Posted by Jim Lindgren: Garry Wills on Bellesiles on CSPAN2: People get taken by very good con men.--
Garry Wills was on the three-hour [1]In Depth program on Sunday, Jan. 2 on CSPAN2. Jerome [2]Sternstein, an historian and VC reader who saw the noon (ET) broadcast, tipped me off and I watched the midnight (ET) rebroadcast. Wills was in good form--thoughtful, interesting, impressive. What might be of interest to some Volokh Conspiracy readers, given Eugene's many posts on the topic, is a couple of questions that Wills was asked about the Michael Bellesiles controversy over Arming America (2000). Wills had written a [3]rave review in the New York Times when the book came out. In April 2002, I asked Wills after a lecture at Northwestern what he thought of the book then. [4]He replied, "I was took. The book is a fraud." During the CSPAN2 interview, the first part of Wills's statement to me was mentioned to him and he was asked for a comment. Wills responded that "a lot us" were taken. He pointed to other historians and the Bancroft Prize committee. Wills said that Bellesiles was very convincing, but he took it a step too far; Bellesiles claimed to have consulted archives that he didn't. I don't recall Wills's wording, but he said in effect that there was a lot of good work in the book and the problematic work could have been left out. Then Wills said this (an exact or almost exact quote): "People get taken by very good con men." Of course, this is stronger language than the sort I try to use about Bellesiles myself. Wills was asked in effect if he should have retracted or corrected his review (which the discussion might have wrongly attributed to the New York Review of Books rather than the New York Times). Wills said that he had wanted to wait until the challenges were confirmed, which they were in the Emory investigation, saying about the investigation something like, "Clearly, I agreed with it." The only thing that I thought was significantly mistaken was when Wills said that the probate records in the archives were checked by gun defenders. He did not treat this as at all sinister, and it is perhaps not surprising that Bellesiles's false claim on this point is still believed. But it is false. It was Justin Heather and I who went to the [5]probate [6]archives, and I have long been known as a pro-gun control scholar, having co-authored with one of my mentors Frank Zimring. Others who looked at probate records in this case include Randy Roth, who favors gun control, and Gloria Main, who I believe probably does as well. Thus, I think it is fair to say that at least a majority of those scholars who looked at probate records to check Arming America favor substantial gun control. Because my cable system on the south side of Chicago (Univ. of Chicago neighborhood) doesn't get CSPAN2, I was unable to record it on my VCR, listening instead on my computer, so I am paraphrasing, not quoting Wills. It appears that audio might become available online soon, so that I can check or create a transcript. The exchange on Bellesiles happens about 2 hours and 7 minutes into the program. If I get a transcript, I will probably correct or rewrite the quotes above to get them as close to perfect as I can. References 1. http://www.booktv.org/General/index.asp?segID=5331&schedID=328&category=In+Depth 2. http://hnn.us/articles/1074.html 3. http://partners.nytimes.com/books/00/09/10/reviews/000910.10willot.html 4. http://hnn.us/articles/1074.html 5. http://www.law.northwestern.edu/faculty/fulltime/Lindgren/lindwmmary.PDF 6. http://www.law.northwestern.edu/faculty/fulltime/Lindgren/LindgrenFINAL.pdf _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://highsorcery.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
