NYT: Columbia Rescinds History Prize for Book (Bellesiles Prize Revoked & Money to be Returned)

New York Times ^ | December 13, 2002 | AP

[FreedomFlyer]

Columbia Rescinds History Prize for Book

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) -- Severe doubts about a book on guns in the United States has led Columbia University to rescind the prestigious Bancroft Prize for history.

``Arming America,'' by Michael Bellesiles, had received the award in 2001.

In a statement released Friday, Columbia said that the school's trustees had concluded ``his book had not and does not meet the standards ... established for the Bancroft Prize.'' Columbia has asked Bellesiles to return the prize money, $4,000.

It was the first time in the 54-year history of the Bancroft award that Columbia has taken such actions. Phone and e-mail messages left by The Associated Press with Bellesiles were not immediately returned.

Bellesiles resigned in October as a professor at Emory University, after an independent panel of scholars strongly criticized his research. In May, the National Endowment for the Humanities withdrew its name -- although not its funding -- from a fellowship given to Bellesiles. (pronounced Bell-EEL).

Bellesiles has acknowledged some errors, but defends his book as fundamentally sound. ``I have never fabricated evidence of any kind nor knowingly evaded my responsibilities as a scholar,'' he said after announcing his resignation.

The historian spent 10 years working on ``Arming America,'' published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2000. The book challenges the idea that the United States has always been a gun-oriented culture and that well-armed militias were essential to the Revolutionary War.

Relying on numerous sources, Bellesiles writes that only a small percentage of people possessed firearms in colonial times and that militias were mostly ineffective. Only after the Civil War, he contends, did guns become vital.

``Arming America'' was praised in both The New York Times and The New York Review of Books and won the Bancroft Prize, presented to works of ``exceptional merit and distinction in the fields of American history and biography.''

Many cited it as a devastating statement against America's alleged historical love affair with firearms.

Gun advocates quickly attacked the book, with National Rifle Association president, actor Charlton Heston, complaining that Bellesiles had ``too much time on his hands.''

But scholars and critics also became skeptical. In October, Emory released a 40-page study that concluded Bellesiles was ``guilty of unprofessional and misleading work.''

The report, written by scholars from Harvard and Princeton universities and the University of Chicago, said Bellesiles' failure to cite sources for crucial data ``does move into the realm of 'falsification.''' It also suggested he omitted other researchers' data that contradicted his arguments.

``The Bancroft judges operate on a basis of trust,'' said Eric Foner, a past winner and a history professor at Columbia who has served as a prize judge, although not in 2001. ``We assume a book published by a reputable press has gone through a process where people have checked the facts. Members of prize committees cannot be responsible for that.''

Knopf said in a statement Friday it regretted ``the circumstances that prompted Columbia University to rescind the Bancroft,'' but respected the committee's decision. The paperback edition from Vintage Books, which already includes corrections, will remain in print.

Columbia said Friday that trustees concurred with the scholars commissioned by Emory and found that Bellesiles had ``violated basic norms of acceptable scholarly conduct.'' NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam praised Columbia's decision as ``appropriate.''

Previous winners of the Bancroft Prize include such influential works as C. Vann Woodward's ``Origins of the New South,'' Foner's ``Reconstruction'' and Bernard Bailyn's ``The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.''

[FreedomFlyer]

From reading this AP account, you get no idea how serious the misconduct was or that most of the initial praise has been repudiated by those who expressed it.

The AP's bias is showing.

[sam_paine]

But the book is still in print!! Maybe they will move it to "Fiction."

[FreedomFlyer]

Here is the statement from Columbia University:

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S BOARD OF TRUSTEES VOTES TO RESCIND THE 2001
BANCROFT PRIZE

PRIZE HAD BEEN AWARDED TO MICHAEL BELLESILES FOR HIS BOOK ARMING
AMERICA: THE ORIGINS OF A NATIONAL GUN CULTURE

Contact:
Eileen Murphy, Columbia University
emm2103@columbia.edu
(212)854-5573

Columbia University's Trustees have voted to rescind the Bancroft Prize
awarded last year to Michael Bellesiles for his book Arming America: The
Origins of a National Gun Culture. The Trustees made the decision.
Based on a review of an investigation of charges of scholarly
misconduct against Professor Bellesiles by Emory University and other
assessments by professional historians. They concluded that he had
violated basic norms of scholarship and the high standards expected of
Bancroft Prize winners. The Trustees voted to rescind the Prize during
their regularly scheduled meeting on December 7, 2002 and have notified Professor Bellesiles of their decision.

The Bancroft Prize, which was first offered in 1948, is to be awarded
for works in American history of "distinguished merit and distinction."
The selection criteria for the Prize specify that it "should honor only
books of enduring worth and impeccable scholarship that make a major
contribution to our understanding of the American past." Professor
Bellesiles' book seemed to fulfill these criteria at the time of
selection. However, it has since been the subject of substantial
debate within the community of American historians that included
charges that Professor Bellesiles had committed scholarly misconduct in
the use of some of his primary source materials.

In response to these charges, Emory University, where Professor
Bellesiles holds an appointment, established a panel of three
distinguished scholars from other universities to conduct a review. On
October 25, 2002, following this review, the panel issued a report. In
it, the panel members found "evidence of falsification" with respect to
one of the questions they were asked to consider; spoke of "serious
failures of and carelessness in the gathering and presentation of
archival records and the use of quantitative analysis" on two others;
and questioned "his veracity" with respect to a fourth. They also
concluded that he had "contravened" the norms of historical scholarship
both "as expressed in the Committee charge and in the American
Historical Association's definition of scholarly 'integrity.'"

