Talk:Michael A. Bellesiles/Archive 1

Archive 1

Little biographical information

This is a biography page but contains almost no biographical information. I fail to see how a photo of the author or a list of his other publications, or a statement in his own defense, can possibly be considered "controversial." Please restore those elements.

Avoid article

Those interested in this topic should avoid this article. A hard core right winger continually edits out anything supportive of Bellesiles. Visit his page - American Flag, Bush supporter, Iraq war supporter etc. etc. A dedicated partisan devoted to keeping this article one-sided and highly biased against any who would support responsible gun control. Most recently he edited out Bellesiles picture and a list of Bellesiles' other books in order to create the impression this is the only piece the man ever wrote. A quotation from Bellesiles defending himself, properly cited with the original text in a link, was also edited out. Like most internet garbage on this book, this article is another example of dedicated pro-gun fanaticism.

This article is indeed digustingly inaccurate and biased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.145.233.166 (talk) 00:12, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Is there no way to report an article for these problems? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Philosophygradstudent (talk • contribs) 15:19, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I find the claim "Although Bellesiles's book was initially praised for its innovative use of probate records and was awarded the prestigious Bancroft Prize of Columbia University, following the firestorm of criticism from the right, the award was rescinded. http://hnn.us/articles/1157.html History News Network" inaccurate. If you follow the cited source, HistoryNewsNetwork which covered the controversy as it unfolded, the initial criticism from "the right" was largely ignored or dismissed, until leftists committed to gun control tried to replicate Bellesiles' probate statistics and failed. The most vehement criticism of Bellesiles came from the left who felt he had betrayed and embarrassed them. Naaman Brown (talk) 02:33, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

This article is in no way inaccurate, as is claimed above. It is freakin hilarious that an article detailing the well known errors and lies in Bellesiles's book is referred to as "pro-gun fanaticism". I see no evidence of fanaticism, unless you are using fanaticism as a euphemism for "presenting undeniable facts that contradict my worldview". And the notion that Columbia rescinded the Bancroft Prize because of criticism from the "right" is a fucking joke, pure and simple. If anyone thinks Columbia is going to rescind a Bancroft Prize because conservatives criticized a book (euphemism alert again, with criticism being a euphemism for "pointing out numerous lies, deliberate and, for all intents and purposes, fraudulent, misquotes of primary research documents and shoddy statistical analyses")then that person is a complete jackass, period. The Bancroft Prize committee did the same thing Emory did: they investigated the charges levied against the book, found them to have merit and they revoked his prize because his book was a pile of lies and falsehoods. As this article points out (oops, maybe I shouldn't mention facts again, lest I be accused of spreading far-right propoganda)there were dozens and dozens of citations that were just plain wrong, many of them having been deliberately changed by Bellesiles from their original meaning in order to fit his thesis. A quote from Bellesiles, a man who was caught in too many lies to count, is worth about as much as a quote from Charles Manson protesting his innocence. There is a reason the liberal historians who originally endorsed Bellesiles's "book" demanded their words be stripped from subsequent editions.

Gun control debate

Can someone please discuss how it affected the gun control debate? How people have used it to argue their claims? That it 'ignited passions' tells me absolutely nothing. 1:41, Nov 10, 2005.

One instance: 2003 Jan 27 -- References to Michael Bellesiles' Arming America were removed from court papers in the case of Silveira v Lockyear citing Bellesiles as an authority, based on a 2002 Dec 30 filing by attorney Donald Kilmer claiming a notice of fraud. Naaman Brown (talk) 21:53, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Publish date

Anyone know whether Arming America was published in October 2003? Moriori 20:12, Nov 29, 2003 (UTC) Arming America was originally published by Alfred A. Knopf in September 2000 for the Fall lineup. A revised edition was announced for publication by Soft Skull Press 18 Dec 2003. Naaman Brown (talk) 21:48, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

RV press release

I've reverted the same anonymous user's changes as they're still the same posting of a press release by Bellesiles's new publisher. In addition to violating copyright, those changes are the start of an edit war, with one anonymous user simply blowing away the combined efforts of various wikipedians on an article.

I've also tried to NPOV the original article. While I share the original article's viewpoint that Bellesiles's work is intentionally deceptive and thoroughly discredited on most of the important points, he certainly deserves a defense of his work in an article on him. I suspect that the short paragraph about his daughter changing her name still retains too much of the ripped-off press release, and hope that someone will fact-check and paraphrase it.

-Ben

it is NOT a press release and DOES NOT VIOLATE COPYRIGHT RULES

Furthermore Arming America has never had its thesis discredited. The best you can say is that 1 table and 3 paragraphs in the first chapter weren't sourced right. So take your "Moonie Times" gun nut propaganda somewhere else.

Look, I don't want this article to turn into an Edit war. Your replacing the entire article, which has been honed through a dozen revisions is deeply disrespectful to everyone who's worked on it. The article absolutely needs NPOV help from someone who can articulate Bellesiles's defense, but that's not the same as gutting the criticisms made of Bellesiles.

It's obvious that you disagree with those criticisms, but they must be part of the article. Even if you belive them to be wrong or trivial, they are the reason that Michael Bellesiles is a controversial figure, and probably the reason there's a Wikipedia article on him. They need to remain.

