[CatoRenasci]

You put it very nicely. Although my primary field as a graduate student was European intellectual history, I also studied military history and American history. Historians simply don't call each other liars -- for the simple reason that traditionally, even if one is pressing one's ideological case, historians don't falsify evidence or intentionally distort it. Push it as far as it can go on your side, sure, but acutally lie or cite it for the opposite proposition? Not done. In one seminar I participated in, some 30+ years ago, someone was caught out by the rest of us at intentionally misrepresenting evidence. The very liberal professor, after closely questioning the guilty party, asked them to withdraw from the seminar and suggested they find something else to do before they were asked to withdraw from the graduate program.

This is the fruit of 30 years of Howard Zinn and his ilk, placing ideology over accuracy.

[AnAmericanMother]

You are absolutely correct.

My undergraduate years were in the early 70s, when the older professors were still what I call "classical liberals" - or liberals with honor, if you will. My concentration was in military history, but I did a lot of classics as well. No professor in either the History or Classics department would tolerate fudging or hiding the ball . . . and CERTAINLY not when every "error" was in favor of the student's thesis, as in Belleisles's case.

Those old guys are now retired or deceased (I read with sorrow that the wonderful Dean of the Chapel at my college, Ernest Gordon, recently passed away) and the young Turks are unabashed polemicists for whom truth is secondary to ideological purity.

The fact that Emory is stalling this debate and trying to whitewash even so blatant a cheat and fraud as this horrendous book, instead of debating whether to drop Belleisles off the top of Woodruff Library or tie him to the Seaboard tracks down at the railroad depot, is proof enough for me. :-D