Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud--American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin (review)

Historians argue that accurate perception of the future is impossible without knowledge of the past. However, knowledge of the past can have many different frames, depending on the position advocated by the writer of a historical account. Peter Hoffer's book, Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud—American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin, analyzes two competing perspectives on the history of the United States and explicates how the developments within the field of history affect historians and the image of contemporary history as a discipline.

Thus the book's purpose is twofold. First, it reviews the historical background of the field of history, and second, it analyzes the predicaments of the four historians identified in the title. Structurally, Hoffer's text separates those disparate goals by developing them in two different parts. The first part presents a detailed account of how American history was established as a discipline. Hoffer identifies key events and representatives of the historical scientific landscape during three eras: the consensus, neoconsensus, and new history. The fundamental distinction between the eras is the degree to which the voices of different populations living in the United States are represented in the historical accounts. Thus consensus history is characterized by the predominant representation of European Americans and a skewed narrative exhibiting the harmonious living of all populations of the United States under the rule of the Caucasian majority. Neoconsensus and new history add a variety of perspectives and often offer an alternative interpretation of the events in history. Such a multifaceted portrayal has had a significant impact on the way history is written. Specifically, during the consensus history, the predominant contention was that historical accounts represent a set of facts or absolute truths. Truth and facts were believed to have only one form. Therefore, history writers allowed themselves to "borrow" from each other freely, frequently presenting verbatim quotations without providing citations or giving credit to the original source. With the emerging alternative views on historical events, absolutism subsided and writing ethics improved. However, "old writing styles" die hard, especially among the writers of popular history who are often more concerned with captivating and vivid narratives than with historical accuracy. The purpose of such a detailed account of the developments within the discipline is that it provides a historical background and a foundation for understanding the four case studies reviewed in the second part of the book.

In the second part of the book, Hoffer examines four recent and well-publicized scandals involving four prominent history writers: Michael Bellesiles, Joseph Ellis, Stephen Ambrose, and Doris Kearns Goodwin. All four historians were condemned for serious violations of professional standards involving, respectively, fraud, falsification, and two cases of plagiarism. Hoffer reviews the causes and implications of such gross misconduct and offers his analysis in light of the historical discipline background discussed in the first part of the book. His account is different from those of other critics, as he does not merely join the chorus disparaging the offenders but rather seeks to understand what led to those occurrences.

Although the main focus of the book concerns the issues of professional conduct in history writing, its main aim is to inform the general public about those issues. Thus the book is intended for a more general audience than professional historians. Hoffer abstains from the technical jargon that might be confusing for nonacademicians. This particular choice of audience is consistent with one of the author's contentions: that more quality historical texts aimed at the general audience are required to bridge the gap between professional and popular historical writing. In that, Hoffer condemns new-era academicians for embracing methodological sophistication, convoluted analyses, and jargon meaningless for the general public. He argues that, ultimately, such "intellectual narcissism" led to a lack of connectedness with the general public and resulted in the compromised integrity now bestowed on...