In particular, whatever you keep posting omits the link to James Lindgren's detailed study of Arming America. I think you'd agree that Lindgren's criticisms are impartial and well removed from the "gun nut propaganda", as he's since gone on to be one of the biggest critics of John Lott's work on concealed-carry laws (see your article "Inequitable Penalties", though it doesn't mention Lindgren by name).

Please, don't just go blowing away the original article. Add the quotes by Bellesiles. Add rebuttals of the criticism. Remove obviously non-NPOV language like "the discredited book" (I already started doing that before you blew it away). But don't censor the article!

I'm going to wait a bit before reverting the article to the last version, trying to stay cool.

-Ben

The comment about the Moonie Times is absolutely asinine. The notion that the only flaw with Bellesiles's work was that it wasn't "sourced right" (as if Bellesiles only made a few honest mistakes) is even more asinine. That various independent scholars determined virtually every piece of "evidence" he used to support his thesis was either a)completely made up b) never existed in the first place or c) was deliberately changed from its original meaning to one supportive of Bellesiles's position tends to point to his thesis being complete bullshit. It stands to reason that if you are changing evidence to bolster your thesis, then the original meaning of said evidence probably demonstrates the exact opposite, which is a refutation of that thesis. Clayton Cramer and James Lindgren, among others, have demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the sources Bellesiles's "cited" in fact contradicted Bellesiles's assertion concerning a scarcity of guns during the early years of the United States. They so thoroughly documented Bellesiles's fraud that multiple historians, Garry Wills being the most prominent among them, who wrote blurbs for the book's dust jacket demanded that any subsequent reprintings not feature their previous, now rescinded, endorsements. Pointing out which portion of the political spectrum Bellesiles's opponents are on is completely meaningless and shows the desperation of the anti-gun crowd who wanted to accept this thesis no matter what. The fact that Clayton Cramer is a conservative doesn't change the fact that Bellesiles deliberately altered the words and meanings of primary source documents, "cited" documents that no longer exist, and used shoddy, to say the least, statistical analysis. Attacking the messenger in this case is pathetic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.28.75.230 (talk) 18:37, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

---

It's not up to Wikipedia to say that one side in a controversy has been "discredited". We can only say that:

• Mr. So and So of X organization says that Y's views have been discredited.

But on such a hot issue as gun control, gun rights, gun ownership, or other Second Amendment issues -- it's better to cast the controversy in terms of two opposing points of views (POV).

Let's just say that:

• Prof. Bellesilis claimed that firearms were rare in early America, based on statistics he compiled
• His university pressured him to resign, because it disagreed with the way he compiled or interpreted the statistics

I think everyone would agree that the professor DID make that claim: i.e., his book DOES SAY that few colonials had guns (a lot less than modern historions have assumed). Note that this does not mean he was RIGHT about this: we are only agreeing THAT HE MADE THIS CLAIM.

I think we can also agree that the university DID pressure him to resign (or face dismissal) over this issue. Note that this does not mean they were RIGHT to do so.

--Uncle Ed 15:16, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Give us a break, please. Emory and the Bancroft Committee didn't fire him and strip him of a prize, respectively, because he made errors in the way he "compiled or interpreted statistics". They did what they did because he lied and just flat out made shit up. The implication that he innocently misinterpreted a table of numbers is ludicrous. Why and the hell are so many people here so freakin eager to minimize, rationalize or outright cover for a man who was caught lying and just plain making stuff up?

---

Indeed, the only substantive part of the book that was ever factually discredited was his citation of "San Francisco" for certain probate records that turned out to be for Contra Costa County, even though they were labelled at top "San Francisco." The data analysis differences cited by Lindgren and Heather constituted only a small portion of Bellesiles research. His work was not only replicated by others, who quibbled large and small with the results, but were actually preceded by an earlier author who drew much the same conclusion - gun ownership was relatively rare in ordinary households. The Lindgren article, and the Emory University critque, principally take Bellesiles to task for failing to accurately cite his sources, to mis-atrreibuting sources, at one point arguably plagiarizing Jones' research on probates and wills and generally sloppy scholarship. Other than a handful of "counting" differences, Lindren makes no substantive objection to Bellesiles data. Lindren and Heather used only 10% of the data set used by Bellesiles. The critique amounts to three or four paragraphs out of the entire book. The balance of the book has gone almost entirely unchallenged. For example, the ineffectiveness of the miltia is attested to by countless missives from commanding generals from Morgan to Washington himself. The "myth" of the frontier rifleman at the Battle of New Orleans is given up by Jackson's own reports which reported that the muskets and guns faied to inflict any serious damage and that it was the artillery that won the day. The contemporary reports on the lack of weapons among militiamen are there for anyone to see and are uncontested - if they had all these guns, where were they when they reported for duty? If they were such expert marksmen with such extensive experience, why do all the revolutionary commanders decry the complete innefectiveness of the recruits to fire a weapon let alone hit anything? Virtually none of his book was actually contradicted - but he was pilloried for failing to produce his notes and for arguably passing off someone elses data as his own. That's a far cry from being wrong on the central thesis - but it is more than enough grounds to dismiss a University professor.

The inability to purchase weapons or find anyone to make them is in the notes of the Continental Congress as well as numerous contemporary reports that cite as the reason the British policy of surpressing manufacturing in the colonies, depriving the colonies of any proper gunsmiths or manufacturers. Not one cannon foundry existed in the entire nation. Making gunpowder assumed a "Manhattan Project" secrecy and scale so desperate was the need.

