Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin

by Peter Charles Hoffer

Woodrow Wilson, a practicing academic historian before he took to politics, defined the importance of history: "A nation which does not know what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today." He, like many men of his generation, wanted to impose a version of America's founding identity: it was a land of the free and a home of the brave. But not the braves. Or the slaves. Or the disenfranchised women. So the history of Wilson's generation omitted a significant proportion of the population in favor of a perspective that was predominantly white, male and Protestant.

That flaw would become a fissure and eventually a schism. A new history arose which, written in part by radicals and liberals, had little use for the noble and the heroic, and that rankled many who wanted a celebratory rather than a critical history. To this combustible mixture of elements was added the flame of public debate. History in the 1990s was a minefield of competing passions, political views and prejudices. It was dangerous ground, and, at the end of the decade, four of the nation's most respected and popular historians were almost destroyed by it: Michael Bellesiles, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose and Joseph Ellis.

This is their story, set against the wider narrative of the writing of America's history. It may be, as Flaubert put it, that "Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times." To which he could have added: falsify, plagiarize and politicize, because that's the other story of America's history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History

335 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Eric_W · Rating 4 out of 5]

I moved this book higher on my reading list because of the flap over Ginnie Jones' s extensive lifting of material from others and her sloppy attempts at paraphrase on Goodreads. It's an excellent resource on the genesis and practice of plagarism from the perspective of the professional historian.

I have to admit I like popular history, i.e., Tuchman, Nevins, Catton, Goodwin, anything with a narrative not too full of data and graphs although they certainly have a place.(Hoffer would call this consensus history.)

Hoffer, who was on the American Historical Association's Professional Division, examines the difference between "popular history" (dare I suspect some envy on the part of "non-popular" historians whose books don't sell as well?) and what he worries is the new sloppiness of history writing. Not to mention frauds (Ellis' faking having served in Vietnam -- something I would argue has nothing to do with his books -- and Bellesiles' faking of data in his book [.book:Arming America The Origins of a National Gun Culture|2216931]

Hoffer's antipathy reveals itself almost immediately as he describes
Founding Brothers The Revolutionary Generation as "slickly written and imaginatively framed." He argues that Goodwin, Ellis, Ambrose, and Bellesile brought disrespect on the profession by their actions and destroyed confidence in them by the public. Hoffer examines the four cases in some detail.

The first half or so of the book is a very interesting review of the changes in historiography, from adulatory, i.e. consensus history that relied in part on plagiaristic practices of repeating what had been said before; "consensus history was winners' history written and read by the winners." For this reason consensus history's fabrications, falsehoods, and plagiarism -- plagiarism was quite common among 19th century historians. Parkman, in particular, never cited his sources and borrowed liberally. In light of our recent Ginnie debacle, I find that interesting.) actually immunized it from criticism in elite and learned circles." Authors practicing consensus history were such giants as Francis Parkman, George Bancroft and, surprisingly, Theodore Roosevelt. More recently, Nevins, Commager (the two, one right, the other left, wrote a popular history textbook in the fifties) and Daniel Boorstin.

Some of this information is unsettling as well -- for me at least, and I suppose I should have been aware of such things, ignorant as I am. Boorstin's Americans trilogy has also been one of my favorites, yet Hoffer reveals it to be consensus history of the most blatant kind, ignoring the role of slaves, Indians and woman. He attributes some of this perhaps to Boorstin's over-reaction to his fellow-traveling in the 30's. He continued to assuage his guilt by ratting on fellow academics before HUAC (despicable) and even went so far as to suggest that no Communist should be allowed to teach college. Hoffer suggests his trilogy was another way to compensate by promoting a national and consensus view of American history.

The "new history", was one that celebrated diversity of viewpoints, statistical analysis, and disputation among its adherents. So the professionalization and changes in the nature of historical analysis left the way open for self-criticism and the embarrassment of the four disgraced historians who's transgressions he reviews in some depth. Historians, after the battle over the Enola Gay Smithsonian exhibition, had lost a lot of credibility. "Were they losing their most important readership and forfeiting their authority by writing more and more about less and less." David Hoolinger didn't think so, "Don't forget that the larger community of readers we call 'the public' is less able than our trained, learned colleagues to evaluation [sic:] the truth of what we write." Correct perhaps; injudicious certainly.

