2002: June to September
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SEPTEMBER 2002
WHEN THE NYT BOOK REVIEW SLAMS YOUR BOOK
Do the editors of the New York Times Book Review ever make a mistake?
Evidence surfaced two years ago that they do on occasion. As many will recall,
they published a glowing review by GARRY WILLS of MICHAEL BELLESILES'S
Arming America. "Bellesiles," wrote Wills, "deflates
the myth of the self-reliant and self-armed virtuous yeoman of the Revolutionary
militias." Two years later almost no one believes that any more, including
Wills, we have heard.
Garry Wills, to be sure, was not the only historian to be taken in by Bellesiles's
elegant prose. So were luminaries like EDMUND S. MORGAN. But Wills was
a rather poor choice as a reviewer. As has recently been brought to the attention
of HISTORY GRAPEVINE, Wills was not in a position to write an unbiased
review of a controversial book: the year before in one of his own books he had
cited Bellesiles's contentious work on guns. In A Necessary Evil (1999)
Wills, referring to an article Bellesiles had written for the Journal of
American History, wrote admiringly of Bellesiles's probate research, calling
it "one of the most important (but neglected) studies of the colonial frontier."
Of course it is that probate research that eventually was to come under withering
attack, leading to Bellesiles's downfall. Wills could not indict the probate
research without issuing an arrest warrant for himself. Wills plainly believed
the research. But because he had cited it already he was not prepared to raise
questions about it, though the numbers Bellesiles reported were both shocking
and counterintuitive. Only 14 percent of the white males in in the western sectors
of New England and Pennsylvania owned guns? And "54 percent of those guns
were broken or unusable"? Numbers like these cried out for skepticism.
More recently, the Times's editors chose SYLVIA
NASAR, to review
a new U.S. history textbook written by PAULINE MAIER, MERRITT ROE SMITH,
ALEXANDER KEYSSAR, and DANIEL J. KEVLES. This in itself was unusual.
Ms. Nasar is not a historian and has never written a history book. She is primarily
known as the author of a fine biography, A Beautiful Mind, the book that
made the economist John Nash as famous (briefly) as Michael Jackson. Currently,
she holds the Knight Chair in Journalism at Columbia University. Previously,
she was an economics reporter at the Times. She is said to be writing
a book about 20th century economic thinkers.
But what was most unusual was Ms. Nasar's point of view. In her review of the book, Inventing America, she took the authors to task for allegedly taking a "dismissive attitude toward the nuts and bolts of business," assigning "little importance to markets, property rights or the profit motive." She even accused the authors of failing to understand that "profit might play a role in motivating innovators to bring their inventions to market." In short, she concluded, "the authors lack compelling explanations of why America has produced so much innovation and growth since 1870 and why so many other societies haven't."
Really was the book that bad? Worse. Inventing America was no better than the mediocre textbooks Frances Fitzgerald exposed to public ridicule two decades ago, Nasar added. It hasn't "broken the mold."
The review, we are told, has drawn a great deal of criticism. But two weeks later the NYT still has yet to publish a single letter expressive of that view, though the textbook authors have been told their letter will be posted. Not willing to wait, HISTORY GRAPEVINE asked them to supply us with a copy and they did. You can read it by clicking here. We've also included another letter written by LOUIS A. FERLEGER, professor of History, Boston University, which was also sent to the Times.
(Disclosure: Pauline Maier is a member of the Advisory Board of HNN. We contacted her about the review. She did not contact us.)
AT LONG LAST ... A BESTSELLER
EDMUND S. MORGAN has arrived. After writing more than a dozen books, many of which received the highest prizes the historical profession can bestow, he has finally, nearing age ninety, hit the bestseller list, for the first time. This past week his new biography of Benjamin Franklin hit number six on the Washington Post list. The NYT, his publicist informed us, is running an editorial drawing on Morgan's Franklin book. Morgan has already taped an interview with Robert Siegel on NPR's "All Things Considered." In October will come the coup de grace: an appearance on Charlie Rose.
