Horowitz Does the Historians ...
But the anthropologists at The Savage Mind suggest that it might be useful to know which historians are identified by David Horowitz's DiscoverTheNetworks.org. So, here are the wingers David fingers:
Adler, Rutie, Near Eastern Studies, UC, BerkeleyI'd like to know how much money Horowitz took from conservative foundations and private donors to mount his DiscovertheNetworks.org. Let's keep in mind that: firstly, when Horowitz first put this folly on the net, it was so incompetently done that conservatives like Paul Berman and Garry Wills were listed on it. It also included such subversive left wing institutions as Habitat for Humanity, the Harvard Alumni Association, and the Wall Street Journal. When that was pointed out to his Loonacy, Horowitz quickly took it down and gave it another year of research. Secondly, his excuse for errors is always that he runs his operation on a shoestring budget and that he simply doesn't have the staff to produce work free of error. What he doesn't tell us is that, as of 2003 at least, he was paying himself over $300,000 a year to produce this bilge. If he took an 80% salary cut, he could pay for some decent fact-checking and research.
Afary, Janet, History and Women's Studies, Purdue
Algar, Hamid, Near Eastern Studies, UC, Berkeley
Anderson, Lisa, Near Eastern Studies, Columbia
Aptheker, Herbert, Journalist/Independent Scholar*
Aptheker, Bettina, Women's Studies, UC, Santa CruzArmstrong, Karen, History of Religions, Leo Baeck College, LondonBecker, Marc, Latin American History, Truman State University
Beinen, Joel, Middle Eastern History, Stanford
Bellesiles, Michael, American History, ah, independent scholar
Berdahl, Robert, History/Administration, UC, Berkeley
Berry, Mary Frances, History, PennCole, Juan, Middle Eastern and South Asian History, Michigan
Crimp, Douglas, Art History, Rochester
Desai, Vishakha N., Art History, Asia Society
Doumani, Beshara, Middle Eastern History, UC, BerkeleyFoner, Eric, American History, Columbia
Foner, Philip, American History, Lincoln University*
Gilmore, Glenda, American History, YaleGosse, Van, American History , Franklin & MarshallHaddad, Yvonne, Near Eastern History, Georgetown
Hall, Jacquelyn, American History, North Carolina
Hobsbawm, Eric, European History, Cambridge
Horton, James, History and American Studies, George Washington
Judt, Tony, History, NYUKarmi, Ghada, Near Eastern History, ExeterKhalidi, Rashid, Near Eastern Studies, Columbia
Kirstein, Peter, History, St. Xavier
Kolko, Gabriel, American History, YorkLal, Vinay, South Asian History, UCLA
LeVine, Mark, Middle Eastern History, UC, Irvine
Lindeman, Albert, History, UC, IrvineMassad, Joseph, Middle Eastern Studies, Columbia
Mattar, Philip, Middle Eastern History, Institute for Palestine Studies
Montgomery, David, American History, Yale
Pappe, Ilan, History, HaifaVoll, John O., Islamic History, Georgetown
Wilson, Angela, History, Arizona State
Wittner, Lawrence S., History, SUNY, Albany
Yazbeck-Haddad, Yvonne, Islamic History, Georgetown
Zinn, Howard, American History/Political Science, Boston University
*deceased
So, to this list. First of all, an impressive number of the academics targeted by Horowitz are historians – far more than the handful of anthropologists found by The Savage Mind. But the names of historians appear on and disappear from the list without explanation. Alaska's Kenneth O'Reilly, Columbia's Ira Katznelson, and NYU's Robin D. G. Kelly and Mary Young were there in an earlier incarnation, but have mysteriously disappeared in this one. It isn't likely that their politics has changed. Beyond that, what serious purpose puts someone like Peter Kirstein on the same list with a serious scholar like Tony Judt? And, even at that, there are holes in the list. If someone pruned the Ks, Os, and Ys, do you mean to tell me that there's not a decent history-winger whose last name begins with Q, R, S, T, or U?
The sketches linked to each name are riotously uneven, ranging from a single identifying incident to apparent effort at a full scale biographical sketch. There are still a number of gaffs in this list, as well. Karen Armstrong? The brilliant former nun? What kind of a threat is she? Michael Bellesiles? He repeatedly described himself as"a radical Tory." Jackie Hall and Jim Horton as insidious threats? You jest. And, David – you nitwit – Yvonne Yazbeck-Haddad and Yvonne Haddad are the same person, so you're padding the list by that much (no, the entries are not cross-referenced -- it's just more incompetence). Haddad or Yazbeck-Haddad's name points to another thing that strikes me about this list: women in particular and men with non-Anglo-Saxon names seem especially likely to be targeted as subversives. There are appeals to all sorts of subliminal fears here that are about issues other than the overtly political.
Finally, the essential intellectual bankruptcy of Horowitz's whole enterprise is his determination to link the two great fears of the American Right: Marxism and Islam. They are not natural allies and there is, Horowitz's howlings to the contrary notwithstanding, no natural affinity between America's tepid academic left and al Qaeda. To make his case, he'd have you forget both the long civil war in Afghanistan, in which the Reagan administration supported the struggle against the Soviet-backed regime, and the pronounced anti-Israeli politics of spokesmen on the American right, such as Pat Buchanan. But Pat's got no ties to al Qaeda, either, so far as I know. And I don't pay myself over $300,000 a year to imply that he does.