The irony of Hoffer's condemnation is that the four aforementioned had all been academic historians, and his broad brush tends to taint non-academic historians who have not been accused of any misdeeds: David McCullough, James McPherson, Rick Atkinson, Barbara Tuchman, and many many others, several who came out of the ranks of journalism remain unsullied so perhaps the fault lies more in the world of academia with their reliance on graduate assistants than with the popularization of history that he decries. And yet -- and I suspect this comment might engender quite a bit of comment -- the four cases Hoffer cites, with perhaps the exception of Bellesile, are not grievous errors of falsification. Plagiarism sucks, to put it bluntly, but I guess one could argue it's also a form of flattery. Ambrose really liked Childers' writing (see my reviews of Ambrose and Childers' books). He just took it as his own. Goodwin settled out of court and explained her plagiarism was inadvertent and sloppy attribution but still admitted it was wrong, and Ellis' sin was to lie about his lack of service in Vietnam. But none of these even hinted that their historical work was factually or interpretations were flawed. So, I would argue, the authors may be flawed personally but not professionally.

The chapters on Ambrose and Goodwin I found especially dispiriting. I have nothing against narrative and consensus history- I enjoy it, in fact, but their wholesale lifting of passages from secondary sources -- well documented in Ambrose's case all the way back to his first books -- was distasteful. Goodwin rationalized her failure in not adding quotation marks to the hundreds of purloined passages by saying they "would have ruined the narrative flow." Her comments should be taken as disingenuous given that Simon and Schuster paid a monetary settlement in secret to the offended author several years before the Ambrose debacle. Citations to the pilfered works there were; but no indication that passages were lifted verbatim making it look like Ambrose and Goodwin had been working from the primary sources rather than the secondary. Had they added the quotation marks it would have been more apparent they were doing a "cut-and-paste" job.

The last few chapters are less successful than the beginning. He tries too hard to make a case the distinction between using "facts" to write history and biography that are commonly known and attributing based on whether they were obtained through secondary or primary sources. The he goes on about attributing to specific historians films and other non-print works that have been used developing background for the works.

This book could be read in conjunction with History Wars The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past

[Jessica Burstrem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ultimately a plea to popular presses, filmmakers, and academic historians and their organizations to take whatever steps they can to reduce what could be termed academic dishonesty, including plagiarism and falsifications, even outside academe, this book is primarily a history of history writing. The first half is a broad history of the trends in history writing in general, for purposes of laying the groundwork for Hoffer's argument about what contributed to the incidents in the second half. Those incidents, the more focused histories of four case studies of such academic dishonesty, felt that they read more quickly to me, but in actuality, my pace throughout the book was fairly consistent (I actually timed myself, and the entire book took about 9 hours, with occasional underlining along the way). I worried that Hoffer would ultimately excuse those writers in his case studies due to the structure of the book, but instead, he provides what feels a balanced, nuanced account of all the circumstances one should take into consideration when judging these cases, as well as his opinion and the reasons for it in the end. For me, the book speaks to many truths -- about academic writing, about honesty, about humanity in the process of both -- which I will outline further in the book review I need to write for class this week. I do see its use value for history graduate students in particular, but if I have any major criticism of the book, it is that focus on and primacy of history itself as the central force, when I would disagree at times with that assessment, from my own experience in English departments. This book likely has broader relevance than even its author realizes, although its presentation otherwise makes it unlikely to serve such a purpose.

[Rae · Rating 3 out of 5]

What exactly is history? Who owns it? Are we at all responsible for the way it is presented to us? Should history only be written by academic scholars? And when academic standards are violated, what protocols should be followed, if any?

In the first section of his book, Hoffer looks at the writing of history itself and the dangers of a unified consensus of the past and its various meanings. He then moves on into what is termed "new history" (which celebrates those who have been left out of the consensus) and popular history as it is published by the trade houses. The third section of his book is a detailed look at some specific cases where authors were accused of plagiarism and other "crimes" of scholarly integrity. He ends on a discouraging note with a bit of a diatribe about the lack of academic sourcing in popular history and historical fiction and the prediction that nothing will change.