THE OLD LIONS ARE STILL ROARING
The conventional wisdom is that people in the sciences tend to excel in their
early years, people in history in their older years. The conventional wisdom
about the conventional wisdom of course is that the conventional wisdom is usually
wrong (Confession: HISTORY GRAPEVINE worries that we may have read that
line somewhere else before; apologies if it has inadvertently been lifted from
someone else.) But perhaps not in this case. Not only is Edmund Morgan still
going strong, so are other octogenarians: BERNARD WEISBERGER has just
written a chapter on Bill Clinton for HENRY GRAFF'S presidential reference
book, as previously reported in HISTORY GRAPEVINE. ROBERT REMINI,
the Jackson biographer, has just been appointed by the Library of Congress to
write a narrative history of the United States House of Representatives. He
tells us he will "have an office in the John W. Kluge Center right next
to John Hope Franklin," yet another historian who continues to work long
past the usual retirement age.
Remini remains one of the profession's most active historians. Just last month
he was invited to the White House to meet with KARL ROVE, a Jackson fan.
Rove, as reported elsewhere on HNN,
believes that George W. Bush is very much like Jackson.
A lot of historians have been sighted at the Bush White House of late. In mid-September
President Bush had DAVID McCULLOUGH over to talk about the Constitution.
The same day Laura Bush met with SUSAN ARMITAGE, a historian from Washington
State University. And you thought just Bill Clinton liked to hang out with intellectuals.
But it is strange. Aren't historians supposed to be liberal? Of course, one can be liberal and still visit the White House. After Susan Armitage finished up with First Lady Laura Bush, she headed up to Capitol Hill to join JOYCE APPLEBY at a press conference demanding that Congress take a vote on war with Iraq.
FINDING: HISTORIANS ARE LIBERAL
Historians are overwhelmingly liberal, according to a new study by David
Horowtiz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture and the American Enterprise
Institute. The study found that "more than 90 percent of the professors
who work in the arts and sciences departments at schools like the University
of Maryland, Brown, Cornell, Stanford, Penn State and Harvard belong to either
Democrat, Green or Working Families parties," according to the Washington
Times. At the University of Colorado at Boulder, for instance, researchers
were able to discover the party affiliations of thirty-nine history professors;
there one was just one Republican. At the University of California at Santa
Barbara the researchers reported that of twenty-nine historians there was just
a single Republican.
Says Horowitz: "The present academic monolith is an offense to the spirit
of free inquiry. The hiring practices that have led to this situation are discriminatory
and illegal. They violate the Constitution, which prevents hiring and firing
on the basis of political ideas and also patronage laws that bar state institutions
from servicing a particular political party."
HEY, THAT'S PRETTY PERSONAL
You might think that liberals would be ganging up on Horowitz. But Horowitz
has found himself under attack by conservatives, and in particular, historian
RICHARD JENSEN. The fight began when Jensen, who runs a popular Internet
mailing list, declined
to publish one of Horowitz's essays. "In my judgment," wrote Jensen,
"it was poorly argued and rhetorically unsuited for our list. ...Horowitz
seems to be arguing that when hiring new faculty it is illegal and unconstitutional
for universities to inquire into the ideas of the candidates. That was not a
well-thought-out argument, in my opinion. He also seems to be confused about
what democracy is all about, and what politicizing a university involves."
Horowitz's response to Jensen's snub:
I can't decide what is more impressive in Professor Jensen's curriculum vitae, his arrogance or his ignorance. In any case it shows us what we're up against and what the counter-attack will be. Forget the witch-hunters and censors are the academic establishment; they have presided over the transformation of the university from an institution dedicated -- in its own words "to the disinterested pursuit of knowledge," to a politicized and intolerant base for the academic left. Whatever we do and whatever we say they are going to accuse us of being the McCarthyites attempting to politicize the university -- and this notwithstanding the fact that like Professor Jensen they do not even understand the principles of liberty and academic freedom they will claim to be defending.
We will not be intimidated by such sleazy responses. Our goal is to open up a closed and discriminatory system to a diversity of viewpoints and to restore the principles of academic freedom to an institution which has violated them.
KUDOS TO THE LA TIMES
Recently, HNN's PHILIP NOBILE criticized the LOS ANGELES TIMES for withholding the list of parallel passages a researcher discovered while reviewing DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN'S book on the Roosevelts. But congratulations are in order for the Times. If you hadn't noticed, the LAT has been publishing great pieces by historians on its op-ed page. STANLEY KUTLER, ARTHUR SCHLESINGER, JR., JOYCE APPLEBY .. all have appeared in the LA Times not the New York Times. Fact is, the LAT seems to be more receptive than the NYT to op eds by historians.
