>I agree with this thesis of Wiener's, although he oversells the
>case. Especially
>so wrt Bellisles, who--like Churchill--did a lot more than get a
>footnote wrong.
In Wiener's account, the major prob was that he omitted two years in his history table, because they were the years during which the revolutionaries were given weapons, and would be misleading about the level of gun ownership. If he'd disclosed this in a note, it would've been ok. I don't know - I'm just passing this along,.
>Also, I think that Wiener disregards the fact that massive screw-ups can
>be done by almost anyone of any persuasion and gotten away with,
In his interview with me, he quoted a numbers-oriented colleague who said that we don't know what the baseline error rate is, so we're not really equipped to evaluate how awful infractions like Bellisles or Churchill's really are. He agreed with me than I said I'd bet it's well above 0.
>Have you read Hoffer's recent book on historians in trouble? It's
>more scholarly and less politically-motivated than Wiener's.
No, but hey - some of us don't have a prob with "politically motivated."