Don't confuse losing his job with the book being wrong - they are largely unconnected. His atrocious handling of the pubicity fiasco was the main reason they wanted him gone. As for withdrawing the prize - the plagiarism charge was the most damning one - not the innacuracy of the book, which the Bancroft Committee said they had no view of. That Gary Wills would pile on when the right wing makes it clear they are after Bellesiles should shock no one.

• Please, anyone who cares about the facts, read Prof Lindgren's article detailing just a few dozen of the incredible 'errors' in Bellesiles. (Lindgren is a self-identfied liberal and gun control advocate and contrary to the implications of Jon Wiener has NO connection to the NRA.) Bellesiles cited a 1628 order for 100 guns for 100 new colonists as a 1630 census of 100 guns among a colony with 1000 adult male colonists. There are too many cited sources that do not say what Bellesiles claims they said for it to be accidental. And Bellesiles told questioners that he found the San Francisco probate data at the San Francisco courthouse, and only went to Contra Costa County historic center after researchers discovered the SF records were destroyed in 1906. And the Contra Costa County data on San Francisco Co. letterhead no way matches the figures Bellesiles published for San Francisco in his book. Bellesiles told people he found most of his probate data on microfilm in the National Archives in East Point GA and when researchers discovered there were no probate data on microfilm in the National Archives, Bellesiles told them with a straight face that now he remembered going to thirty or forty courthouses around the country and digging out the data on paper. Well, when the data could be found, the gun ownership figures were much higher than what Bellesiles reported. On the Bowden Hall Flood, the University reported that only a set of photos of Greece were lost in spite of nearly every office suffering water damage. Bellesiles told at least three mutually exclusive versions of how his notes were tossed out (after telling folks third parties tossed the notes while he was in England, he told others he threw the notes out when he returned from England and Bellesiles told Jim Lindgren he had boxed the notes and put them in his attic.) There was no record of Bellesiles bringing any paperwork to the disaster team set up to handle salvage after the flood. And Bellesiles was on campus from 2 April when the flood occurred to mid May when he left for England. We have Columbia University revoking the Bancroft Prize for Arming America--the first time the Bancroft Prize was ever revoked. Even scholars who were ardent self proclaimed leftists and gun control supporters and who said they wished Bellesiles was right, came away denouncing Bellesiles as a fraud. Gary Garry Wills was an enthusiastic supporter of Arming America before he realized he had been had: his disillusion with Bellesiles is no more evidence of a vast right wing conspiracy than Lindgren's disillusion is proof of a vast left wing conspiracy. The fact that some feel the need to either defend Bellesiles or attack his critics speaks volumes about the polarization of the gun control debate.Naaman Brown (talk) 22:04, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• Garry Wills (liberal) is sometimes confused with George Will (conservative). That Garry Wills would pile on should have been a wake up call. Naaman Brown (talk) 21:24, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Quotes

• "violated basic norms of acceptable scholarly conduct. ... the judgment to rescind the Bancroft Prize was based solely on the evaluation of the questionable scholarship of the work and had nothing to do with the book's content or the author's point of view" [1]

DFL

Dr. Michael A. Bellesiles, Ph.D., DFL - what is this? Dab page does not seem to be informative... Badgerpatrol 00:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

What happened to him?

Does anyone know where Bellesiles is now and if he's writing any more books on this subject? He seems to have vanished off the face of the Earth.

Good riddance. Lawyer2b 06:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Disagreeing with someone politically is no grounds for wishing that person ill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Philosophygradstudent (talk • contribs) 17:18, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Apparently agreeing with someone politically may be grounds for wishing them well ill. David Lloyd-Jones wrote: "What Bellesiles had going for him was a thesis that many people -- myself emphatically included -- found attractive. I don't hold with book-burning, but I think we ought to consider burning Bellesiles at the stake as punishment for the harm he has done to the cause of gun control and to the credibility of America's left." Naaman Brown (talk) 00:11, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Bias Entry

I've read the book and the critics. This article is unbalanced. It does not give Belleiles side of the controversy. That said, I found most of his work to be quite convincing, especially his assessment of the militia. Untrained soldiers are no match for trained soldiers no matter how motivated. As for the heavy presents or absents of guns in early America, I find his argument convincing. Guns probably were present in greater quantities on the frontier and on farms, but, in the settled cities, villages and towns, where most of the people were, there probably was not much gun ownership. Even today, if anyone bothered to take a census and if those queried were honest, (something the book doesn't address, how many lied and said they didn't have a gun) I would expect gun owners to be only a minority of the population. Belleiles, book can be read as a condemnation of gun ownership, but it can also be read as simply a theoretical assessment of gun ownership in early America based on limited information. It does not surprise me that gun ownership went up as a matter of mass production, advertisement, and a lowering of the price, that's how we got cars.

I guess I don't understand all the fuss, we are all well aware that all countries have mythological pasts, why are we surprised to find them in our own culture. It doesn't make you a "bad guy."