While we're handing out plaudits, NEWSWEEK deserves one for its 9-11 anniversary coverage, which included a four-page spread featuring a 5-way debate among: Appleby, Schlesinger, MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, DAVID LEVERING LEWIS, AND ALAN BRINKLEY. (And just in case anyone thinks that they detect in our coverage an anti-NYT bias, let's put that to rest. We are happy to state plainly: The NYT has been consistently publishing stellar pieces in the Saturday edition of the paper in the section devoted to arts and ideas.)
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY OF THE TOMPAINE.COM AD
You may have seen the ad TomPaine.com featured in support of the historian's petition on war in Iraq. The $20,000 ad appeared in a quarter panel on the op-ed page of the NYT on Tuesday September 17. It almost never made it. At the last minute, just when the ad copy was due--this was on the Friday before the ad was scheduled to run (Friday the 13th!)--Arthur Schlesinger told a TomPaine staffer that he thought the petition was moot now that the president had agreed to go to Congress for a resolution in support of using force against Iraq. As the ad prominently cited Schlesinger, this was a problem. John Moyers, publisher of TomPaine, became worried. Should he withdrew the ad? Appleby argued that the president was still acting like a king, deciding when he would and would not go to Congress, as if it were his decision to make. Moyers, persuaded, decided to rework the ad and publish it. But it was a close call.
JOE ELLIS--RIPPED OFF
In case you missed this HNN Breaking News story ... U.S. News & World Report recently was caught recycling an old Joe Ellis article with a new by-line. The story--on both occasions titled "The First Democrats"--first made print in 2000. Then this summer it popped up again in a special newsstand edition of the magazine on "American Leadership," only this time it was attributed to columnist Michael Barone. A New York writer, recognizing passages that she recalled reading in Ellis's Founding Brothers, figured Barone had copied Ellis. But when she spoke with Barone, he denied knowing anything about the piece. What had happened? "We made a mistake," the magazine's Brian Duffy explained to the New Republic, which reported the story. "The piece should have carried Ellis's byline."
And Ellis thought he was going to be able to slip back into the classroom at Mount Holyoke this fall without attracting attention.
TALK ABOUT MISSING A DEADLINE
We heard this story from a historian who writes for HNN. We had to publish it:
When I began work as a research assistant to a faculty member, I asked what my duties would be. The professor said he had a book project for which he needed research done, and that he had a pending publishing contract so he was anxious to get it done. I then asked how long the project had been on hold. He replied, "Ten years."
Note: To protect the guilty we are withholding the name of both the researcher and the professor. We are happy to report that the book, ten years overdue, is finally finished.
TALK ABOUT BEING CONTROVERSIAL
If we gave out an award for bravery, it would go to Lynn Hunt, the president of the AHA, who daringly shares her controversial views each month in the AHA's newsletter, Perspectives. A few months back she was highly critical of grade inflation. Then she went after the proliferation of historical encyclopedias. She even suggested historians often don't have enough fun. (They are, she says, so preoccupied with career goals that they frequently forget why they were attracted to history in the first place.) But her latest riposte is surely the most incendiary. She has taken on the hallowed institution known as tenure.
She begins by taking note of a disturbing phenomenon: historians on average are older than any other members of the faculty. Then she reminds her readers that many young people with Ph.D.'s in history cannot find jobs--or full-time jobs at any rate. So far, so good. Then comes the zinger: Perhaps we should consider limiting tenure. "Why should our right to work be guaranteed for life," she asks, "rather than [for] 35 or 40 years?" Hunt explains that she is now in her fifties and in no mood to retire any time soon. But "there are reasons for rethinking the tenure system, even beyond the problems created by the abolition of mandatory retirement." Egads! Has she lost her mind? But she presses on:
First, the tenure system is not very friendly to women, especially those women who want to start families. Their childbearing and child-raising years coincide with the very time they are expected to come up with an unassailable tenure dossier. Second, the pressure to defend the tenure system has had its own predictable but nonetheless unfortunate consequences: tenure, once granted, is almost never withdrawn, and as a result, various forms of bad behavior have not only been tolerated but de facto encouraged. The tenure system has fostered a kind of anarchic individualism that has sapped any collective ethos of responsibility.
Hunt ends by pledging her allegiance to the tenure system. "Don't get me wrong. I am not advocating the elimination of tenure." But she does think it needs to be questioned and reworked. Ladies and gentlemen: don't write us. Write Lynn Hunt. (On second thought, if you'd like to write us, please do so. Indeed, we've set up a special page for people who want to comment on Lynn Hunt's suggestions. Click here.)
