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To: John Saillant <john.saillant@wmich.edu> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-AntiSpam: Checked for restricted content by Gordano's AntiSpam Software Original-recipient: rfc822;saillant@vmh.cc.wmich.edu Dear Colleagues: Having taken some part in the controversy over Arming America, I was somewhat bemused by the announcement of the editor of this and the other early American history discussion lists that there would be no discussion of the Emory report on Arming America. When I finally saw posts on the subject this week, I was pleased that the veil of censorship had lifted. I obviously am not privy to the posts that John Saillant decided not to air in November. Perhaps they contained an unseemly triumphalism. Perhaps tempers were simply short. Perhaps now, I thought, we as a profession would be permitted to take stock. Now it appears that I was wrong. The editor has informed us that three days after it lifted, the curtain is now once again falling, apparently for the foreseeable future. Having followed discussion of this episode in a number of fora, I am aware of the downsides of "All Bellesiles, All the time." The rapid degeneration of the discussion on the Chronicle of Higher Education web site last spring is perhaps the best example of how unproductive this discussion can become. And I am sure that some subscribers to this list are simply sick of the topic. Nevertheless, I disagree with the editor's decision to close the discussion once again, and for the following reasons. 1) A number of colleagues have said, here and elsewhere, that the peer review process has worked as it should in the Bellesiles case. I fundamentally disagree. Had the peer review process resulted in the "revision and recasting" of Bellesiles' work prior to the award of two of the highest prizes in the profession, I would concur that it had done its job. Surely that must be the standard. Yet I am not aware of any significant changes at the institutions responsible for peer review that will prevent a repetition of this episode. I agree with David Waldstreicher that Knopf was part of the problem. Nevertheless, the institutions that contributed the most to this affair are academic and should be responsive to our criticism. Surely the discussion of how to avoid a repetition of the embarrassment that the profession has suffered should not end before it has begun, and I see no reason why it should not begin on H-Net. If the editor believes that this is an inappropriate forum to discuss revisions to the peer review process, perhaps he can explain why and we can openly and publicly discuss what forum is appropriate. 2) The charge often made, at HNN and in other fora, is that the celebratory reception of Arming America was emblematic of a left wing academy bent on distorting history for political purposes. I think the charge is bogus, not to mention overwrought. Nevertheless, I find the charge more difficult to rebut when the topic is subsequently placed off limits in the most important channels of internal professional communication, particularly when the decision to end the discussion will be perceived as an attempt to shield some prominent professional institutions from criticism. 3) As a historian interested in the ownership, use, and cultural meaning of guns in early America, I see no reason that the topic should be placed off limits. And here I would commend to readers the various discussions on this topic that took place in the summer of 1995. They took place in the shadow of the Oklahoma City bombing, and thus contributors brought more than an academic interest to the table. Yet they were collegial, and they offered an opportunity for the exchange of thoughts, arguments not fully formed, and snippets of evidence that might be relevant. The discussion of the last few days has shown similar promise, both in its discussion of peer review and in the substantive contributions on gun culture and regional patterns of gun ownership. I find the editor's reasons for cutting this discussion short to be inadequate, and I hope that he will reconsider.
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