Historical Society

[Max B. Sawicky]

> Michael Perelman asked why progressives Martin Sklar and Sean Wilentz
> joined Eugene Genovese's new Historical Society. I asked a
> historian friend
> of mine who's been following EG's rightward move (the "Adele" addressed in
> yesterday's missent query). She said she didn't know about Sklar, but
> Wilentz has become a neocon, spouting angry white man rhetoric in The New
> Republic. Speaking of TNR, rumor was that Wilentz was on the short list of
> possible editors for that plagiarism- and fiction-friendly rag when it did
> the search that harvested Michael Kelly a few years ago.

I noticed two names I knew, Leo Ribuffo (Geo Wash Univ) and
Lloyd Gardner (Rutgers) who, to the best of my knowledge,
have not defected.  Uncle Lloyd was a major inspiration to
the anti-war movement at Rutgers, including Ribuffo as a
near-classmate of mine.  Of course, that was a long time ago.

Might pay to keep our powder dry on this group till more
has come to light.  To some extent, some of their critiques
may be consistent with or at least overlap with some of the
commentary critical of POMO seen on PEN-L.

Some POMO's call others "left conservatives," and
some class-oriented types call POMO's even worse
things.  It would be inconsistent, if not foolish,
to scorn this new group for saying the same things
about some of us that we say about each other.

MBS

"I love everybody."

  --- Lyle Lovett