Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud, and Politics in the Ivory Tower

by Jon Wiener

Focusing on a dozen key controversies ranging across the political spectrum with a wide array of charges, Wiener seeks to understand why some cases make the headlines and end careers while others do not. Among others, he looks at the case of Michael Bellesiles, the historian of gun culture accused of research fraud.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Academia, Politics, Education

274 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 30, 2004

Reviews

[C. Varn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting take on scandals in both popular and academic history. Jon Wiener's apologia for Michael Bellesiles's errors is not entirely convincing nor his defense of David Abraham's entirely lands, but his defense of Mike Davis's sticks. Furthermore, the discussions of the lack of repercussions for many more famous--or more politically connected authors--does make it seem like Bellesiles's consequences were unnecessarily harsh. Wiener clearly has a left-partisan bias, but he also does document that many of the more problematic causes of plagiarism or fraud were not only partisan but right-leaning.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wrapped around the juiciest historian scandals of the past few decades, this book is actually a story about how power and prestige function in and out of the academy for the protection of or to the detriment to the people involved. It should come as little surprise that historians who write about popular positions and win awards for their works,even when they have committed gravest transgression of the profession - plagiarism - tend to find themselves buffered, and ultimately rewarded (See Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose, Allen Weinstein). Woe to the historian, such Michael Bellesiles, who committed some errors (not plagiarism) in his data reporting (which, while serious, ultimately did not change the thesis of his work and was corrected in later editions), but whose gravest sin seems to have been to advance a position that the National Rifle Association found objectionable. Also eye-opening is how little the AHA (American Historical Association), the main professional organizations for historians, will do to protect the integrity of the field out of fear of litigation.

For historians, the take home messages of this work are clear -

1)Don't plagiarize, lie to your students (Joseph Ellis), have sexual relations with children when you were a priest before reinventing yourself as a historian(Dino Cinel), or make your grad students your personal unpaid assistants and dog walkers while demanding grandiose displays of loyalty and affection (Elizabeth Fox-Genovese).

2) If you have a politically popular position and clout you may be able to violate some of the above no-no's and still keep your tenure tract job and/or even advance your career by being appointed to a nationally prestigious position (such as the National Archivist) and continue to win awards. If you're Doris Kearns Goodwin, go on late night TV PR campaign to reinvent your image(Also, a decade later write a best-selling book on a beloved American President and get Steven Spielberg to base a movie off of it!)

3) Don't make the mistake of misreporting data in an award-winning book while taking a position that sets you in opposition to well-funded right wing organizations with guns!

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great overview of modern historical scholarship. Weiner explains, using a variety of recent examples, why some historians get away with lying, plagiarism and professional misconduct and others are brought down by concerted political interest. I'm not sure if this revitalizes the debate on tenure or 'ivory tower' politics as much as it does about the professionalization of history and the pitfalls of scholarship in the media age.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this book. It's very gossipy and talks about some of the biggest scandals in the field of history, dealing with cases of harassment, plagiarism, lack of documentation, etc. I give it three stars because it's not the sort of book one reads over and over, but it is certainly entertaining.

I think I'd actually give it 3.5-4 stars. (It does have a clear leftist bias, by the way.)

[Yunis · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the title proclaims, this book is about both type of historians that either prosecuted or behaved wrongly. The book is straightforward with story after of different type accusations and dilemmas on historians on either public or academic spheres.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was disappointing. It took until the very end of the book for the author to be honest about his leftist agenda to the reader: "The real need over the longer term is to find ways to counter the excessive power of right-wing advocacy groups (213)." Quite the contrary. It is scarcely to be imagined just how much this book fails under any standard, and how it excites in those readers whose political worldviews are antithetical to his own the strong desire to defend those who are libeled by the author in this left-wing hack job and to join whatever lynch mobs right-wing advocacy groups are starting against the left-wing professors guilty of academic high crimes and misdemeanors whom the author wishes to whitewash because of their ideological agreement with him on various matters of Marxist philosophy. The concern of historians with legitimacy is nothing new [1], but all this author does is make it more necessary for those opposed to the author to speak out in defense of right thinking and right behaving, even if the situation in academia is one that few people ought to be proud of on any side.

Much of the material discussed in this book is not worth the dignity of even referring to regarding to names. The author appears like an unseemly blackmailer pouring out garbage against people in order to smear them as unworthy historians, and it would not be surprising if the author was not himself the subject of some particularly nasty and particularly expensive libel suits given how he plays fast and loose with the truth and writes largely to score points with his fellow travelers among the left with little regard for decency or historical accuracy. In this book we see the author taking aim at plagiarism, but only by those historians the author deems as being of right-wing approach, and there are other allegations, including of racism, sexual harassment, and even child molestation, that are far more unseemly than that. In addition, just to keep the account even more slanted and biased, the author then seeks to defend the reputation of three left-wing historians who had some trouble because of their own misdeeds, because it is not enough to smear those judged as conservative but one must defend radicals because what is at stake is not truth or justice or equity, but rather a bogus political worldview that is unworthy of receiving any taxpayer support for whatsoever.

