Historians/History

Brian VanDeMark: Accused of Plagiarism

by HNN Staff

 UPDATEIn April 2013 Mr. Van DeMark asked that we take down this page, noting that an article by historian Daniel Kevles in the New York Review of Books exonerated him in 2003 from the charge of plagiarism.  In the article, DeMark noted, that Kevles wrote that " 'something like half' of the allegations were reasonable paraphrases and the remaining ones were 'not important.' " We agreed to draw attention to Kevles's piece.***On Saturday May 31 the New York Times reported that Brian VanDeMark, a tenured associate professor of history at the United States Naval Academy, was allegedly guilty of plagiarism.According to the Times more than 30 passages in VanDeMark's new book, Pandora's Keepers: Nine Men and the Atomic Bomb (Little Brown), are"identical, or nearly identical" to those found in four other books written by Richard Rhodes, William Lanouette, Greg Herken, and Robert Norris.

The Pulitzer Prize the NYT Should Not Have Won

by Mark von Hagen

A report commissioned by the [NY] Times said the work of 1932 Pulitzer Prize-winner Walter Duranty had a “serious lack of balance,” was “distorted,” and was “a disservice to American readers of the New York Times…and the peoples of the Russian and Soviet empires.”--New York Sun Oct. 22, 2003 This summer, at the request of the New York Times, Mark von Hagen, Professor of History a

The Historian Confederate Descendants Want Fired for Writing a Critical Review of Gods and Generals

On Sunday October 12 HNN received the following correspondence, which is being published with the approval of the letter writers. The letters concern an effort to fire the director of the Museum of Mobile after he panned the movie, Gods and Generals.Click here for the latest updates.Click here to read his movie review.LETTER FROM MIK

It's Time for the Federal Government to Monitor How Its Funds Are Spent on Middle East Studies

by Martin Kramer

Back in June, the House Subcommittee on Select Education convened hearings on bias in Title VI, the program of government subsidies for area studies in universities. The indefatigable Stanley Kurtz, critic of Title VI, gave invaluable tes

Did Alan Dershowitz Borrow Shamelessly from a Discredited History Book?

by Norman G. Finkelstein

Editor's Note: Mr. Finkelstein claims that Alan Dershowitz's latest book, The Case for Israel, shamelessly borrows from Joan Peters's controversial book, From Time Immemorial, which Mr. Finkelstein claims is a fraud. Mr. Dershowitz disputes the charge that he borrowed shamelessly from Peters. In late September 2003 Mr. Dershowitz and Mr. Finkelstein appeared on "Democracy Now!,&qu

Why Academic Terrorism Experts Don't Get It

by Martin Kramer

The study of terrorism is the orphan of Middle Eastern studies. The Middle East academics, whose self-appointed mission is to cast their subject matter in a favorable light, simply avoid the subject. They are happiest studying putative reformers of Islam, not the terrorists who invoke it. Just look at the

Edward Said's Critical Outlook

by Rafey Habib

Edward W. Said (1935-2003) was a literary and cultural theorist. Born in Jerusalem, Palestine, he attended schools in Jerusalem, Cairo and Massachusetts. He received his B.A. from Princeton in 1960 and his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1964. Since 1963 he was Parr Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He also was a visiting professor at Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins and Yale. His books, translated into several languages, received numerous awards.

The Academic Bill of Rights: Not Exactly McCarthyism

by Thomas Reeves

One of the most obvious facts of life is that America's colleges and universities are dominated by the Left. This is easily documented by the examination of campus catalogues, lists of speakers invited to campus, studies on faculty political affiliations, positions taken by faculty governments, and by book lists. Some liberals even admit the bias on campus, arguing that there is a sort of necessary correlation between reason, justice, and leftist political, social, and moral position

Technological Advances Cause Economic Distress

by Jonathan Dresner

The manufacturing sector has suffered twelve full months of stagnation or decline in production. Of course it has! We are in the midst of an economic shift of historic proportions, driven by changes in technology and booms in the information, entertainment and service sectors. This is generally considered great, the"New Economy"! But every major production revolution has produced an economic downturn in lower value-added sectors. This t

Shouldn't Columbia Identify the Donors Who Paid for the New "Edward Said Chair of Arab Studies"?