I use Wikipedeia, even in the face of opposition from my colleagues who assert that the articles are unbalanced opinion and not necessarily fact. A conscious and informed reader should be able to sort out the real from the myth, this article is not balanced and gives fodder to those who slight this valuable site

joeman

This fellow's notability derives from the fact that a fair and thorough process has discredited him as a scholar. That seems to have been buried in a flood of minutia about his work before he was discredited. Lou Sander 14:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the comment about NPOV> Are there any defenses of his book published after the problem became known? If so, they must be cited. 14:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Untrained soldiers are no match for trained soldiers no matter how motivated.

Someone has never heard of Iraq. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 22:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC) RE:Untrained soldiers are no match for trained soldiers no matter how motivated. Ever heard of the American Revolution? or more recently Vietnam? Afghanistan?(Russians) and likely Afghanistan #2 (Americans)98.118.19.104 (talk) 15:41, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Hahahaha it is hilarious reading statements about untrained soldiers from individuals who obviously have absolutely no knowledge of history. My favorite is those who mention Vietnam. Evidently, these "geniuses" are unaware that the "untrained soldiers" of whom they write, the Vietcong, were completely annihilated by the United States during the Tet Offensive. They ceased to be an effective fighting force for the last five years of the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese Army was the only intact fighting force left after the Tet Offensive in 1968. Using the Vietcong as an example, even though they were essentially wiped off the face of the earth, is absolutely hilarious and betrays a complete ignorance of history. Perhaps one could argue that the Viet Minh were effective against the French, by it is highly unlikely the individuals mentioning Vietnam were attempting to make such a case. As for Iraq, the last time I checked, al Qaeda in Iraq was pretty much completely wiped out, and the regular Iraqi Army surrendered even quicker than the French did during WWII. Afghanistan is not a very compelling case either as the United States provided those fighters with billions in aid and also gave them some of the most sophisticated weapons on Earth. As for Afghanistan 2, give me a break. It is a wee bit premature to be making such pronouncements, to say the least. In fact, the part about the ineffectiveness of the militias may be the only part of Bellesiles's book that is not completely fabricated as historians have known for years that the role of the Minutemen and their effectiveness have been grossly exaggerated.

You cannot assume victory automatically means you have a better military. It was the American standing army who had the most success against the British in the Revolutionary War. The miltia were far less successful. In Vietnam our soldiers were better than the Vietnamese in that their kill to death ratio was higher. The Vietnamese simply had a greater will to fight. The Russians in Afghanistan were utterly destroying the Aghans until we supplied them with advanced weaponry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.91.14.190 (talk) 17:56, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

bias

Other probate researchers, many of whom made a point of declaring to be liberal democrat gun control advocates, found the rate of gun ownership in the American Colonies ranged from a low of 40% in urban areas to 77% in rural areas, using the same probate sets where Bellesiles claimed he counted 13 to 14% gun ownership. Naaman Brown (talk) 00:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Arming America 2.jpg

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Fair use rationale for Image:Bellesiles2.jpg

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Fair use rationale for Image:Ethan Allen.jpg

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Fix the lead, please

Love him or hate him, the key fact about this fellow is that he resigned under pressure after an investigation by his university. This fact is covered in the article, but it needs to be mentioned in the lead. Lou Sander 13:39, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

OK. What do you think?--Hi540 21:35, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a big improvement. The winning of the Bancroft Prize and its subsequent rescinding also probably belong in the lead. One could replace "award winning" with "Bancroft Prize-winning" and put something in about its withdrawal, hopefully including a date or at least a year. With the undeniable facts about the fellow's troubles unequivocally presented in the lead, his critics and supporters can have their disputes in the body of the article. Lou Sander 03:48, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Will this do?---- Hi540 (talk) 19:42, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 06:51, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Documentation needed for changes

Documentation must be provided for changes, and current references cannot be ignored.--John Foxe (talk) 15:03, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

1877 Footnote - POV/unencyclopedic footnote

It's a bit unusual to include material from a cited reference with the link to the cited reference. That is done here, and the included material doesn't seem to me to be a good example of maintaining a neutral point of view. "Infamous swiftboating..." and "unprecedented and controversial review..." are examples of material that IMHO is unsuitable to have in the article, even in a footnote. I propose to delete the text in the footnote, leaving only a link to the reference. Lou Sander (talk) 19:53, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I won't contest the deletion. But I added the footnote precisely because the statement is clearly (and stridently) the POV of a publisher who doesn't make any attempt to maintain a neutral point of view. I especially liked the "infamous swiftboating" line because it demonstrates over-the-top bias and irrationality.--John Foxe (talk) 21:46, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I get it, but I still think we shouldn't put POV stuff in articles. I won't delete it until there's been lots of time for comment. It's not like it's HURTIN' anything right now. ;-) Lou Sander (talk) 00:18, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

POV is of limited concern so long as the source is identified. Currently the article includes the following statement of Roger Lane: "It is entirely clear to me that he's made up a lot of these records....It's 100 percent clear that the guy is a liar and a disgrace to my profession." Of course, that particular POV also has the virtue of being true.--John Foxe (talk) 14:12, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

1) In thirty years of typesetting the Journal of Economic Literature (1974-2003), I saw footnote references with extensive quotes from the referenced material (in place of cluttering the text with parenthetical asides). So is a Wikipedia (ref)(/ref) construct an academic footnote or is it strictly a reference citation?

