More Noted Things

by Cliopatria

Reports on the Rehabilitation of Historians:

Dutton Peabody,"Disgraced ‘Historian' Michael Bellesiles' Fishy War Story," Big Journalism, 6 July, argues that Michael's been at it again and that the Chronicle of Higher Education didn't do its due diligence. Jim Lindgren's"Michael Bellesiles's Newest Tale," Volokh Conspiracy, 6 July, checks both Bellesiles and Peabody for accuracy.

Margaret Wente,"The rehabilitation of Conrad Black," Globe and Mail, 6 July, argues that Black looks better in hindsight and from prison.

Alan Baumler,"Huainanzi," Frog-in-a-Well, China, 5 July, discusses the new and only English translation of the second century BCE Huainanzi with one of the translators as a guest.

Dwight Garner,"A Talent for Writing, and Falling Into Things," NYT, 6 July, reviews John Carey's William Golding: The Man Who Wrote ‘Lord of the Flies'.

Finally, farewell to Ann Waldron, the biographer of Caroline Gordon, Eudora Welty and Hodding Carter.

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Jonathan Dresner - 7/10/2010

The indefatigable Volokh bloggers have not let this story go: http://volokh.com/2010/07/09/serious-questions-about-the-veracity-of-michael-bellesiles%E2%80%99s-latest-tale/, in which Jim Lindgren claims to have read through "every casualty report" from Iraq and Afghanistan for the semester in question (sort of) and found no corroboration. (I say "sort of" because he's assuming that Bellisles was telling the truth about which class the student was in, rather than which semester the student was in class -- there's a conflict, based on the public record -- and so he could have been looking at the wrong time period entirely)

This is the kind of attention the book will get, in bits and pieces.

Jonathan Dresner - 7/8/2010

Well, I'd consider it more a job for grad students, a smaller population. And one or two reserve copies would suffice in most instances. Yes, he would profit a bit, but it would inoculate the profession against any future writings, and create a body of knowledge for dealing with the lingering effects of this publication, if it turns out to be as bad as we think.

Or, it could turn out to be a piece of fine, responsible scholarship, which would be an interesting result.....

Jeremy Young - 7/8/2010

Sorry I wasn't clear -- I agree with you that Bellesiles needs to be engaged by scholars. What concerned me in your suggestion was the idea that college students would be encouraged to buy his book as a required course text, just for the purpose of picking it apart. Maybe you were suggesting that a selection could be offered online or in print -- that would be fine with me. I just don't want to create massive sales for the man.

Jonathan Dresner - 7/7/2010

If it were up to me, really bad history books, once identified, would be removed from stores and libraries, pulped, and people who cite them as evidence would be required to read good books as a kind of curative. If it were up to me, all books, not just academic press books, would be required to pass a basic fact-checking review, or be categorized as 'fiction.'

But we exist in a much more open marketplace of ideas, where people like Belisles and Menzies do get published. We ignore them in our scholarship, for excellent reasons, but to pretend that they don't exist in the public sphere and fail to engage them is a shirking of our duty as historians. Refutation and review are our tools, and we should use them whenever appropriate.

It's possible, of course, that more scholars and editors will take your tack and there won't be many proper reviews or notice. That won't change the fact that New Press is going to be marketing the book, B&N will be stocking it, it'll show up in Amazon searches for US history, that thousands of people will read and discuss it.

Jeremy Young - 7/7/2010

Interesting. I guess my problem is that I don't think he should be getting any attention at all, except that directed at keeping his book from being published (maybe too late for that, though). I do think there are some sins a scholar shouldn't be allowed to come back from.

You're right about the New Press -- I confused them with the Free Press when I wrote that comment. Sorry for the mixup.

Jonathan Dresner - 7/7/2010

I'm not an Americanist, so my thoughts on the matter carry little or no weight. As I said elsewhere, I think this will be an interesting exercise, because the new book will certainly face extensive and intensive scrutiny -- If I were running a historiography course this year, I'd have my students look into it! On the larger issue, academic reviews take time.

New Press isn't an academic press, though they certainly publish valuable material at times: to say that he's "back in the published academy" presumes something about the reception his book will face which isn't yet known.

Jeremy Young - 7/7/2010

The Peabody article assumes that Bellesiles' student lives in Connecticut, and that his brother also lived in Connecticut. There's no reason to make those assumptions, so the premise of the critique is flawed.

On the larger point, however, I'm disappointed that more prominent historians haven't been attacking the New Press for putting out Bellesiles' book. You, Scott McLemee (not a historian, though a great ally), HNN's David Walsh, and the gentlemen of the Volokh Conspiracy (again, not historians) are the only folks I've seen raising the issue. It does a disservice to the profession when people are either so clubby or so afraid of exposing professional flaws that they can allow someone like Bellesiles back into the published academy. I'm glad you're not one of the clubby ones.