Although I think every interested student of history would benefit from reading this, I found Hoffer a bit elitist in his presentation. And I would love to have an updated version of his thoughts now, in 2019, since this was first written in 2004.

On a personal note: I am particularly sensitive to the issue of plagiarism (and preventing it) because I once tried to get away with it in high school and was rightly caught. I understand the possible circumstances, pressures, and motivations that a writer might feel that can lead to it. So, I was keenly interested in the section about the accusations against Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin.

[Cloe Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book can be divided in two parts. The first is a brief but informative history of the practice of professional history, how it became new history, and what it means.

The second half is where it breaks down. Think of it as several short articles, where for example the author related the plagiarism scandal of author Steven Ambrose. However, in many parts he seems to minimize or excuse the wrong doing.

His worst white washing is reserved for the Bellesiles scandal. Briefly, an up and coming star of history professorship wrote a book proving that guns had no part in American life prior to the Civil War, so the NRA and other gun rights groups are liars.

Except Bellesiles appears to have made up the historical records proving his thesis. That did not stop almost every historian and group of note applauding the book, and granting their greatest professional prize to the book. The truth at last came out, against great resistance from the professional core of historians.

Hoffer spins this as hard as he can, to be some sort of enthusiasm and minor mistakes, and it is hard to read the half justifications.

[Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hoffer's book addresses two different subjects, which relate to a large extent but not enough to tie a book together. The first half is strong but not broad enough to make a fully convincing argument. While his history of historiography is clear, his evidence feels oddly specific and takes up too much time. The second half feels like a solid article, stretched to be half-book length. A different version of this book, which only focused on the subject of the first half and selected from a broader base of sources, would have been good. This version was okay.

[Ray Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a concise description of how the practice of professional history in the United States has evolved from the start of the 20th century to the present. Hoffer covers the same ground Peter Novick covered in [That Noble Dream] but in about a third of the pages.

[R · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for a Historical Methods class. It outlined why citation, giving credit and organized research matters. It was also a compelling story that I enjoyed reading and finished quickly.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting & informative, especially the first part which provided tons of information on 'consensus' history vs. 'new history' vs. 'popular history.'

[Mari]

Read for my masters program

[Meadows13 Meadows · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recommend this book only if you are deeply interested in the topic of history writing. This is actually structured as two books and they're quite different.

The first in a discussion of the history of American history writing. The quasi-trash we were taught in the public schools was actually rather awful when compared with the complexities of actual events and the contributions of anyone except white men. But the 'new history' with its emphasis on the contributions of the full spectrum of actors can be extremely devisive. A major goal of public school historical education is to engender feelings of patriotism and national pride in the young students. That's a worthy goal, no? But it's hard to do if one is honest about how disadvantaged people (Native Americans, African slaves, immigrants of all ethnicities, and women) were treated. I found this part of the book informative but very dryly writen; however, the author attempts to take a balanced approach.

The second book is less successful but more disturbing. The author conflates legitimate criticism of the factual errors, attribution errors (i.e., plagerism), and personal resume' padding of some of my favorite history writers (especially Steven Ambrose and Joseph Ellis) with academic nit-picking of what's the proper level of footnotes and references. A history book written to Prof. Hoffer's standards would be half words and half footnote reference numbers. To his credt, Prof. Hoffer makes the point of discussing the tension between the type of writing suitable for academic journals and for public writing, but definitely comes down on the side of a footnote for very declaritive sentence that's not an expression of person opinion. He also can't conceal his suspicion of historical writers who 1) don't have the "proper" academic credentials and 2) write wildly popular and lucrative books.

I am still trying to resolve in my mind whether my opinion of the many fantastic Steven Ambrose books I've read should be tainted with the documented fact that he frequently pulled plagerism tricks that would get you disciplined in a high school class assignment.