Columbia's Trustees considered the report of the Emory investigating
committee and Professor Bellesiles' response to it. They also
considered assessments by professional historians of the subject matter
of that report.

After considering all of these materials, the Trustees concurred with
the three distinguished scholars who reviewed the case for Emory
University that Professor Bellesiles had violated basic norms of
acceptable scholarly conduct. They consequently concluded that his book
had not and does not meet the standards they had established for the
Bancroft Prize.

In making their decision, the Trustees emphasized that the judgment to
rescind the Bancroft Prize was based solely on the evaluation of the
questionable scholarship of the work and had nothing to do with the
book's content or the author's point of view.

[mrustow]

Thanks for the post. AP can seek to minimize it all they want, but this is a huge story. If only Afrocentrists and feminists were held to this standard, we'd be reading stories like this on a weekly basis.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Anybody happen to know what this lying scumbag is doing for a living these days? No more Emory, no more NEH grant, now formally disgraced by pillar-of-leftist academia Columbia -- so who'd hire him? Even the gun-grabbing organizations probably don't want him, as he'd be a constant public reminder of the credibility problem of anti-gun research. McDonald's? I'm really curious, and if we can find out that some outfit is giving him a paycheck for anything bu t menial manual labor, they need to be freeped big time.

[me3]

Bellesiles told the Chicago Tribune that he had visiting jobs lined up at English universities for the next year. His story plays better over there because the English press described Emory as being in the gun and Bible belt, not realizing that it is a typical US liberal academic institution.

After that, Bellesiles said he might teach high school.

[realistic]

First of all I'm grateful that Bellesiles. (pronounced Bell-EEL) has been thorougly debunked. From a strictly logical standpoint, how did he ever gain his 15 minutes of fame?
I'm traveling to establish myself & my family in unknown territory & not take all the weapons I can get? The pilgrims survived with shovels and hoes? The revolution was fought with weapons provided by a state that didn't exist?
Americans and other thinking people are not a 'gun loving culture'. Any individual who uses their brain realizes that weapons are a necessity.

[beckett]

...the Trustees emphasized that the judgment to rescind the Bancroft Prize was based solely on the evaluation of the questionable scholarship of the work and had nothing to do with the book's content or the author's point of view.

Ha! The prize was awarded in the first place on the basis of the "author's point of view!"

The non-historian gender feminists who made up the three person award committee for the Bancroft had no expertise whatsoever in early American gun culture. They just liked Bellesiles's theory for its utility in present day politics.

[kitchen]

Fact checker for Judge Stephen Reinhardt?

[wizzler]

Bellesiles is an idiot, and the award deserves to be retracted... but how in the world can they demand he return the money?

What, do they hand out these prestigious prizes with some fine print attached? "Oh, by the way, if it turns out you're guilty of academic fraud and we retract the honor we were dumb enough to be fooled into giving in the first place, you have to give us this cash back."

[Southack]

The good guys one this fight because we paid attention to the Lefty's words, and then we didn't back down.

[beckett]

Anybody happen to know what this lying scumbag is doing for a living these days?

When he left Emory he said he intended to dedicate himself to his writing.

Translation: He's going to hole up in a mountain cabin for a few years and hope at the end of that time he can convince his publisher to take his next book.

[Southack]

"one" should be "won"

Sigh...

[coloradan]

The paperback edition from Vintage Books, which already includes corrections, will remain in print.

This sentence falsely implies that these "corrections" entirely repudiate the challeges lodged against this fraudulent book. The corrections can be little more than band-aids on gangrene.

[wretchard]

The AP attempt to prettify the corpse of Bellesiles reputation will prove counterproductive. The Liberals should have slammed him down once it became clear that he had invented his 'no guns in 18th century America' out of whole cloth. As it was, the liberal commentators kept holding up this fraudster with their 'reputations', which have tanked along with him.

The most intriguing thing about the Bellesisles fraud was that it was uncovered by an amateur historian, Clayton Cramer. Bellesiles sneaked his absurd claims right past the noses of professional historians, who should have known better, before someone yelled that the Emperor had no clothes.

[jokar]

He was on MSNBC Don Imus Thursday has a book out on WWII.

Book is selling well.

[me3]

AP: "The paperback edition from Vintage Books, which already includes corrections, will remain in print."


This sentence is nonsense. When the current Vintage edition came out, Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America interviewed Knopf and Vintage and they insisted that they had not made any substantive corrections.

http://www.gunowners.org/opagny01pt16.htm

Now without making any more changes, they are claiming they did make substantive corrections. What nerve!

The current Vintage paperback edition is the same one that caused Emory to conclude that Bellesiles had committed misconduct and falsification.

Knopf is dishonest--big surprise!

[me3]

You have the wrong person. He was not on Imus with a book on WWII.

[Frohickey]

In a statement released Friday, Columbia said that the school's trustees had concluded ``his book had not and does not meet the standards ... established for the Bancroft Prize.'' Columbia has asked Bellesiles to return the prize money, $4,000.

The prize money of $4000 should be returned, along with interest!!!

[Fixit]

Bump.