More Noted Things
Tim Burke,"That Which is Discussable," Easily Distracted, 3 October, and Rachel Leow,"notes on a discussion," a historian's craft, 8 October, are good companion pieces.
June Torbati,"Law prof. borrows text for book," Yale Daily News, 4 October, exposes plagiarism in Yale Law Professor Ian Ayres' ninth book, Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart. Columbia Law School Professor Michael Dorf suggests that it isn't a plagiarism scandal so much as a ghost-writing scandal, an abuse of and by research assistants. Without their productivity, how would anyone publish three books (with University of Chicago, Yale University, and Princeton University presses) in the Spring of 2005 alone? See also: Margaret Soltan,"Plagiarism: Yours, Mine, and Ayres'," University Diaries, 8 October, which predicts that this"oligarchic corruption" will go unpunished. Hat tip.
Matt Yglesias calls Bernard Lewis out for his vision of an American invasion of Iraq in 2002; and Daniel Larison reminds us of Lewis's position on the Armenian genocide. I almost said"the question of the Armenian genocide." It isn't a question.
Glenn C. Altschuler,"Tracing the Heat, Light of American Faith," Baltimore Sun, 30 September, reviews Garry Wills, Head and Heart: American Christianities.
Geoffrey Wheatcroft,"Who Made Hillary Queen?" Washington Post, 7 October, isn't to be missed. Even if you disagree with him, he'll force you to rethink why you disagree with him.
Jonathan Rauch,"Crisis on the Right," NYT, 7 October, reviews Brian C. Anderson's Democratic Capitalism and its Discontents and Charles W. Dunn, ed., The Future of Conservatism: Conflict and Consensus in the Post-Reagan Era.