Ultimately, this book is unlikely to convince anyone who is not already convinced of the author's perspective. The bias in this book is so overwhelming, the author's own misguided advocacy too obvious, to make this book appealing to anyone who is not a radical leftist. And unless they are given recommendations to this book by other radical leftists, it seems unlikely that anyone would read this book expecting anything other than what I did, namely a takedown of a profession that is far too leftist in its general orientation, and that is not what is found here at all. What a disappointment that is, that the author shows himself not only to not give what the reader expects, but to be as unpleasant and disgusting about his offensive worldview as possible. Given the flames on the cover of this book, it is surprising more copies of this garbage have not been consigned to the flames where they belong. There are many more useful purposes for paper than serving the purposes of promoting this author's quest to libel rival historians.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2013...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2010...

[CHILTONM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insane what they did to that guy over Table 1

[Julie H. Ernstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historians in Trouble... was a very interesting read, and I think my students benefitted from the several chapters assigned from it for a graduate seminar in ethics. Like our class, which examines ethical standards and practices in a broad cross-section of the heritage-related disciplines (e.g., ethnology, archaeology, conservation, history, oral history, and folklore), Wiener's book is quite broad in its coverage. For that I give the book top marks. What Wiener does with this coverage--specifically, the implications he wishes us to draw and potential action he advocates as a consequence--is disappointingly weak. And for that, I give the book only ho-hum marks. Hence the three-star rating for what should have been a five-star work. Please allow me to elaborate.

Over the course of this ca. 220-page book, Wiener presents and contextualizes a dozen cases of academic and/or scholarly misconduct. These cases are intriguing, and even non-historians (and I am certainly representative of this group) will remember having heard about many of these controversies and be intrigued to learn more of the inside information--esp. how particular scholars' own universities or employers reacted and what the assorted consequences, if any, were. Most disheartening to this reader is how the profession--through its professional organizations--has essentialized the full spectrum of potential ethical concerns down to one: plagiarism. Just as disappointing, whether one subscribes to the "culture of cheating" thesis or not, is the fact that the professional organizations have essentially gotten out of the ethics violation adjudication business. Not that they ever did it particularly well when they did investigate claims of violations, but there is a substantive disconnect between the American Historical Association's "our wimpy efforts didn't really mean anything so we gave up trying" and the possibility for an explicit (re)commitment to ethical and scholarly rigor. This last option appears to have eluded the historians, scholars and officers of the professional organizations interviewed for this book. Sadly, the possibility or willingness to advocate for major systemic change and recommitment to ethics within the profession seems to have eluded Wiener as well. That is, he presents what folks say but provides only minimal critique of their (or the organizations they represent) opinions.

In sum, it is all presented as boiling down to the fact that there is neither fairness nor consistency involved in meting out sanctions for ethical or legal missteps on the part of historians. According to Wiener, "...sanctions have been severe only where pressure groups with political agendas have organized campaigns demanding punishment" (p. 203). Despite his observation that "The academy, and the history profession, needs an alternative" (p. 204), Wiener seems unable to articulate what that alternative might look like. This isn't something that can simply be laid at the feet of the political right, which is where the book ends and appears to be Wiener's final word on the matter. While certainly in agreement that right-leaning advocacy groups have taken an incommensurate interest in prosecuting what they perceive to be egregious ethical lapses, I only wish that the profession itself would (1) acknowledge the broad spectrum of ethical breaches above and beyond plagiarism, as demonstrated so effectively in the cases laid out in Historians in Trouble..., in lieu of its tendency to go to the overly-simplified "ethics = not plagiarising" place and (2) if the professional organizations would insert language into their codes and very organizational structures that paid more than lip service to ethics (e.g., ethics should not be an ad hoc committee whose role is to outline the plagiarism policy for the organization's journal and then disband, in my estimation), perhaps the sorts of lapses outlined in the text would be fewer and far between. Blaming it on the right, while clearly they are a part of the problem, is not going to solve any of this. Wiener needs to have rolled up his metaphorical sleeves and suggested systemic changes to address what is clearly a systemic problem.

[sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written overview of interesting cases of academic misconduct--but from an at times overly partisan standpoint.

[Rich Cranford · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick read - examination of twelve cases of academic dishonesty in order to discuss the politics of academia - particularly the influence of right-wing conservative interest group, the unwillingness of the academic community to police its own ranks, elitism, petty vendettas and more. Book is marred by author's obvious biases which he does nothing to balance, a little bit of hypocrisy and failure to really establish what the norm is. In the end Weiner makes a good case that academia is much more political (petty and national) than outsiders would think.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book confirmed my suspicion that politics is everywhere, in everything, all the time.

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

what the right does to historians. impeccable homage to klaus mehnert.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating look at the politics of historic research. A bit "inside baseball" for non-academics, I would think.

[Moira]

....boy, imagine what this guy could've done with Hugo Schwyzer.

[Llyr Heller-Humphreys · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting read, especially for academics and those who love non-fiction.

[Aren Lerner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Criticizes historians with an agenda . . . according to his agenda