2) Also part of the notability of the Arming America Affair was the clash of POV and alleged POV of the participants (some of the people labeled rightwing or NRA agents for criticising Bellesiles' work were self-avowed leftists who supported gun control). Naaman Brown (talk) 00:29, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I've done a few runs around the bush about footnotes at Wikipedia, but it's clear that Wikipedia footnotes are scholarly notes rather than simple citations.--John Foxe (talk) 10:24, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

between "education and academic career" and "arming america controversy"

Bellesiles did write a book on Ethan Allen that was well thought of.

He also seems to have become a partisan in the great gun debate: On 16 Feb 2000, Bellesiles criticised supporters of the individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment at a symposium sponsored by the Legal Action Project of the Brady Center to Prevent Handgun Violence. Also in 2000, Michael Bellesiles contributed an article (Michael Bellesiles, "Second Amendment in Action", Chicago-Kent Law Review (Vol. 76, No.1)) to a conference issue resulting from a symposium edited by Carl T. Bogus and sponsored by the Joyce Foundation (Bogus limited the symposium to articles criticising the individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment and supporting the collective right interpretation). Bogus and Bellesiles edited a book on the subject (Carl T. Bogus and Michael A. Bellesiles, editors, The Second Amendment in Law and History: Historians and Constitutional Scholars on the Right to Bear Arms, The New Press (2001) ISBN-13: 978-1565846999). Bellesiles was a cosigner to the brief filed by Brooklyn Law School Professor David Yassky in a case testing the Second Amendment (United States v. Timothy Joe Emerson (U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit, case no. 99-10331)) and backed the Clinton Administration Solicitor General's position that the Second Amendment was not an individual right. In a Sep 2000 interview, Bellesile stated "I think they (the gun lobby) have been drawing upon a mythologized past to justify their position in terms of opposing any gun regulation today." ("Fresh Air", National Public Radio, 25 Sep 2000.) In a Nov 2000 radio debate, Bellesiles responded that he had never taken a position on current gun policy. (Debate between Michael Bellesiles and Larry Pratt, KQRD, San Francisco, 14 Nov 2000.) Naaman Brown (talk) 14:10, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Imbalance concern

Someone just brought this article to my attention. I'm looking at this cold and have never heard of this man before. Reading it cold, I say to myself, "What a scoundrel." I have question: is it legitimate for Wikipedia to have an article on a minor academic whose sole purpose is to describe what a scoundrel he is? Unless he is a Jayson Blair character, I question the purpose and emphasis of this article. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 17:51, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Your comparison of Bellesiles to Jayson Blair is an apt one. I'd suggest you examine some of the sources mentioned in the bibliography. If thereafter you still believe the article non-notable, you can always try AfD; but in this Wikipedia era, where Pokemon characters receive separate articles, it would stand zero chance of being approved.--John Foxe (talk) 20:37, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

He one a major academic prize based on falsified research. So yes, he's primarily notable as a scoundrel. TallNapoleon (talk) 01:04, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

He was a notable scholar in early American gun history. His book was notable when it came out, and it won an important scholarly prize. He was then unmasked as a scoundrel, with highly notable furor surrounding the unmasking. Definitely this guy belongs in the encyclopedias. Lou Sander (talk) 01:31, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

You can find a pretty reasonable summary of the situation at History News Network AliveFreeHappy (talk) 19:21, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Reading these sources alleviates my concerns somewhat. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 14:22, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Somewhat?--John Foxe (talk) 16:50, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this biography seems to do nothing more than denigrate the subject, and I question that. CheeseStakeholder (talk) 18:44, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

There's no problem with denigrating any subject so long as the denigration is based on reliable sources. And Bellesiles is here denigrated in a most proper and scholarly fashion.--John Foxe (talk) 19:32, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Did the historical profession originally support Bellesiles because of its collective world view?

The first entry here was put on John Foxe's peronal page originally and has been cross-pasted here by him:

As you know generally I admire your editing but I think the line you keep trying to get into the Bellesiles article is not a good idea. I let it pass at first but someone else struck it and I now find what you've done a diversion in this biographical entry. The problem is a) not all historians support gun control, b) I do not think the attraction of historians to the thesis was primarily political, though their instinctual reaction against Bellesile's critics may have been (more on a generalized plane of left-right than of gun rights question), and c) your characterization does not capture the sheer excitement in a big new finding that always happens in history, when someone seems to have unearthed and re-imagined something.

The place to explain why historians found the book attractive, I think, would be in the entry on the book, if it has to be done. But it must be done more subtly, in a way that all sides on the issue can accept.

Finally, let me say that I don't think that particular quotation from that particular source does much credit to the gun rights cause -- I'd watch out for over-the-top stuff. (In fact the earlier citation from the same source about hundreds of citations strikes me the same way, though I have let it stand in edit after edit, partly because it illustrates the level of rhetoric.) --Thirdcamper (talk) 08:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you're mistaken. Yes, there's always excitement in the profession when a historian explains something that's gone previously unnoticed. (And a lot of bad history has been written by wannabes trying to force these "aha moments.") But there's also no doubt in my mind that the majority (I didn't say "all") of the historical profession supports the objectives of the political left, which includes gun control. I do believe the attraction of professional historians to Bellesiles's thesis was primarily political in the larger sense of that word and that Cramer, who's outside the academy, hit the ideological nail on the head.

