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Lauren Kassell,"The Last True Know-It-All," American Scientist, July/August, reviews Andrew Robinson's The Last Man Who Knew Everything: Thomas Young, the Anonymous Polymath Who Proved Newton Wrong, Explained How We See, Cured the Sick, and Deciphered the Rosetta Stone, Among Other Feats of Genius.
Elizabeth Drew,"Power Grab," NYRB, 22 June, synthesizes and sharpens much of the recent criticism of the Bush administration. Whatever happened to executive restraint as a conservative virtue? James Madison certainly thought it was. Thanks to Manan Ahmed and Rick Shenkman for the tip.
Finally: Rob MacDougall reports on the Business History Conference last week in Toronto. Congratulations to our newest colleague, Taylor Owen, who was recently named a Trudeau Scholar. As such, Taylor continues his work in Geography and Security Studies at Jesus College in the University of Oxford. Thanks to Scott McLemee, who addressed the Association of American University Presses convention in New Orleans on Friday. Reports are that he recommended blogging to the AAUP, citing Cliopatria and its record of 400,000 visitors, and that her page was on the big screen as he spoke. And, Farewell to: Albert Adu Boahen, the historian who"broke the silence" during Ghana's dictatorship; and BarbaraEpstein, a founder and long-time editor of the New York Review of Books. Somewhere in my files is a letter from her, rejecting the best article I ever published. Her loss.
Where did Desrshowitz call for barring discussion? What, in sum, are you talking about?
Stephan Xavier Reich -
11/25/2006
I did. And I am asking you for a simple citation of sources. Where does Alan Dershowitz call for, as you said, their suppression. Not in any article I've read. So, what's your source? Can you cite it? Can I possibly be any clearer or demand anything less unreasonable?
Stephan Xavier Reich -
11/25/2006
And yet you demand that those who criticise M and W do YOUR research for YOU! I guess when you're king of the sandbox you make the rules, but it's hardly fair . . .
Stephan Xavier Reich -
11/25/2006
Alright--I will do the research for you. Here's where Dershowitz does substantiate it.
Thanks for this. I apologize for misunderstanding your meaning.
Jonathan Dresner -
6/19/2006
If you think I'm against discussing the incendiary, you don't know me as well as you think. I just think everyone's gotten exercised over the wrong thing.
Ralph E. Luker -
6/18/2006
Well, Jonathan, the labels were yours, not mine, and they clearly were meant to indicate that one set of information is old news and therefore not worth discussing and the other set of information is so offensive as to not be acceptable for discussion in polite society.
Ralph E. Luker -
6/18/2006
Not at all. My response was simply to indicate that neither I nor my colleagues are, by reason of our being here, at the beck and call of whatever loon or genius who may have just happened over here for the moment and the thrill of giving orders.
John Marshall Robinson -
6/18/2006
There is something serious amiss when a simple request for a citation is met with such animosity.
I have the sneaking suspicion that no such evidence exists linking Dershowitz to any attempt at suppressing the publication and discussion of this Israel Lobby issue. Is all this bravado about not being paid to supply a simple citation just a smokescreen?
I would hardly be surprised.
Jonathan Dresner -
6/18/2006
it seems to me that the labels themselves are vehicles for suppressing discussion
Nice: either I agree with the paper or I'm labeling it and suppressing discussion.
Yeah, I'm done.
Ralph E. Luker -
6/18/2006
Mr. Reich, I am well aware of some critics of M & W in the United States and Canada who have not raised the anti-Semitism issue against them, if that's what is agitating you. What is agitating me is your assumption that you have rights to commandeer my research time and resources. It was Dershowitz who made the charge, in the first place, that M & W had used neo-Nazi sources for their documentation. Bit of an outrageous charge to make, especially if the attorney can't substantiate it, don't you think?
Ralph E. Luker -
6/18/2006
Nowhere does Desch deny the variety of reactions to the M&W article. It is the very lack of variety, so far, in the United States to which he points.
I didn't say that it was any more than a footnote, but it is noteworthy that the article was originally commissioned for publication in the United States and, for whatever reason, only found a major publisher abroad.
If you think that the distinction between the banal and the incendiary is a useful one, it seems to me that the labels themselves are vehicles for suppressing discussion. The one question is settled already because there's no new information; the other question isn't to be raised in polite company.
Ralph E. Luker -
6/18/2006
Let's be absolutely clear about one thing, Mr. Reich, I am not here subject to your demands. I am not subpoenaed to be subject to your haggling demands. Nor have you paid me to do your research for you. It is Dershowitz who made defaming comments about Mearsheimer and Walt's sources and has failed to provide documentation. Dershowitz's behavior in re Norman Finklestein is abundantly documented.
Jonathan Dresner -
6/18/2006
Well, the assumption of a simple universal "intellectual" reaction is just silly: there are many different relationships with Israel and with Judaism out there that are well reflected in the public intellectuals and journalistic presentations.
The failure of anyone to bar publication is a quiet footnote in the history of the freedom of the press, but no more than a footnote.
The article entirely fails to acknowledge the existence of substantial factual critiques, of many critics who consider the article to be rehashing old material, of those who criticize it without invoking anti-semitism at all.
The "all or nothing" that bothers me most of all is that there are two very different questions addressed in the paper, one of which is banal (AIPAC, et al. work hard to influence US policy) and one of which is incendiary (US support for Israel is irrational and detrimental to US interests), and the banal one has gotten all the attention leaving the paper's defenders with the belief that the incendiary one is basically true. The burden of proof there is a high one, and they've failed to meet it, but defenders like Desch love being able to ignore it.
Ralph E. Luker -
6/18/2006
Did you read the article? And, for the record, this wouldn't be the first time Dershowitz has sought to suppress publication. Ask Norman Finkelstein.
Ralph E. Luker -
6/18/2006
I respectfully disagree with you, Jon. What "consideration" should the sentence you quote have that it doesn't have? I found the publication history of the Mearshimer and Walt article fascinating and telling that the article could, apparently, not appear in a mainstream U. S. publication. There's no demand in Desch's article for "all or nothing." In fact, it is those who dismiss their work as "anti-Semitic" without documenting the anti-Semitism and "deeply flawed" without demonstrating where the flaws are who are "all or nothing" about the issue. I understand that it's a painful issue for public discussion, but the efforts of people like Alan Dershowitz simply to bar public discussion is a sorry footnote is the history of freedom of the press, speech, and thought in the United States.
Jonathan Dresner -
6/18/2006
Apologetics and shallow ones, at that.
Lines like "On the face of it, there’s no good intellectual reason for the differences in the reactions to the piece abroad and at home" reveals a lack of consideration, and the dismissal of all criticisms as "smears" is dishonest. The "all or nothing" thing is getting way old.
