In my opinion, the article by Nation magazine is similar to Arming America -- it greatly misleads the reader by cherrypicking secondary sources, by selectively quoting from sources and by leaving out major pieces of information which conflict with it's polemical argument.
a) It fails to note Ira Gruber's criticism of Arming America in the January 2002 Williams and Mary Quarterly.
b) The Nation fails to note the primary thrust of the Chronicle of Higher Education's article: to level scathing criticism on the historical community for letting Arming America skate through peer review. See
http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i21/21a01201.htm . Note how The Nation quoted selected sentences from the Chronicle but it did not give it's readers a URL link to the Chronicle's article.
c) The Nation fails to note that Arming America and Bellesiles' other articles were part of a concerted campaign by some historians to overturn the Second Amendment in the US vs Emerson Supreme Court case. It fails to note Bellesiles' personal involvment in that campaign. (See my article at History News Network:
http://historynewsnetwork.org/articles/article.html?id=741 )
The Nation lets Michael Zuckerman, "professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and a prominent Americanist" render the final beneficent judgment on Bellesiles. Note how the Nation fails to inform the reader that Zuckerman was one of 53 professors who joined with Michael Bellesiles in signing the Yassky Brief -- the primary argument submitted by pro-gun control forces in the Supreme Court case US vs Emerson. See http://www.potomac-inc.org/yass.html -- scroll to signers at the bottom .
d) The Nation fails to mention the past six months of criticism leveled at Bellesiles and Arming America in the historians' H-OIEAHC list (See http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lm&list=h-oieahc starting with February. )
e) I posted a number of Bellesiles criticisms at H-OIEAHC but others have as well. Stanford historian Jack Rakove (cited in the Nation article) participated in that discussion but he didn't ,in my opinion, try put up much of a defense of Arming America.
a) It fails to note Ira Gruber's criticism of Arming America in the January 2002 Williams and Mary Quarterly.
b) The Nation fails to note the primary thrust of the Chronicle of Higher Education's article: to level scathing criticism on the historical community for letting Arming America skate through peer review. See
http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i21/21a01201.htm . Note how The Nation quoted selected sentences from the Chronicle but it did not give it's readers a URL link to the Chronicle's article.
c) The Nation fails to note that Arming America and Bellesiles' other articles were part of a concerted campaign by some historians to overturn the Second Amendment in the US vs Emerson Supreme Court case. It fails to note Bellesiles' personal involvment in that campaign. (See my article at History News Network:
http://historynewsnetwork.org/articles/article.html?id=741 )
The Nation lets Michael Zuckerman, "professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and a prominent Americanist" render the final beneficent judgment on Bellesiles. Note how the Nation fails to inform the reader that Zuckerman was one of 53 professors who joined with Michael Bellesiles in signing the Yassky Brief -- the primary argument submitted by pro-gun control forces in the Supreme Court case US vs Emerson. See http://www.potomac-inc.org/yass.html -- scroll to signers at the bottom .
d) The Nation fails to mention the past six months of criticism leveled at Bellesiles and Arming America in the historians' H-OIEAHC list (See http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lm&list=h-oieahc starting with February. )
e) I posted a number of Bellesiles criticisms at H-OIEAHC but others have as well. Stanford historian Jack Rakove (cited in the Nation article) participated in that discussion but he didn't ,in my opinion, try put up much of a defense of Arming America.
by Don Williams on October 18, 2002 at 9:33 PM