Finally, that Cramer's quotation may be over-the-top or doesn't "do much credit to the gun rights cause" is not necessarily a problem for its inclusion in the article. I was the one who added the gushing blurb from Bellesiles's publisher that's in the last footnote, and the same could be said for it.

Here are the sentences removed by Thirdcamper:

Most professional historians, who supported gun control, also supported Bellesiles. As one of Bellesiles chief critics noted, the reason "why historians swallowed Arming America’s preposterous claims so readily is that it fit into their political worldview so well.... Arming America said things, and created a system of thought so comfortable for the vast majority of historians, that they didn’t even pause to consider the possibility that something wasn’t right." Clayton E. Cramer, "What Clayton Cramer Saw and (Nearly) Everyone Else Missed," History News Network, January 6, 2003.

--John Foxe (talk) 11:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, the thing is that many historians are sympathetic to the side of the black freedom movement that practiced armed self-defense, for example, or to slave revolts, or armed abolitionist actions (John Brown--crazed as he was), or indeed to the American Revolution and the Civil War, so I think that you are making a wild overgeneralization about historians' attitudes toward guns. Many have zero fixed positions on any of it and a lot of conflicting feelings. So I personally chafe at the gross overgeneralization. My main point is that this entry is a biographical entry and as such should focus on Bellesiles, and characterizations broad-brush of the views of all historians are just not germane. There's a more simple explanation for why historians were blown away: they assumed that no one would make up records out of whole cloth, they assumed that what the author cited was accurate, and it was a very innovative understanding on offer, making it captivating. Maybe historians shouldn't have taken him at his word, but people do that all the time. If what he said had been in the archives, it would have been very important as a discovery, no matter what one's views on policy today. So that suffices to explain why the book was initially seen as impressive. I keep trying to get the Bellesiles page to a point of fairness and mutual acceptability, which is not easy. It's been clear from my edits that I have no axe to grind for Bellesiles. I added the Charlton Heston quotation, the quotations from the independent committee report that make vivid how damning it was, the NEH grant withdrawal, &c. But I think as long as you keep trying to paint all historians in one light it will be seen as unfair and immaterial to the biography of this one. Let's stick to Bellesiles in the entry. I would suggest making another entry on historians and gun control, if you wish, in which you could chart who signs whatever petitions, and what the main interpretative debates are. That would be a service. I just don't think it is needed or appropriate here, and I don't think this way of trying to summarize the range of historians' positions does justice to a complex range of views. --Thirdcamper (talk) 15:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I also think that if we are going to discuss why historians found the thesis attractive a) it would better go in the entry on the book, and b) it would be better described by quoting from the positive reviews about what people saw in the book, rather than from one of the critics of the book putting words into the mouths of its supporters in a speculative and conjectural way.--Thirdcamper (talk) 16:08, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. A sentence about why Bellesiles snookered the historical profession for so long is not out of place here. Arming America announced what the vast majority of the profession wanted to hear—that the right-wing interpretation of the Second Amendment was wrong. For the historian who provided that evidence, the highest prizes of the profession awaited. (Have any examples of historians who wrote about slave revolts or John Brown supporting standard right-wing positions on gun control and the Second Amendment?)

Nevertheless, in the end, neither of our opinions really matter. Cramer's does because, by Wikipedia rules, he's an authority on the subject. My desire is to find other authoritative voices before restoring these comments to the article. (Yes, they should be in the book article as well.) But there's no reason why we can't continue be polite. We can go to Third Opinion if we have to.--John Foxe (talk) 19:50, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Cramer is an authority on the Bellesiles citations but not on the motives and internal consciousness of those who don't share his views. Again, I submit that if you want to explain why historians initially praised the book, you should cite the original reviews. Evidence is after all the whole moral lesson in the Bellesiles scandal, isn't it? If we want to know what George Washington thought we go to his words, not his best biographer's. Likewise, Lincoln's, or Obama's, or Bush's. So let's do the same with historians, would be my suggestion. My reading of those reviews is that part of what impressed them was the detailed research, research that proved fabricated. You have written book reviews and I have too. Did you go check the archives for every footnote in those books? I've never done so. Most reviewers don't. That's a much more economical explanation. The book was impressive, before those with the personal drive, political motivation, and ability proved that it was based upon phantom records.--Thirdcamper (talk) 08:38, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, forgot--I agree it's not about us alone. Please remember I wasn't the first one to strike your point, someone else did. I can attest that it never seemed quite fair to me -- even less so in the particular quotation you have now chosen-- and it is going to seem tendentious or extraneous to many readers, not appropriate for a biographical entry on Michael Bellesiles. So I'm looking for a solution that can satisfy you and others equally.--Thirdcamper (talk) 08:44, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I looked at early reviews and found something that is fairly close to what I think you want, but which comes from the horse's mouth rather than from a conservative critic. I've added it. Does it satisfy your point? --Thirdcamper (talk) 09:35, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