THE SOPRANOS AND HOWARD ZINN
Everybody is talking about the "Sopranos," the HBO series about the bad mob family that tries to be good. Even historians. The September 29 show featured a scene in which Tony (he's the balding affable mobster) talks with his son A.J. about Christopher Columbus. (Columbus, the mob, Italians--get it?) In A.J.'s hands there's a book. It's HOWARD ZINN'SA People's History of the United States. A.J.'s teacher has told him that Columbus was a Milosovic. If he were alive today, he'd be on trial for crimes against humanity.
Tony: Your teacher said that?
A.J.: It's not just my teacher. It's the truth. It's in my history book!
Tony: So you finally read a book and it's bullshit.
Carmela: Tony!
Tony: Look, get into Columbus's shoes to see what he went through. People
thought the world was flat, for crying out loud. Then he lands on an island
with a bunch of naked savages on it and it took a lot of guts. You remember
when we went to Florida, the heat, and those bugs?
A.J. Like it took guts to murder people and put them in chains?
Carmela: He was a victim of his time.
A.J. Who cares? It's what he did!
Tony: He discovered America is what he did! He was a brave Italian explorer.
And in this house, Christopher Columbus was a hero. End of story!
AUGUST 2002
ON THE SCHLESINGER CHASE
On August 15 ARTHUR SCHLESINGER, JR.., wrote an op ed for the LA Times about preventive war. Almost no one outside the LA area heard about it or read it. Why? If you go on the Internet you can't find it. The website lists letters to the paper about the op ed but not the op ed itself. Strange, we thought. Did the paper decide to pull the op ed? We phoned the online editor to find out. "Sorry," he said. "There's no big story here." Schlesinger -- or an agent acting on his behalf -- simply requested that his op ed not be circulated on the Internet. We were told that other writers as well have exercised this option to restrict the publication of their work to the hard copy edition of the paper.
Eager to get hold of the piece, we visited the Seattle Public Library, located a few blocks from our office. No luck The library, which relies on the U.S. mail, hadn't yet received its copy of the Aug. 15 Times. Come back in September, we were told. September? Yes, the library is closing for the remainder of the month owing to budget cuts.
When we finally did obtain a copy of the article--an LATimes editor kindly emailed it to us--we decided we wanted to publish it on HNN. That meant contacting Mr. Schlesinger for permission. Does Arthur Schlesinger do email, we wondered. No, the historian informed us after we finally reached him by snail mail. "I'm prehistoric," he wryly noted. "I'm only up to fax."
EMORY'S PROBLEM CHILD: MR. BELLESILES
Undoubtedly by now you have heard the news about MICHAEL BELLESILES. He's taking a paid leave for the fall while Emory decides what to do with him.
Emory is in a tough spot. Fire him and officials risk a lawsuit. Keep him and the university gets a black eye. Pay him off and there could be a faculty or student revolt. Understandably, university officials are not eager to talk to the media, which perhaps explains their reluctance to return phone calls from reporters. But why on earth are they maintaining silence about the controversy on the official school website? The last statement on the site referring to the Bellesiles controversy was published at the end of April. This statement revealed that Dean Robert Paul had convened an outside investigation, which was scheduled to be concluded "no later than summer’s end." The only evidence on the site that there's been a new development is a notice in the course catalogue that History 488SWR-002: JR/SR Colloquium: Constitutional Debates: Historical Context (Bellesiles) has been "CANCELED." The only other indication that something is amiss is that Bellesiles is no longer listed in the Online Campus Directory. Type in "Bellesiles" and you get: "No entries found." (Yet he remains listed as a member of the Emory History Department.) Surely the university could provide a simple update. The silence just adds to the mystery, leading to rumors.
THE INTERNET AND BELLESILES
The Bellesiles controversy, now well into its second year, remains a startlingly hot topic. One side effect is that it has succeeded in turning a scholarly monograph published in the Yale Law Review by JAMES LINDGREN into an Internet bestseller. On Friday August 16 blogger Glenn Reynolds published an Acrobat copy of the article--"Fall From Grace: Arming America and the Bellesiles Scandal"--on his heavily-trafficked website, instapundit.com. By the following Wednesday the article, which features 237 footnotes, had been downloaded 55,853 times. As of August 26 the article had "racked up an impressive 82,843 downloads." Notes Reynolds: "By way of comparison, the dead-tree circulation of the Yale Law Journal, where Lindgren's piece appears, is just over 3,300." Has there ever been a scholarly article that received a higher circulation? It may just be that Lindgren's article is the world champ. (Readers of HNN can read a digital version of the article by clicking here.)
