Historians in Trouble: plagiarism, fraud and politics in the ivory tower
Jon Wiener New Press, 272pp, £16.99
ISBN 1565848845
The job of national archivist may not be the most prestigious in the US federal hierarchy, but it is one that few historians would turn down. When in April 2004 George W Bush came to nominate a new candidate for the post, he chose Allen Weinstein, a historian of Soviet espionage with links to various Republican congressmen and right-wing think-tanks. Bush's desire to reward a Republican was hardly surprising; but Weinstein has, throughout his career, ignored the codes and courtesies of historical scholarship. In Perjury, his 1978 book about the Alger Hiss spying case, he misquoted six important interviewees. In 1993, his publisher paid $100,000 to get Weinstein exclusive access to the KGB archives, in effect bribing the Russians to keep them closed to his competitors. In the eyes of most academic observers, Weinstein was unfit to run the archives of the United States. He got the job anyway.
The Weinstein affair is one of 12 cases of "historians in trouble" that Jon Wiener, a history professor at the University of California, chronicles in this short, incisive and entertaining book. Historians on both sides of the Atlantic have had their fair share of controversy - witness the antics of A J P Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper. In Wiener's opinion, however, what stands out about these 12 is that they reveal the extent to which American academic life has been poisoned by the political partisanship and "culture wars" of the post-Reagan era.
The young historian Michael Bellesiles found himself targeted by the National Rifle Association and other conservative lobby groups following the publication of Arming America, his prizewinning book on the origins of US gun culture. Bellesiles made various minor statistical errors, but his real crime was to challenge the idea that colonial Americans generally wandered around toting guns. He became a hate figure for the right, was targeted by websites such as www.keepandbeararms.com, and had his lectures interrupted by men with shaven heads.
Wiener suggests, correctly, that American historians are most likely to end up in hot water if they offend powerful groups outside the profession, notably right-wing lobbies with connections in the media. But the reverse is also true: historians with important, wealthy and vociferous allies are well protected against disciplinary action, whatever their misdemeanours. The social historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese abused and harassed colleagues and students, to the extent of asking students to wash her laundry and hug her on demand. But because she was an anti-feminist heroine of the conservative media, her colleagues were too frightened to challenge her, and she was never subjected to proper disciplinary proceedings.
Nor is this simply a question of left versus right: Dino Cinel, City University of New York's "porn professor", abused his position as a Catholic priest to seduce teenage boys, and then lied about it to get an academic job. Astoundingly, the teachers' union argued that "sexual abuse of power" was not a sacking offence, not least because Cinel had the backing of New York's Italian American community.
Wiener describes these and other scandals with relish and a keen eye for the evasions, hypocrisies and downright lies of his fellow historians. He is, quite reasonably, forgiving of those who simply made mistakes: as he reminds us, all historians get their footnotes wrong at some point.
Yet Historians in Trouble is not just diverting. As a result of the culture wars of the past two decades, American historians are having to pick their subjects - and enemies - with care. Bellesiles and Fox-Genovese were both employed by the same institution, Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Their respective fates suggest that, if historians are worried that they might ever make a mistake, they should start cultivating conservative convictions. As a result of getting one table and one footnote wrong in a 600-page book, Bellesiles was forced out of the profession. Fox-Genovese, despite subjecting her students to a gruelling campaign of emotional and sexual harassment, still has her Emory professorship, and in 2003 George W Bush awarded her the National Humanities Medal. Even historians, it seems, need powerful friends.
Dominic Sandbrook's book about the 1960s, Never Had It So Good, will be published next month by Little, Brown
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