[H. Givens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for senior seminar to fulfill the requirement that we learn about professional ethics. A very interesting book, first covering the historiography of American history, then major fraud and plagiarism cases and how they relate to traditional methods of interpretation. That was an insightful connection, between historiographical modes and plagiarizing content.

The ending is weak -- Hoffer seems to be one of those historians who does a lot of handwringing about the establishment and the academy no longer having the only say. I really don't think amateur interest, or movies not citing sources, has anything to do with professional plagiarism on this scale. I found the parts about the difference between popular and academic history to be very interesting, though. General readers just tend to know that academic history is "boring," but establishment historians see a huge and fundamental divide between popular and academic history. These historians are household names (or, at least, their works are household titles -- Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, etc.) and some clearly thought they could get away with plagiarism just because they were writing popular history.

[Jlawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at the history of American history writing. It surveys how long-standing tensions between celebratory, consensus history writing and a more critical, multiple perspective approach, and between popular and academic history writing, set the stage for recent scandals involving prominent popular historians (eg plagiarism in the cases of Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin).

The stories detailing the misdeeds broke in conservative journals at the time, and conservative pundits relished the scandals. But the author of this book is fan of modern, left-leaning, critical, academic history writing, so his is not a partisan attack, but a pretty clear-headed look at where the historians went wrong and the surrounding context. At the end of the book, when he moves from history writing in particular to other current uses and abuses of history in popular culture, the analysis seems shallower and rushed, but overall, an illuminating read.

[Arapahoe Libraries · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historian, Peter Charles Hoffer, traces the history of American history from the beginning of the republic to modern times. From the onset, historians painted a somewhat one-sided picture of the founding of America from relations with existing inhabitants (native Americans) to the treatment of blacks before and after the Civil War. Texts written by Francis Parkman, later by Henry Steele Commager and even popular American history books by the revered, Daniel Boorstin have been less than objective, all of whom were classified by the author as consensus history. In recent years, such popular historians as Stephen Ambrose, Joseph Ellis and Doris Kearns Goodwin were given the proverbial “black eye” and in some cases were sanctioned because of missteps they had made as serious as fraud and plagiarism. The author takes a critical look at the writing of American history over time from the perspective of truth versus fiction.

[Dan Gorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid account of cases of bad history writing – racism, plagiarism, falsified sources, fudged credentials, and sloppy research, from the late 1800s to the mid-2000s. Hoffer is right to argue that academic historians should engage more with popular history and speak up when bad history is published or professional misconduct occurs. He makes a persuasive case that the American Historical Association should resume investigations into accusations of plagiarism and other professional misconduct. (This book is from the mid-2000s; I do not know if the AHA has resumed such investigations.) But Hoffer's wires are a little crossed: He says that he writes this book for popular readers, yet most of his argument is a call to arms addressed to historians in higher education. Hoffer's critical views toward the Internet are dated today, as well.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A historian tells the story of the lies and plagiarizing done by famous historians. Fascinating. Why do people with so much hard-earned status to lose take these crazy risks? And for what? Because they want to get caught?

It reminded me of one of my favorite books, Great Exploration Hoaxes by David Roberts, which is about accomplished mountain climbers and other explorers who lie and exaggerate their accomplishments, probably knowing they'll be found out.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read at times, but one that will may seem obscure and pointless to everyone but the community of academic historians. Not helped by the author's quixotic and frankly ludicrous crusade to have historical fiction and movies cite secondary sources. Sections on plagiarism are very good, as is the historical survey of standards concerning attribution in the community of American historians. Strong early chapters but ends with a bit of a whiny whimper.

[Louis Picone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for an assignment for my graduate studies. I had 2 weeks to read it, but I finished it in 5 days because I found it so fascinating. A great read for anyone considering history as a profession as it will illuminate those that came before you as well as inform of the pitfalls to avoid. Also recommended for anyone that just loves to read history or wants to better understand the "history of history."

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author did a pretty good job. Although he is clearly critical of consensus history, I though he was a bit hard on new history. He easily could have been more critical of the right in its attacks, but he seems to want to be nice. Section on Bellisales was good, though a bit weak on Kearns.

[Summer Seeds · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like 3.5 stars. Full review to come soon.