FAITH IN DEMOCRACY
Ask Americans who the three greatest presidents were and you get Lincoln, Kennedy, and Reagan. Ugh. As if you needed more evidence that Americans are grossly ignorant of history, right? But cheer up. Our cousins across the sea don't seem any smarter. Recently, the History Channel surveyed 1,000 Britons about history. The shocking conclusion was summed up in a media headline: "Diana's death 'more significant than end of World War II.' " Here was the breakdown: 25% picked Diana's death as the "the most important date in British history"; 12%, England's World Cup victory in 1966; 9%, landing on the Moon; 8%, World War II; 4%, the Falklands War; 2%, the assassination of President Kennedy. And we think Americans "don't know much about history"?
THE HISTORIAN AND MONICA'S BLUE DRESS
So one day HENRY GRAFF calls you up. He's preparing a third edition of The Presidents: A Reference History (Scribners) and he wants you to do the section on Clinton's second term. What do you say? BERNARD WEISBERGER told us his response was a direct, "I don't do pornography." Eventually Weisberger relented, putting him in the position of writing about subjects he'd never imagined he would when he was working on his Ph.D. As he explained to us in an email:
There is no way to avoid making the impeachment and trial the centerpiece--only the second time in U.S. history, after all. And more, there wasn't any way to avoid the sordid detail of the DNA test on the semen-stained blue dress, because it was that which absolutely shot down Clinton's denial of having "had sex with that woman" and forced him into a public confession of an "improper" relationship. I also couldn't completely duck the more lubricious parts of the Starr indictment dealing with exactly who did what to whom. These were of course intended to make the case that what the President might not consider "having sex" would look different to most Americans. I tiptoed around them by saying that the report was explicit about "who had touched what body parts. . .and with what result." Nonetheless, my wife, who had resolutely avoided reading the prurient details during the course of events, reproached me for including the dress, as did a nephew who had worked in the Clinton and Gore campaigns and who felt that a more generalized description would have filled the bill. I must say, I can't think of anything in my experience as a historian that quite approaches this!
Moral of this story: Because the media now write openly about the sex life of politicians, historians will have to as well. Brace yourselves!
HOLLYWOOD AND KENNEDY
Lesson One in getting a contract from Hollywood is to write about a subject like Hitler or Kennedy. Lesson Two is to get yourself a great agent, as EDWARD RENEHAN discovered when he wrote his recent book, The Kennedys at War.
USA Telefilms & Robert Greenwald Productions wanted to option just one chapter of my THE KENNEDYS AT WAR, 1937-1945 (Doubleday, 2002) to use as the basis for their new film about JFK and PT-109. My agent for Hollywood things, Steve Fisher at the Agency for the Performing Arts, was hesitant to break up the package of the book, as he has hopes for marketing the complete film rights in a larger deal elsewhere. Thus, Steve cut a lucrative deal where I serve as Technical Consultant for the new movie, and Robert Greenwald & friends can in turn rely on my understanding of the facts of the PT 109 affair as the main basis/source for their film.
And how's the experience of being a consultant on a film? So far so good: "I'm frequently on the phone with the scriptwriter, Eric Carlson, who chats me up with questions all the time. I've critiqued the synopsis and will shortly, once the writing is done, be critiquing the screenplay which, as part of the deal, is largely based on my interpretation of the 109 affair."
CELEBRITY HISTORIANS
For years LARRY GOODSON worked in the shadows of academe. Few had heard of him. Then came 9-11 and suddenly Goodson, author of Afghanistan's Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban, a book which had languished in obscurity, suddenly became a media star. This year's star, hands down, is Harvard Ph.D. DANIEL PIPES, the director of the Middle East Forum. Though he had been visible in the media for years, this year he has become mediabiquitous, appearing on Fox, CNN, and virtually every other news channel. He even has a new book coming out: Militant Islam Reaches America. The book will be published 9-11.
So while the profile of some celebrity historians declines--Ambrose, Goodwin, Ellis--the profile of others increases.
Measured by financial success, one celebrity historian stands heads and shoulders above all the rest: SIMON SCHAMA. In August it was announced that he had signed a $4.5 million multimedia deal that includes three books and two TV series. Said Simon. a professor of art history at Columbia University: "Obviously I am delighted to have the money. I will be spending it on my children's college education." Simon is British. He became a celebrity when he hosted the television series, "A History of Britain."
