Robert Service: The Shame of Orlando Figes
Today I awoke to find that my fellow academic Orlando Figes had admitted responsibility for anonymous negative reviews of my three most recent books posted on Amazon. It's been quite a fortnight. Last week I heard from Rachel Polonsky, whose book had also been negatively reviewed. The strong suspicion, strengthened by a survey of the Amazon data, was that Figes was the author. I sent out an email about this to leading Russian and European historians without specifically naming who I thought was the culprit. Figes loudly objected, claiming to want to mend relations. Then quietly came the letters threatening legal action, and the assertion that Figes's wife, Stephanie Palmer, had admitted responsibility.
This is a matter that has broad implications for the public interest, as can be seen from the way I've spent my week. I got up last Sunday earlier than usual. Been doing that since the week before when Figes's lawyer started to correspond. Don't know why I thought I would sleep. My wife, Adele, and I went to an afternoon concert in Goring by the Thames where a piece by her composer grandfather, Claude Cover, was played. We could have done, however, without the traffic jam on the way back on the M4. It wasn't until we re-entered the People's Republic of Hackney that the mountain of emails had to be faced again....
The public interest in this squalid little story is that if someone is wealthy and malicious enough it is possible to tread on the throat of free and open discussion in this country almost with impunity. I was close to caving in at times simply because I lacked Figes's financial resources. We have a set of libel laws seemingly designed to produce another Robert Maxwell. At the same time we have electronic media that enable the ink to flow from poison pens. In my case, these two features of our culture were wrapped around each other like a vicious weed. Legislative reform is urgently required.
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
This is a matter that has broad implications for the public interest, as can be seen from the way I've spent my week. I got up last Sunday earlier than usual. Been doing that since the week before when Figes's lawyer started to correspond. Don't know why I thought I would sleep. My wife, Adele, and I went to an afternoon concert in Goring by the Thames where a piece by her composer grandfather, Claude Cover, was played. We could have done, however, without the traffic jam on the way back on the M4. It wasn't until we re-entered the People's Republic of Hackney that the mountain of emails had to be faced again....
The public interest in this squalid little story is that if someone is wealthy and malicious enough it is possible to tread on the throat of free and open discussion in this country almost with impunity. I was close to caving in at times simply because I lacked Figes's financial resources. We have a set of libel laws seemingly designed to produce another Robert Maxwell. At the same time we have electronic media that enable the ink to flow from poison pens. In my case, these two features of our culture were wrapped around each other like a vicious weed. Legislative reform is urgently required.