Endowment Group Snubs (gun-hating) Historian

Associated Press ^ | May 23, 2002

[Dog Gone]

ATLANTA (AP) -- The National Endowment for the Humanities withdrew its name from a fellowship given to historian Michael Bellesiles, author of a disputed, prize-winning book about guns in America.

Bellesiles was given a $30,000 NEH-funded fellowship by the Newberry Library to write a second book about guns.

His first, ``Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture,'' has been criticized by other scholars who have accused Bellesiles of ideological bias, selective scholarship and misleading statements.

The Chicago-based Newberry Library erred in awarding the fellowship in February 2001, NEH officials said this week.

``They failed to weigh and consider all the factors surrounding Professor Bellesiles' previous research, his proposed research, and indeed the credibility of the researcher himself,'' NEH Chairman Bruce Cole said in a written statement.

The endowment had previously pulled support of a project only once, for a 1987 documentary called ``The Africans,'' after it was deemed biased against the West.

Bellesiles, a professor at Emory University, has been redesignated a ``Newberry Library Fellow,'' but the funding will not be revoked, said James Grossman, the library's vice president for research and education.

Bellesiles said in a statement Thursday that the NEH never gave him a reason for removing its name from the fellowship.

``The NEH ... simply made a political decision that should send chills through academics everywhere and is clearly intended as a warning to any scholar who dares to work on a controversial topic,'' he said.

``Arming America,'' published in 2000, claimed that only a small percentage of people possessed firearms in colonial times and that militias were mostly ineffective. Only after the Civil War, Bellesiles contends, did guns become important to the culture.

``Arming America'' was praised in both The New York Times and The New York Review of Books and won the prestigious Bancroft Prize for history.

But scholars and critics became skeptical, saying Bellesiles greatly underestimated the level of gun ownership in colonial times and let his theory guide his research.

Bellesiles has acknowledged some errors, but defends his book as fundamentally sound. Emory officials have appointed a team of scholars to investigate the accusations.

[Dog Gone]

I bet this story doesn't make your morning paper.

[Draakan]

``The NEH ... simply made a political decision that should send chills through academics everywhere and is clearly intended as a warning to any scholar who dares to work on a controversial topic,''

Its not the topic, Its the lying stupid! Even about a controversial subject! I am also thinking that this will never make the morning papers, and the same inaccurate quotes will still be used by the anti-2nd Amendment crowd.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Actually it probably will, since it's a very sanitized version of the Bellesiles story. Doesn't say a word about the outright fraud, in claiming to have garnered data from sources which simply do not exist, and changing his sotry several times about where he got the data in question, and finally drop that line of defense after ALL the places where he claimed to have viewed the sources assured investigators that the sources don't exist.

[lowbridge]

Belles bump

[Slip18]

Thanks for the ping, Lowbridge.

What, they didn't take his $30,000 from him? What idiots.

[JZdiablo]

Ye gods, he does have a lotta nerve, doesn't he? When his fellow academics, who are probably just as anti-2A as he is, snub the work, that's an indicator of a pretty serious problem!

[JZdiablo]

I have right here in my hands, at this very moment, a copy of the three-page letter that NEH Deputy Chairman Lynn Munson wrote to James Grossman

Where did you get this, if you don't mind my asking? Is it available to anyone?

[Shooter 2.5]

That book is going to be required reading if it isn't already and the liar is laughing all the way to the bank.

[philman_36]

LIAR! LIAR! LIAR!
Bump! Bump! Bump!

[VOA]

``The NEH ... simply made a political decision that should send chills through
academics everywhere and is clearly intended as a warning to any scholar who dares
to work on a controversial topic,'' he said.

Gotta' give the guy credit.
This is the sort of rhetoric that will soon have lots of relatively moral tenured profs
closing ranks against this "threat from the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy".

[jordan8]

This is all a slap on the wrist for a fraud who should be booted out of the academy. He still gets the money, the agitprop piece will still be written, and the taxpayer will still get the bill, one way or another.

[Gunner9mm]

...criticized by other scholars who have accused Bellesiles of ideological bias, selective scholarship and misleading statements.

The word FRAUD more accurately describes Bellesiles' actions.

[Spiff]

We FReeped the heck out of this foundation when we saw that they had given him the grant. I guess they listened...

[Twodees]

[I am also thinking that this will never make the morning papers]

Au contraire. This was written for the morning papers. Note that it doesn't even hint that Bellesiles told outright lies and made ridiculous claims about his sources. It also allows Bellesiles' comments on his loss of fellowship to stand unrefuted when they're obviously lies. This is the snow job which will be released to the mainstream media.

[ladtx]

``The NEH ... simply made a political decision that should send chills through academics everywhere and is clearly intended as a warning to any scholar who dares to work on a controversial topic,'' he said.

The NEH made the correct decision here. This guy is clearly a pathological liar. First the book now this self-serving, whiny, lying statement.

[ZULU]

Bellisles (is that a REAL name, or he did make it up too??) is no different than Handgun COntrol, etc. They all manufacture false statistics to support their insane arguments for disarming the public.

The difference is that Academia, although still run by leftists, has SOME concern for the veracity of their reputations and can't allow fraud to be financed by their institutions. Newspapers and Newsmen and women, on the other hand, hide behind the first amendment to manufacture all kinds of lies, distort facts, edit material, omit data, etc. and are never held to account.

[Draakan]

I concur! Thanks