by Martin Kramer

"An outrageous Israeli, Martin Kramer, uses his website to attack everybody who says anything he doesn't like." That's Edward Said speaking, in an interview in a new collection entitled (predictably) Culture and Resistance. I would take it as a compliment, if I didn't already know how easily Professor Said is outraged

Did Truman Know About Venona?

by Robert D. Novak

Click here for a response by Harvey Klehr and John Earl HaynesClick here for a response by Robert Novak to Klehr and Haynes DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN, during his long and illustrious public career, did not flinch from controversy. I doubt, therefore, that he would object to my having inserted him posthumously into an intriguing debate over recent history: Who was responsible a half-century ago for open

I Decline to Testify on the Basis of My Fifth Amendment Right

by Donald Ritchie

Editor's Note: How bad was McCarthyism? It's still in dispute. Just this past week HNN received an email from a teacher in Georgia who claimed that Joe McCarthy"uncovered 'real' facts about communist spies in Democratic administrative positions" and"did not deserve the censure and mockery he received from the mouths of lying Democrats." While this teacher's viewpoint may be in the minority, it is worth remembering what McCarthyism was and why it frightened so many millions of people.

A Visit to Auschwitz

by Glenn Speer

When you arrive in Auschwitz, you leave the train station and see just another small Polish town. Auschwitz is actually the name the Germans bestowed upon Oswiecim to make it more German. There is no scent in the air of human bodies being cremated, no SS officers dressed sharply, stopping to salute one another and say "Heil Hitler." Thankfully, the memory of what was done here lives on through the museum at Auschwitz documenting the atrocities--horrors bey

Campus Watch, a Year Later

by Martin Kramer

A year ago, and one week after the launch of Sandstorm, Daniel Pipes launched another website: Campus Watch. How well I remember. My endorsemen

Clio's Malpractice; or, What's A Fallen Girl To Do?

by Ralph E. Luker

The Journal of American History's editor, Joanne Meyerowitz, says that its March 2004 issue will not"directly address the [Michael] Bellesiles case." Rather, it will respond to a commitment by the Organization of American Historians' executive committee in the wake of multiple professional embarrassments. The Journal has commissioned"several authors to write short essays on issues of historical ethics, and [will] publish them in March 2004." The names of

Jokes Involving Historians

Recently, HNN reader Jonathan Dresner sent us the following email: Editor, Participating in a recent exchange it came to my attention that I can't think of a single historian joke. I can think of lots of funny things students have said about history, great ironic moments in history, and even historians with immense talent for humor. I can think of doctor jokes (including specific specialty jokes) and lawyer jokes, chemist cartoons, computer jokes (What's the difference betw

Reporter's Notebook: Impressions of the 117th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, Chicago, 2003

by Rick Shenkman

This was the convention which may well have been most memorable for what did not happen. Michael Bellesiles did not appear, though he had been expected to until just a week ago. The historians opposed to a war in Iraq did not press the association to take a vote against war. And nothing untoward happened to remind us of the terrifying world in which we now live. The worst news was that Sarah Lawrence had to cancel job interviews Saturday and Sunday because of a snowsto

Interview with David Brooks

by Joseph S. Lucas

David Brooks is the author of Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (Simon and Schuster, 2000) and the editor of the anthology Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing (Vintage Books, 1996) He is working on a book called How to Be American (forthcoming from Simon and Schuster). He was recently appointed an op-ed columnist at the NYT.Joseph Lucas: When you were in college, at the University of Chicago, you planned to beco

Japanese Textbooks Aren't Getting Much Better

by Ishiyama Hisao

Since the 1980s, sharp debates have centered on Japanese government censorship of school textbooks. The treatment of such issues as the Nanjing Massacre, the military comfort women, and Japanese use of wartime slave labor have been contentious not only in Japan but also in neighboring countries of East Asia that were colonized or occupied by Japanese forces. But the issues are not confined to history. This article carries the story to the present, exploring the implications of

The Troubling Assumptions Behind Lamar Alexander's History Project

by Jonathan Rees

On March 4th, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee introduced the American History and Civics Education Act of 2003. If this bill becomes law, it will allow for the creation of summer residential academies to instruct both teachers and high school students about "key events," "key ideas" and "key persons" in American history. It would also create a national alliance