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To: H-OIEAHC <H-OIEAHC@H-NET.MSU.EDU> Reply-to: vze2t297@verizon.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en]C-CCK-MCD BA45DSL (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en Delivered-to: H-OIEAHC@H-NET.MSU.EDU Original-recipient: rfc822;john.saillant@vmh.cc.wmich.edu In his May 23 post, Mr. Rakove says: "Three points are salient here. The first (as noted in my WMQ piece) is that Arming America has very little to say about the adoption of the 2d Amendment or its interpretation...." Roger Lane, in his review of Arming America in the Journal of American History[Vol 88,No2], had this to say: "Michael A. Bellesiles, in showing that few white male Americans owned or could use firearms before the 1850s, has attacked the central myth behind the National Rifle Association's interpretation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. He makes it clear from the opening, a hostile description of the contemporary gun culture, that he intends to have an impact on public policy or at least discourse. In fact, his evidence is such that if the subject were open to rational argument it would be over; at the least, Arming America has added new ammunition to the debate, earning widespread applause from well beyond the academy.... ...But above all the book deserves the adjective "important." Paraphrasing G. W. F. Hegel, the author notes that "What an historian says has little impact on present conditions." Yes, usually, and in the short run. But many of us hope for more, at least in longer perspective; Hegel was after all wrong about himself, however ironically. And Michael Bellesiles's hope to help shape history by writing it is far more realistic than most." [Source: http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah//88.2/br_2.html ]
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