JULY 2002
THE BELLESILES RUMOR MILL
In the absence of hard information about the outcome of the investigation of MICHAEL BELLESILES, wild rumors have begun to circulate. Few seem to believe that Bellesiles will get off scot-free. That, considering the wealth of evidence against him, is considered highly unlikely by almost everybody, friend and foe. But in recent days his critics have begun to believe, on the basis of unconfirmable second- and third-hand reports, that Emory may cut a deal allowing him to leave the university at full pay until he reaches retirement if he promises not to sue. It is said that he may even have an offer to continue teaching at a university in Scotland.
GRAPEVINE finds it hard to believe that Emory would consent to such an arrangement. Mr. Bellesiles is still a relatively young man. The university would find itself on the hook for years. Over and above the cost of the arrangement, it would look terrible, as if a university would rather pay to hide the truth than confront it openly and take the consequences, come what may. Unfortunately, the truth remains unknown as neither Bellesiles nor Emory are talking.
House Policy: GRAPEVINE does not normally report on rumors. But when they popped up on Glenn Reynolds's heavily-trafficked website, instapundit, we felt obliged to let HNN readers in on the scuttlebutt. Admittedly this is murky territory and we have qualms about our decision. Is there really a difference between circulating a rumor (not Kosher) and reporting on one (maybe Kosher)? We find ourselves in somewhat the same fix as NBC and other media outlets during the Monica Lewinsky affair when Matt Drudge would report rumors that then became so widely circulated it was impossible to ignore them. At least this time sex has nothing to do with anything.
THE HISTORY BOOK CLUB
How does someone get the opportunity to write a review for the History Book Club? That was what we wondered so we asked ELLEN CAROL DUBOIS who has recently had the honor."It's a pretty simple story," she told us."Eric Foner used to serve as a reviewer for the book club and when he decided he didn't want to do it anymore, he suggested me for the job. I read manuscripts for them and let them know whether I think they should offer particular titles on their list. They -- and their parent company the Book Club of America -- have always relied on"expert" consultants. If you suggest a book would be good for them to offer, often they ask you then to write a review."
Now you know.
SO WHERE DO YOU STAND ON GUN CONTROL?
In the 1960s one of the hot-button questions historians asked was whether you had to be black to be qualified to teach African-American history. Today the hot button question is whether a historian can write about guns if he/she has taken a public position on the issue of gun control. Judging by the number of historians who have publicly distanced themselves from either side in the debate, the consensus seems to be: maybe not. The latest historian to take the position that he has no public position is Stanford's JACK RAKOVE. When he was accused by NORMAN HEATH on H-Net of having defended current gun-control laws, Professor Rakove responded:
I have to protest to Norman Heath that I have neither defended nor criticized any contemporary gun laws, but simply tried to look at the use of evidence and the underlying assumptions about its interpretation in the ongoing debate about the original meaning of the Second Amendment. If I have a"policy preference" on gun control, maybe Heath can tell me what it is; I've never written about it, and have no special expertise to bring to bear on the subject. My analysis of the 2A simply applies the same"methodology" of originalism that I developed in Original Meanings, which means, among other things, that it focuses tightly on questions surrounding the actual framing of the amendment in 1789, something that I still believe advocates of the individual right interpretation have some problems coming to terms with.
For the record, even Michael Bellesiles has said that he has no public position on gun-control laws. Contrary to what people might think, he said he happens to like guns and likes to shoot them.
DAVID HOROWITZ: CAUSING TROUBLE (Again)
DAVID HOROWITZ, the erstwhile left-winger who became a right-winger, loves controversy. Last year he published ads in student newspapers across the country attacking the proposal to pay reparations to African-Americans. Now he is attacking communist fellow-travellers who defended Stalinism. In an article republished in this magazine he charged that intellectuals"everywhere" (quoting MARTIN AMIS) fell for the lie that the Soviet Union was a socialist republic. Among the intellectuals whom Horowitz includes in this group were the editors of magazines like the Nation and the Village Voice and -- and this is why you are reading about this on GRAPEVINE --"the heads of the American Historical Association, [and] the Organization of American Historians." All of these leaders, says Horowitz,"were either apostles of this lie in its own time, or are apostles of the same utopian idea that gave it birth, along with the same anti-capitalist, anti-American social analyses and the same anti-Western, anti-American historical narratives that produced the lies and their attendant atrocities in the first place."
