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The Foam at My Mouth ...

Like Jimmy Carter, my friend, Clayton Cramer, is at it again. He asks: Is The History Profession In Deep Trouble? It's a legitimate question, but then he says: "Dr. Ralph Luker started to foam at the mouth a while back because I made it clear that there were serious problems of politicized inaccuracy (I'm being polite) in the profession." Did I foam? Perhaps it was the drool of an aged historian. I'm known in some circles as a slob. Maybe it was slobber. A bit of froth from my beer, perhaps. But thanks for the reminder, Clayton. I'll remember to tidy up for gun-loving Idaho sophisticates.

Just to remind you, I took exception to Cramer's attack on historians like Jonathan Dresner and Greg Robinson for their criticism of Michelle Malkin's dreadful book on Japanese internment, to his sweeping charges against "the vast majority of history professors teaching in the U.S." as not adhering to "professional standards", to his claim that "the Communist Party, USA still has a significant fraction of college professors as members", and to his use of Professor Laurence Tribe's embarrassment on plagiarism charges as evidence of pervasive abandonment of "professional standards" by academic professionals.

I would not foam about these things, except that Brother Cramer makes broadscale accusations like these, without offering convincing evidence, to a substantial public audience. He gives us a clue that his motivation for all this may lie in his resentment of the academic community, which has apparently not renewed his adjuncting contract at Boise State. That M.A. from Sonoma State just doesn't seem to cut it with the boys in Boise any more. But, ahh, sweet vindication now for Clayton when someone with "the right credentials" says "the same thing" Cramer's been saying all along. And so he quotes from Matthew Price's "Hollow History," a review of Peter Hoffer's Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud -- American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin for the Boston Globe:

In his new book, "Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud -- American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin" (PublicAffairs), Hoffer contends that his profession "has fallen into disarray" and aims a polemical blast at his fellow historians for condoning sloppy scholarship and an anything-goes ethical climate.
A specialist in Colonial history and American jurisprudence, Hoffer is a respected scholar whose previous work has generally earned the esteem of his peers. Now, setting himself up as judge, jury, and executioner, Hoffer puts historians in the dock -- and throws the book at them.
"American history," he writes, "is two-faced" -- split between celebratory popularizers who often value rousing narrative over scholarly rigor and academic specialists whose jargon-riddled, often dour monographs ignore the ordinary reader. Meanwhile, Hoffer accuses the American Historical Association (AHA), where he has served as an adviser on plagiarism and a member of its professional standards division, of abdicating its responsibility to enforce basic scholarly principles in both realms.

There is no denying that Hoffer offers a severe indictment of the practice of American history, but he does it with the discipline learned by its professional training. He makes an argument and offers substantiating evidence. There's no hint of post-McCarthyite smear of professors making up a significant part of the CP, USA; there's no generalizing from one embarrassed professor of law at Harvard to the whole academic community; there's no broadscale indictment of "the vast majority of history professors teaching in the U.S." Hoffer would be quick to recognize that Clayton Cramer's labeling Dresner and Robinson a "truth squad" intent on burning Malkin's book is amusing, in light of his own one modest accomplishment, helping to expose Michael Bellesiles's Arming America as a fraud.

Incidentally, my young friend, Andrew Ackerman, who covered the Bellesiles story when he was editor of the Emory Wheel, wasn't impressed by Price's "Hollow History." You can read his criticism of its account of the Bellesiles story at Outside Report. Oh, and the Reporters need to correct their masthead. Andrew's a hobo no more. He's gainfully employed at The Nation. There's a dig to be dug there (hint: what national journal was most supportive of Bellesiles's case long after all was lost?), but the guy needs the job.

But, enough of the big, bad wolf, go over to Mode for Caleb and think with Caleb McDaniel about Perry Miller and "Essays, Pieces, and Posts." It's more nourishing.

Posted on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 at 1:51 AM | Comments (28) | Return

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