Correspondence |
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To the Editor: As a senior member of the profession with over sixty years cumulative experience as a journal editor, author of sixteen monographs, and editor of both contributed works and of bibliographies, may I respond to your encouragement of comments on this sad affair? I was trained by the likes of Samuel Eliot Morison and others at Harvard, Morison especially encouraged breadth of view and experience, he also thought we should be better than his generation. Ethics and plagiarism were not taught because..we of the older generation had been imbued with those concepts, There was far less pressure to publish and to achieve tenure. Moreover, it was important to write readable prose, While the standards of citation were set, attribution in either footnotes or in works consulted was sufficient provided direct quotations were acknowledged. Perhaps for most of us the concern was with where we had obtained our facts, providing information enough that others could find them for themselves, As an Editor I have sought to consolidate notes and preferably to get authors to provide source essays and guidance assuming that anyone interested in the subject will wish to look at the book or article, not just at one page, For both journals and publishers the economic cost of superfluous citation has to be considered, (Thus the perennial argument over more or longer book reviews.) Part of the problem in America or U.S. history seems to be too many scholars pushed to publish with too little imagination as to new topics or new perspectives on old topics. It is encouraging to see that comparative history is beginning to emerge in other than military history. Graduate schools have not encouraged large views or trial balloons. The unconscious or purposeful emphasis is upon marking out an area or two and knowing everything by anyone who has tilled that plot, but not much concern as to its significance to world history. One of the purposes of history should be to educate the reader. the general public, and teachers. Anyone such as Ambrose who is successful in doing so is an object of jealousy rather than praise. And because success brings income and freedom, that is to be disparaged, especially by those who are seriously pursuing grants, for getting outside funding counts for brownie points on the tenure and promotion ladder. It was the opinion of one member of my department that Samuel Eliot Morison was not a proper subject for a historiography seminar paper since he had won a Pulitzer Prize and had money. In a sort of convoluted way it is reminiscent of the judgment that Admiral Byng was shot to encourage initiative. In terms of the Bellesiles' case you have raised a valid point as to the equality and justice of punishments. Professor Ellis was guilty of lying about his military service and suspended, without effect upon his audiences apparently. Ambrose and Kearns have been publicly embarrassed. Has Bellesiles been given comparable treatment? The answer is no. The Emory enquiry was, as the OAH noted, flawed. But who in the publishing and who in the awards process failed to detect the alleged flaws. Surely these errors or omissions deserves some consideration. And who put the pressure on Professor Bellesiles to resign without a better investigation than a summary administrative face-saving? You rightly suggest that there are some bigger issues here, perhaps some that should go to an ombudsman. At the same time, shouldn't there be a better understanding of the needs and requirements of publication, including the economic, and the production of readable, saleable books? This also suggests the need for a forum, such as we have hoped would emerge in the Journal of the West, for experimental theses, trial balloons, and the like to help open up new topics and areas of research and writing. This is particularly important with so many academic or quasi-academic publishers opting for profits. But who can blame them when professors no longer buy books? Robin Higham |
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