No. For one thing, the notion's too elliptically presented. I believe, like Cramer, that Bellesiles fraud was long defended by leaders of the profession because of professional bias towards the left. That thesis needs to be made clear to the reader. And according to Wikipedia rules, so long as material is relevant and the sources identified, it has a right to be included whether one agrees with it or not. (Cramer's point was struck from the article earlier because it was uncited.) You could always challenge Cramer's thesis with quotations arguing the opposite, that the profession was simply excited about a newly discovered information. When I have time, I'll revisit the issue with you. --John Foxe (talk) 09:52, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Some disagreements here. He wasn't "long defended"; he was *initially* defended. Once it became clear the sources he cited were non-existant, he was widely criticized in pretty short order (the criticisms started appearing when the book did, esp. in 2001, and by 2002 it was all settled). He was *initially* defended for a variety of reasons. If I ever get back to the book page I will cite all kinds of things stated in reviews. Most of them say explicitly they are impressed by the probate work he did--the very thing that later proved fraudulent. And reviewers can't really be blamed for thinking evidence is impressive on the assumption that he wouldn't make it up out of whole cloth. (I have reviewed so many books I can't count by now and have never had the time or luxury to go to the archives and double-check footnotes; no one does.) The Cramer thing is about *historians,* not about Bellisiles. I'm not trying to strike it because I disagree with it; I combed through reviews of the book and found the only actual evidence I could find that actually approximates what you were claiming (a review that actually says the point of the book is political and appreciates that, saying it speaks to the contemporary gun issue well). But okay, so it goes. Sounds good to revisit, or maybe punt to the third opinion thing. Disappointed we couldn't come to meeting of minds. I have made a good-faith attempt to do so. Even if you persevere and put it back in, others will keep striking it out. I keep trying to say, let's find something we can both agree on. I'm not feeling that back in return, which I regret given our amicability before. --Thirdcamper (talk) 10:07, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

PS Another thing: Going over the reviews made me realize how early on he was being criticized by professional historians like Randolph Roth, etc.--almost as early as Lindgren, Cramer. So I think the Cramer account doesn't really hold up if we were to retrace the whole debate chronologically as it unfolded in the professional journals. That's a monumental task I'd like to do someday on the book page. But we should be careful about blanket and one-sided judgments. It's true he had a fancy book contract, won a big prize, &c. But it's also true that the book was debated from the start in the historical profession -- contested right away. The William & Mary roundtable in 2001 is key on this if you want to examine it, as are some other pieces (a review-essay in Reviews in American History in 2001 was very critical and supported Lindgren); given that the book appeared in autumn 2000, and given the tortuously slow pace of academic journals, this was a *very* quick rate of contestation.--Thirdcamper (talk) 10:18, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

If Bellesiles had "found" new documents demonstrating the benign nature of slavery, he wouldn't have gotten the time of day from the historical profession, not to mention winning the Bancroft Award. One of the lessons of the Bellesiles case is that amateurs sometimes ask better questions about politically correct history than do professional historians. Bellesiles himself pointed this out. As Hoffer writes, "reviewers understood the policy implications of Bellesiles' work. So did Bellesiles, as he repeatedly indicated in his own defense. The gun lobby was out to get him, but within the circled wagons of the community of scholars he was safe." Bellesiles answer to Charlton Heston was that Heston needed to earn a PhD before commenting on the work of scholars.(162)--John Foxe (talk) 17:06, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

My question would be do we have a reliable source that says what's being discussed here. IE do we have a source we can use that says historians accepted Bellesiles because it fit their political views. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 17:17, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes.

Most professional historians, who supported gun control, also supported Bellesiles. As one of Bellesiles chief critics noted, the reason "why historians swallowed Arming America’s preposterous claims so readily is that it fit into their political worldview so well.... Arming America said things, and created a system of thought so comfortable for the vast majority of historians, that they didn’t even pause to consider the possibility that something wasn’t right." Clayton E. Cramer, "What Clayton Cramer Saw and (Nearly) Everyone Else Missed," History News Network, January 6, 2003.

There is more as well.--John Foxe (talk) 20:33, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

That amateurs who were politically motivated sleuthed out the errors is absolutely correct. I don't mind that being stated. That this means all historians were politically driven in a narrow sense does not follow. AliveFreeHappy: He does have a source, but it's an *allegation.* What I am trying to find is a source that actually confirms a historian thinking in the way the allegation alleges. I've put a passage in that I think does it. I don't see why that's not a good compromise that all can accept. It's as close as it gets to a smoking gun, someone saying Bellesiles debunks the NRA and he's right.--Thirdcamper (talk) 05:29, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

At Wikipedia, there's no problem including "allegations" so long as the sources are clear. Cited statements from the opposing position would also be welcome, that is, a defense of the historical profession as not ideologically motivated in accepting Bellesiles' book at face value.

As I said above, one of the important lessons of the Bellesiles case is that sometimes amateurs may be more perceptive about catching certain historical errors than professional historians, a truth that Bellesiles himself recognized but which is, not surprisingly, something professional historians are loath to acknowledge.--John Foxe (talk) 10:05, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

No, that's not true. I agree that amateur sleuths as well as academics outside the history profession were key in bringing the issue to the table, I know of no historian who denies it, and the article should indeed say it (as it does--I was the one that put it in there, in the section on the investigation). The quotation we are discussing says something else.

