So it would seem, beckett. I note he uses the signature "pot calling the kettle black" technique, which seems standard for such folks: Always blame the other guy for doing what you are doing yourself. He claims his critic Prof. Sternstein is "politically driven." Yet Sternstein "support[s] gun regulations, especially in urban areas like New York City...." He notes his congressman while he was resident in that city was Charles Schumer, "the bete noir of the NRA," and that he supported him.
Sternstein concludes thusly: "...I hope historians...in the future will be faithful to the evidence and honest in pursuing the answers the evidence provides and will not, like Prof. Bellesiles, distort, embellish, and falsify sources in pursuit of their private, personal version of the truth."
One can hope. But vigilence seems to be in order these days. Meanwhile, a lot of people may be seriously misled by the "works" of historians like Bellesiles -- who mainly seem to be in the business of falsifying reality.
Thanks again for the bump, beckett. That's a very nice site -- I bookmarked it. best, bb.
And the guy was given the Bancroft Prize for the book, generally considered the top annual prize in the field of American History. And Columbia University, which makes the award, has declined to consider rescinding it!
Another little tidbit that just cracks me up: Garry Wills, sanctimonious scourge of the right par excellence, reviewed the book for NYRB (or the NYT, can't remember which) when it first appeared, giving it notices that compared it to the Second Coming of Christ and the arrival of the Age of Aquarius all rolled into one. But once doubts began to appear about the quality of Bellesiles' scholarship and research, Wills suddenly became "too busy" to revisit the issue. Not a peep has been heard from him since. While his buddy Bellesiles was tied to the whipping post, Garry denied him three times.
It reminds me of when Ron Radosh, an avowed communist, used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain all the docs on the Rosenberg case. He was convinced---and said so, in his foreword---that he would "prove" the Rosenbergs innocent. The documents told him otherwise, and his last line is a classic: "Julius Rosenberg was guilty of espionage, and his wife, Ethyl, was almost certainly his accomplice."
When the pros are finished with Bellesiles, he may still be feted by the intellectual snobs, but the large majority of workaday historians will know who is a fraud.