlomo Avineri

Drohobycz, or Drogobitsh, is a pretty town in western Ukraine, with a population of ca. 100,000. Until 1772 it was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; then, until 1918, it was part of the Habsburg Empire. Between 1918-39 it was part of newly independent Poland; in 1939, and again in 1945, it was annexed to the Soviet Union. After the dissolution of the USSR in 1990 it became part of

I Was Borked

by Daniel Pipes

In the months since President Bush nominated me to the board of the United States Institute of Peace, confirmation etiquette has obliged me not to talk about my nomination. I thus found myself having to remain mute as opponents said what they would about me. For five months, I quietly endured Sen. Edward Kennedy borking me as someone not "committed to bridging differences and bringing peace" and a Washington Post editorial criticizing me as "a destroyer&

The Historian Who Sold Out

by Thomas Fleming

With historians heavily involved in either defending or damning the war in Iraq, it might be good time to ponder the case of Viscount James Bryce, the historian who sold out. From the start of World War I, stories of German atrocities filled British and American newspapers. Most emanated from the German march through Belgium to outflank French defenses in their drive on Paris. Eyewitnesses described infantrymen spearing Belgian babies on their bayonets as the

The Year When We Got Caught

by Ralph Luker

Frankly, it’s been a dreadful year for historians -- the year when we got caught. It wasn’t the year when we first erred. Like Trent Lott, we had been doing it for years. It wasn’t even as though anything we did was unprecedented. All of us who were tagged in 2002 were benched for doing, writing, or saying things we’d seen others do, sometimes much better than we did. Yet, more of us seemed to get caught doing them -- some of us rather

What Is Knopf Waiting For?

by Jerome Sternstein

Early in 2002, Jane Garrett, Michael Bellesiles's editor at Alfred A. Knopf, told Danny Postel of the Chronicle of Higher Education that the publisher "stands behind" Arming America despite everything the book's critics had to say about its scholarly failings. "I realize that he made some errors," Garrett admitted, "but they certainly were not made intentionally. They were the result of some over-quick research," she said,

Letter in Support of KC Johnson

HNN: The Case of KC JohnsonMedia coverageRobert David"KC" Johnson:"Why I Was Denied Tenure"

The Sandbagging of Robert "KC" Johnson

by Ronald Radosh

HNN: The Case of KC JohnsonMedia coverageRobert David"KC" Johnson:"Why I Was Denied Tenure"

Bellesiles: Did the Emory Committee Deliberately Try to Avoid Culpability?

by Evan Stephenson

Emory University's specially selected "Investigative Committee in the Matter of Michael Bellesiles" has released its report. Bellesiles has responded. Although much has been made of the report's critical treatment of Bellesiles's work, especially by Bellesiles himself, in truth the committee has effectively sided with Bellesiles on the only issue that really mattered: whether the widely discussed mistakes in Arming American: The Origins of a National Gun Cul

Shooting the Messenger: Jon Wiener on Arming America

by Jerome Sternstein

Jon Wiener's recent brief for the defense of Arming America, "Fire at Will", in the Nation, fits into a larger pattern originally pioneered in this case by the subject of the inquiry himself, Michael Bellesiles. It's called "Shooting the Messenger," a tactic invariably employed by politicians who find themselves under indictment for fraud or corruption. Rather than confront the evidence of their wrongdoing, they lash out, claiming that t

Bellesiles is Gone--The Problem Lingers

by John G. Fought

In "Shanghai Express," Marlene Dietrich, as Lily, reflects that "It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily." So it is with scholarly misconduct: Michael Bellesiles didn't make his name by himself. Supported by generous subsidies over recent years, he wrote a work well calculated to appeal to a special audience defined by a particular cluster of beliefs. Now he and Emory University have parted at last, with no admission of guilt from

Remaining Questions Concerning Michael Bellesiles

by HNN Staff

 Will Columbia University's Bancroft Committee rescind its award to Arming America? ANSWER: YES Will the Organization of American Historians rescind the Binkley-Stephenson award, given to Bellesiles for his 1996 article on America's gun culture, which appeared in the Journal of American History. ANSWER: UNKNOWN Will Knopf withdraw Arming America from bookstores? (Will Knopf publish a new edition of Ar

Waiting for Emory

by Jerome Sternstein

To find out about the latest deveopments in the Bellesiles case click here.In early June, a journalist working for a pro-gun organization interviewed an unnamed professor at Emory University who reportedly was closely following the institution's investigation into the allegations of academic fraud and misconduct leveled against Michael Bellesiles's research in his award-winning book Arming America.

Select Errors in Michael Bellesiles's Arming America

by James Lindgren

 

Fall From Grace: Arming America and the Bellesiles Scandal (Part 2)

by James Lindgren

 

Fall From Grace: Arming America and the Bellesiles Scandal (Part 1)

by James Lindgren