Curious why he had included the leaders of the AHA and the OAH on his
list, we asked. Writing back, he named names. Although unsure if they were
still president of the organizations (they aren't), he confidently
asserted that both had communist ties. A former head of the AHA came"from
a family of Communists, was a
Maoist in the Sixties and is also an
unreconstructed leftist." A former head of the OAH"was a Communist and is
an unreconstructed and unapologetic leftist."
We are declining to identify the people he named.
NOW THAT'S A MEMORABLE LINE
In passing we thought it worthwhile to quote from a review of Martin Amis's book that appears in Salon.com. The review was written by Charles Taylor and includes a remarkable quotation from ROBERT CONQUEST:
The left's romance with Stalinism ended decisively 30 years ago with the publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. For the true believers, things have only gotten worse. The onset of glasnost in the '80s saw the release of official documents that not only confirmed but exceeded the numbers of dead the historian Robert Conquest had claimed in his 1968 book The Great Terror. When Conquest set about preparing a new edition of the book using those documents (it appeared in 1990 as The Great Terror: A Reassessment), his publisher asked whether he thought a new title would be appropriate."How about, 'I Told You So, You Fucking Fools'?" Conquest responded.
Now that's the way to open a review!
AN H-NET WIT
Recently while reviewing postings on H-Net, we came across the following comment, which was provided by Eugene Feit, during an exchange regarding the topic, Blitzkrieg:
I surrender. I am overcome by your assault on all fronts. Your determined argument is eroding my resolve and I see there is little hope for further resistance. However, even in every beaten army there remain a few isolated points of resistance.
We found Mr. Feit's comment simply delightful. We encourage more historians to try their hand at wit. It's fun.
POWER OUTAGE STRIKES HNN
We try not to report on ourselves in this column, but we thought some of you might want to know why, on at least four occasions, the HNN website was down in the month of July. Well, the first time was owing to human error. But the last three times the power went out in the building housing our server, on at least two occasions because of a fire at a power somethingorother in northern Virginia. We apologize. Steps are now being taken to provide a back-up generator in the unlikely event that this should happen again.
THE SMITHSONIAN AND THE MEDIA
Can the media be trusted to get stories right? A long line of American politicians from Barry Goldwater to Spiro Agnew concluded that the answer is a resounding NO. Some may remember that even Thomas Jefferson expressed his doubts about the truthfulness of newspapers. Now a historian has become a media skeptic. In a piece published in the Chronicle of Higher Education (and reprinted on HNN), PATRICIA NELSON LIMERICK charged that the media badly misrepresented the dispute over the $38 million gift the Reynolds family gave -- and subsequently withdrew -- to the Smithsonian. According to Ms. Limerick, the Reynolds family did not want to control the selection of individuals depicted in the exhibit. Nor did they want to present a one-sided, sunny account of the American past. And the idea of including Martha Stewart in the show was simply a spontaneous comment that was made in the course of an interview with a reporter. So why the media leave the distinct impression that the Reynolds family was trying to sanitize history? Because, says Ms. Limerick,"many journalists took the easy formula, left over from the culture wars, and cast a much more complicated situation in tired old terms."
Strangely, Ms. Limerick lamented, few people seemed to take notice of her defense of the Reynolds family. On HNN it attracted just three comments, far fewer than most controversial pieces.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON, R.I.P.
Pity Alexander Hamilton. While John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers have been the subject recently of both best sellers and television shows, Hamilton has barely drawn any attention at all. But Uppsala University's Max Edling is preparing to remedy matters by organizing conferences to commemorate the upcoming 200th anniversary of Hamilton's fatal duel with Aaron Burr. We wish Mr. Edling well. But we wonder: isn't it odd that the only person who has stepped forward to champion Alexander Hamilton is associated with a university located in Sweden? Is there nobody in America who reveres Hamilton enough to lead this effort from American soil?
WE KNEW IT COULDN'T LAST
Last fall, after SEAN WILENTZ backed aggressive military action against terrorists, the editors of the conservative Weekly Standard put him on their"Surprisingly Good Guys List."That was then. Apparently life in these United States truly has returned to normal. This past week the magazine was back to bashing Wilentz, whom it identified as the person behind an advertorial in 2000 that made"an elementary school dropout's sort of civics boner." (The ad had claimed that Al Gore won a" clear constitutional majority of the popular vote." The magazine pointed out that there is no such"thing as a constitutional majority of the popular vote for president.") Wilentz's latest mistake, according to the Standard? In an op ed in the NYT about Justice Scalia, Wilentz argued that Justice Antonin Scalia had let his religious views color his judicial outlook on the death penalty. Not true, the editors said after reviewing a speech by Scalia that had prompted Wilentz's attack. Wilentz had simply misread Scalia's remarks. According to the Standard, the historian"has a basic-level reading comprehension problem when it comes to America's founding documents -- or any other English-language text, for that matter."