What this quotation claims is that all historians think in one way and all historians defended B. This a) has no evidence to support it, b) does not help explain Bellesiles, the subject of the entry (historians are *not* the subject), and c) better expressed by the quotation I put in, which actually comes close to being one example of someone thinking in a way approximate to what you and C. are alleging, the only one I could find.--Thirdcamper (talk) 03:16, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess my question at this point is how to proceed. I keep trying to find a middle ground, but I don't see reciprocity on that. Is your position really that this quotation, out of all those possible, must be in, and must be in this article, without compromise? My suggestion, again, would be to put it in the entry on the book, on Arming America. I can accept it being there, if it really is the quotation you feel best expresses that point, because it's definitely part of the debate the book generated and it reflects some people's view of the historical profession, I suppose, though I don't think it's accurate or fair. (Hard to explain why so hardened an ideological lot so quickly moved to sanction the misconduct.) Over time we can both try to expand the book entry to have the various reviews and scholarly debate represented completely and chronologically. Does that sound fair?--Thirdcamper (talk) 03:42, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Note: I also have tweaked the relevant portion a bit (using word "conversely," to put a finer point on it). Possibly helps make it less eliptical.--Thirdcamper (talk) 04:53, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

What you mentioned re allegation was basically my issue. We have one source that quotes one guy saying that's what he thought. Right or wrong, he is a source that is clearly biased. I was hoping for a more generic source that said something about the issue. If we're going to use that quote, we need to make sure that it's something like "The guy who lead the charge in debunking the book said" or some such thing. We can't take his allegation and assert it as fact without a better source. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 18:27, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I probably should have provided this passage before, but here is what I did add based on going over the reviews--it's as close to a historian saying I like this book because of its gun control position as I could find:

Conversely, an early review in The Journal of American History described Bellesiles as having "attacked the central myth behind the National Rifle Association's interpretation of the Second Amendment" so as to have "an impact on public policy" and held that "his evidence is such that if the subject were open to rational argument it would be over."[8]--Thirdcamper (talk) 18:50, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

AliveFreeHappy is correct that Cramer's remarks can't be part of this article unless he's identified as an early critic of the book. Thirdcamper can dispute Cramer's allegation by quoting a reputable source taking the opposing position, that Cramer's remarks are baloney and that the historical profession was simply bowled over by the originality of the book's evidence. The one thing no one can do under Wikipedia rules is disallow Cramer's remarks because he doesn't agree with them. (Besides, in Past Imperfect [Public Affairs, 2004], the political liberal, Peter Charles Hoffer, confirms the thrust of Cramer's allegations.) What's important to state in this article is that some people believed Bellesiles received a coveted award because the leaders of the historical profession were blinded by their ideology. Personally I believe that to be the case, but my personal opinion doesn't make a difference. Cramer's does.--John Foxe (talk) 22:05, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

We are just going around the bush, largely because you habitually fail to reply to points made or to seek any kind of compromise. It would be nice if you reread all I wrote above and actually responded to it, rather than to a straw man. I maintain, as I have all along, that the Cramer quotation is about the *book* and *historians*, not about Bellesiles, who is, after all, the subject of this article. I have not tried to suppress your Cramer quotation from Wikipedia--though I have said I don't think it makes your side of the position look very measured--but rather to suggest it belongs in the Arming America article, because, after all, that article is about the book. Insofar as a useful point is being made by you about historians and how they received the book, and about the politics of the question, I have *not* denied it is an element but have expressed that it is better made by the actual voice of an actual historian criticizing the NRA. This is what I went and found for you and put in the piece--a quotation that has the additional virtue of actually being about Bellesiles. If you reinstate the Cramer, it will invite endless disputation for all the reasons I've elaborated. Many others besides me will see it as extraneous. Finally, I'm disappointed by your intransigence and failure to try to reach a common ground. I'm giving up now. I leave it to others to make the call, because John Foxe and I are getting nowhere here.--Thirdcamper (talk) 07:18, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

For my part, I'm more optimistic about the profitability of this exchange. As is typical with differences among men of good will, the issue in question has been clarified by the discussion. I'm now more fully aware that the new segment of the article needs to 1. identify Cramer as an early opponent of Bellesiles, 2. specifically link Bellesiles (rather than simply the book) to Cramer's allegation, and 3. buttress Cramer's position by at least one other authoritative source. Now I just have to bite the bullet and write it up.--John Foxe (talk) 17:43, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Walking the walk matters, not talking the talk, and in your changes you did not, in fact, take into account points made by me, i.e., the other person "of good will" here. I have serious doubts they ever even registered. Nor did you think about proportionality in regards to the article's subject. Is this really what matters about the life in question, or does it tell us more about what axes *you* are grinding? Almost none of what you have inserted has to do with B., rather with the politics of the book and its reception. I say again, this really should be in the Arming America entry, not here. Now what had been a concise, sufficient entry on B. has been burdened with a series of questionable allegations about the historical profession and made longer than necessary and unwieldy. So it goes. I'm giving up on the entry now, life being too short to haggle over this. Ultimately I could care less. Too bad since I'd thought we'd transcended the great divide before. Not to be.--Thirdcamper (talk) 20:31, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

We've disagreed here, but I still hold you in considerable regard as an editor. You've greatly improved this article, and I'm sure that Voltaire-like you can profitably tend gardens elsewhere on Wikipedia. (I suppose I should mention for the benefit of any curious observers of this conversation that I've never owned a firearm and haven't fired one since leaving behind my draftee military service forty years ago.)--John Foxe (talk) 21:34, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

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