Abstract

Scandals about historians have grabbed public attention lately, most of all the plagiarism by popular pundits Doris Kearns Goodwin and the late Stephen Ambrose. Academic scholars followed the coverage closely, and more than a few will admit to a smidgen of schadenfreude that such financially successful and celebrated writers were embarrassed. More serious charges, of fraudulent claims, dishonesty, and harassment, have received less publicity. Jon Wiener argues that powerful conservative interests silence academics they don’t like and promote those they do and that the professional organizations, such as the American Historical Association, do not sufficiently defend intellectual integrity. Wiener makes no claim to have surveyed or taken a fair sample of these allegations, but the stories he tells are sobering. They reveal not only scholarly misdeeds but also recent increases in threats to free debate and intellectual integrity.

Yes, of course, universities have always been influenced by politics. The cold war, for example, dampened free inquiry and shut off whole subjects from scrutiny; and in the 1960s and 1970s, radical social movements demanded and won more diverse and inclusive curricula in American universities and even many high schools.

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