Looks like Sean Wilentz is off the"Surprisingly Good Guys List."
HITLER, CBS AND IAN KERSHAW
IAN KERSHAW is the author of a celebrated biography of Adolf Hitler as a young man. CBS is now doing a miniseries about the life of the young Hitler based on Mr. Kershaw's book for the next sweeps season. This month the NYT's Maureen Dowd, while praising the book, trashed the series in a column titled,"Swastikas for Sweeps." The following day a reader, joining Dowd in criticizing the series, commented harshly that the CBS project"is a sad commentary on the drive for ad revenues." We wanted to find out from Mr. Kershaw what he thought of the TV project and the NYT reader's comment. He responded:"I don't want to reply to the eccentric and incomprehensible opinion you quoted from a letter to the New York Times."
THE REAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN?
The latest flier from the Conservative Book Club features Thomas DiLorenzo's The Real Lincoln. Join the book club and you can get it for just a buck. (Item #5958 Retail $24.95). What we want to know is why the Conservative Book Club--or any book club for that matter--is hyping the book. What's conservative about a book, as the critic for the Claremont Review of Books noted, that claims Lincoln was an enemy of the free market, an enemy of constitutionalism, a"hypocrite on the subject of 'racial equality,'" an unqualified supporter of mercantilism (read: socialism), who believed above all in centralizing power in the federal government?
DiLorenzo's Lincoln is like no Lincoln you've ever heard of before. Why did Lincoln make war on the South? It wasn't to end slavery. He did not care about slavery. His great ambition was to destroy"the constitutional logjam behind which the old Whig economic policy agenda had languished.""Lincoln even mocked the Jeffersonian dictum enshrined in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. He admitted that it had become 'a genuine coin in the political currency of our generation,' but added, 'I am sorry to say that I have never seen two men of whom it is true.'"
As the Claremont reviewer (Thomas Krannawitter) discovered, the quote is bogus. The line about the Declaration attributed to Lincoln was actually drawn from a clergyman writing in a St. Louis newspaper whom Lincoln was mocking. Lincoln actually says that the writer's"extraordinary language" was astonishing, and compares it with"political eccentricities and heresies in South Carolina."
So again we ask: why is a conservative book club hyping this book?
DORIS
Is DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN'S name now mud? Apparently not. Basic Books is still using Goodwin for blurbs. Just a few weeks ago we received a PR release for SAMANTHA POWER'S fine new work, "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide. In the most prominent space on the page was a blurb from Goodwin. ("Some books elegantly record history; some books make history. This book does both.")
TRUCE IN THE CULTURE WARS?
New
York Times Book Review, May 19, 2002:
There may be a truce in the culture wars -- if children's books provide any clue as to what is happening in the country at large. Patriotism, not surprisingly, is a big theme in a number of titles dealing with American history since Sept. 11, and patriotism has a way of healing or, at least, papering over other differences. Perhaps most indicative of this truce is Lynne Cheney's America: A Patriotic Primer -- as notable for its moderate, inclusive tone as for its flag-waving.
Lynne Cheney, Remarks at the National Press Club Speakers Luncheon, July 2, 2002:
I've spent some time recently reading books assigned in undergraduate history courses and in education courses across the nation, and I have come across some pretty surprising ideas, such as the notion that events like the Civil War, long thought significant, really don't matter very much. Union victory might have meant emancipation for African-Americans, one widely used book tells us, but they and working class Americans of every race were subsequently enslaved by capitalism.
Another idea I've encountered is that it is a mistake to study those we think of as leaders ... because doing so perpetrates the myth that [they represent] something important to all of us--and there is nothing important to all of us. Our society consists of different groups with different interests, according to this view, and those who say otherwise are simply trying to make sure that the oppressed stay that way.
Still another idea I've come across is that the American story is a tale of sound and fury that doesn't signify very much. We haven't made progress, according to this thinking, not even in our technology, which we will likely discover doesn't really fulfill our needs. To believe that we have made progress, so this thinking goes, is to be ethnocentric, to fall victim to a myth that the powerful use to keep everybody else in their place.