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Emory professor's book 'biased', peers say
Josey1
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Emory professor's book 'biased', peers sayJen Sansbury - StaffSunday, February 10, 2002Historians who reviewed an Emory University history professor's controversial book on America's gun culture raise serious questions about his scholarly competence, according to David Garrow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Emory law professor and political historian. The four essays to be published this week in the William and Mary Quarterly do not accuse Emory professor Michael Bellesiles of deliberate deception, Garrow said after reviewing advance proofs obtained by the Journal-Constitution. But three of the essays "portray Bellesiles consistently as an extremely careless, sloppy and biased historian," Garrow said of the articles written by fellow historians about Bellesiles' 2000 book, "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture." "Cumulatively, those three essays make a powerful case for a charge of scholarly incompetence, of being so blinded by the light that he rode roughshod over anything that didn't propel him toward the light," Garrow said. Emory officials announced last week that they have begun an inquiry into whether Bellesiles committed research misconduct in preparing and writing his award-winning book. Critics contend that Bellesiles made up, miscounted and misinterpreted information in early American records when he wrote that pre-Civil War citizens did not own or use as many firearms as is commonly believed. Following widespread controversy over the book, editors of William and Mary Quarterly invited several historians to weigh in on Bellesiles' work. "Nobody was out to either get or support him, to say this is blameless or this is terrible. It's just a scholarly evaluation," said managing editor Ann Gross. The Quarterly also includes a 28-page response from Bellesiles. He acknowledges some mistakes in his work but stands by his overall conclusions. Bellesiles said his book should not be the final word on the subject. "The ambiguities and the discrepancies of the evidence make plain the necessity of further research," he wrote. " 'Arming America' does not close the case, nor does it pretend to do so." One essay in the Quarterly, by Stanford University professor Jack N. Rakove, focuses less on the accuracy of Bellesiles' work and looks instead at how it may affect modern-day interpretations of the Second Amendment. The other three contributors evaluate Bellesiles' work more directly. Research questioned Gloria L. Main, associate professor of history at the University of Colorado in Boulder, argues Bellesiles mischaracterized the reliability of probate records in drawing absolute conclusions about gun ownership and ignored other studies that ran contrary to his conclusion. "Very few wills mention horses or cows . . . yet these animals could be quite as valuable as a good gun," she wrote. "No one would claim that the absence of horses and cows from bequests meant the testator did not own them. Why then should the failure to stipulate a gun mean there was no gun to give?" Rice University history professor Ira D. Gruber calls "Arming America" "a very frustrating book." Gruber focuses on military history and contends that Bellesiles exaggerated or understated information as necessary to buttress his arguments about the size and strength of the militia and their willingness to use muskets. "Bellesiles' scholarship does not do justice to his subject --- at least not from a military perspective," Gruber wrote. "His efforts to minimize the importance of guns, militia and war in early America, and to portray the Civil War as the catalyst for a national gun culture, founder on a consistently biased reading of sources and on careless uses of evidence and context." Randolph Roth, a history professor at Ohio State University and an expert on early American violence, disputes Bellesiles' claims that homicide was rare among white colonists. Every instance Bellesiles cites is "misleading or wrong," Roth wrote. "Homicide was all too common, especially in the 17th century, on the frontier, and in the post-Revolutionary South," Roth wrote. "He [Bellesiles] has the courage to question fundamental assumptions about the relationship between guns, gun culture, and homicide," Roth wrote. "But he never tests his thesis against the best available evidence, and it appears that every mistake he makes in his own calculations goes in the same direction, in support of his thesis." In his response, Bellesiles said he regrets that none of the essays in the forum address the issue of gun production, which he wrote about extensively in his book. "Why, if most Americans, or even just most white male adult Americans, owned firearms, did the government devote so much effort and money promoting the manufacture and use of firearms?" Critiques welcomed Bellesiles invites other scholars to compare his evidence against any other material they find, but that differing interpretations do not undermine his conclusion because, "No one part of my evidence clinches the book's thesis." "If gun ownership was as common as the traditional image suggests, I cannot help wondering why those guns did not appear on obvious occasions," he wrote. "Pick any crisis, and one will find frantic reports that the militia is dangerously under-armed and no guns are to be found. During those crises, public officials did not hesitate to confiscate every kind of private gun for public use, including fowling pieces, and still they found themselves with too few." Garrow, who won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in biography for "Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference," has followed the Bellesiles controversy closely --- along with other Emory officials, professors and staff --- for about eight months. "I think there are many, many faculty members outside the history department who are extremely interested in this," said Garrow, who described himself as "anti-gun as anybody could get." "Anyone affiliated with Emory, not just the history department, ought to favor a completely thorough investigation and report [of Bellesiles' book]," he said. Some historians are critical of Michael Bellesiles' controversial work on America's gun culture. Their reviews will be published this week in the William and Mary Quarterly.The delayed January issue of William and Mary Quarterly comes out this week, with a run of about 4,300, about 200 more than usual, because of the high interest in the Michael Bellesiles forum. Though it won't be found on newsstands, interested readers may find it in research libraries or contact the publication to buy individual copies at William and Mary Quarterly, P.O. Box 8781, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8781. (757)-221-1120.The Quarterly also has a Web site: www.wm.edu/oieahc/WMQ/ http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/sunday/metro_c366d2fdb0bf51ea00ab.html
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