By Hillel Italie
AP, by way of [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23841-2003Jan7?language=printer]Washington Post[/url]
Tuesday, January 7, 2003; 5:51 PM

NEW YORK –– Publication has been halted on a disputed book about the history of guns in the United States.

Questions about Michael Bellesiles' "Arming America" had already led Columbia University to rescind the prestigious Bancroft Prize for history.

When Columbia made the announcement last month, publisher Alfred A. Knopf said the book would remain in print. But Jane Garrett, Bellesiles' editor, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the publisher would no longer sell it.

"We are in the process of ending our contractual arrangement with Michael for 'Arming America,'" Garrett said.

According to Garrett, Bellesiles (pronounced Bell-eel) had proposed some revisions, but the publisher found them inadequate. Knopf spokesman Paul Bogaards said the decision to stop printing "Arming America" was made weeks ago, although without a formal announcement.

Efforts to reach Bellesiles for comment were not immediately successful; he recently resigned as a professor at Emory University, after an independent panel of scholars commissioned by the school strongly criticized his research.

According to Garrett, the book has sold about 8,000 copies in hardcover and about 16,000 in paperback.

Bellesiles spent 10 years working on "Arming America," published by Knopf in 2000. The book challenges the idea that the United States has always been a gun-oriented culture and that well-armed militias were essential to the Revolutionary War.

"Arming America" was praised in both The New York Times and The New York Review of Books and won the Bancroft Prize, presented to works of "exceptional merit and distinction in the fields of American history and biography."

Many cited it as a devastating statement against America's alleged historical love affair with firearms. But gun advocates quickly attacked the book, and scholars and critics also became skeptical.

The Emory report, written by scholars from Harvard and Princeton universities and the University of Chicago, said Bellesiles' failure to cite sources for crucial data "does move into the realm of 'falsification.'" It also suggested he omitted other researchers' data that contradicted his arguments.

Garrett said Tuesday that she still had "great respect" for the author. "I still do not believe in any shape or form he fabricated anything," she said. "He's just a sloppy researcher."

Bellesiles has acknowledged some errors, but defends his book as fundamentally sound.

"I have never fabricated evidence of any kind nor knowingly evaded my responsibilities as a scholar," he said after announcing his resignation in October.

Related story, by one of the men who brought Bellesiles down:

[b]What Clayton Cramer Saw and (Nearly) Everyone Else Missed[/b]
[url=http://hnn.us/articles/1185.html]History News Network[/url]
1-6-03
By Clayton Cramer

[i]Mr. Cramer is a software engineer and historian. His last book was Concealed Weapon Laws of the Early Republic: Dueling, Southern Violence, and Moral Reform (Praeger Press, 1999). His web site is http://www.claytoncramer.com.[/i]

Michael A. Bellesiles’s Bancroft Prize for Arming America has been revoked—the first time that a Bancroft Prize has ever been taken away from an author.[1] He has also resigned from Emory University after a blistering criticism by a blue-ribbon panel.[2] Is this embarrassing moment for the history profession a fluke, or indicative of deeper problems?

I fear that it isn’t a fluke. Arming America reveals that there are some very serious problems in the history professorate, and they are not confined to just one history professor’s demonstration of hubris. Before I launch into a discussion of these problems, let me tell you why I am writing this article.

[b]My Involvement With the Bellesiles Scandal[/b]

I have been described in some articles covering this scandal as Michael Bellesiles’s most persistent critic, and I suppose that this is a fair statement. Bellesiles first presented his rather astonishing claims about gun scarcity in early America in a 1996 Journal of American History paper. At the time, I was a history graduate student, working on my MA thesis at Sonoma State University in California. My thesis examined the development of concealed weapon laws in the early Republic, and what I found completely contradicted Bellesiles’s claim that the early Republic had few guns, and few hunters.

(entire story [url=http://hnn.us/articles/1185.html]here[/url].)

LOL, read a comment on that history website with the article from the guy who debunked Bellesiles (bell-eel [:P] )  that said that they shoudl keep Bell-eel's book in publication and highlight all the errors and fabrications with the corrections.

Out-freaking-standing!

It would make an excellent teaching aid for a class on academic fraud, just like the infamous Piltdown Hoax skull.

The only thing that Bellisles succeeded at dicrediting was himself.

Way to go!

I doubt the 9th circuit even cares. They would probably quote part of a plot in a porn movie to support their decisions.

Yeah baby, justice is served!
Tossed out of Emory,
Prize & money revoked,
book out of print. Discredited for life.
When he's working in a Burger King or homeless, I hope he reflects on what being a lier has got him.

From the dust jacket of Belleisles book:

“Thinking people who deplore Americans’ addiction to gun violence have been waiting a long time for this information. Michael A. Bellesiles has uncovered dramatic historical truths that shatter the ‘ten commandments’ promulgated by the National Rifle Association.” – Stewart Udall, author of [i]The Myths of August[/i] and [i]The Quiet Crisis[/i]

“Bellesiles contributes significantly to one of our most contentious contemporary debates. Good history, he demonstrates, can expose myth and open new avenues for discussion by scholars and policymakers alike.” – Mary Beth Norton, author of [i]Founding Mothers and Fathers[/i]

“This book changes everything. The way we think about guns and violence in America will never be the same. Neither will our notions of manhood, race, the rise of big business, or our national character. Neither will our understanding of the Second Amendment. [b]Michael A. Belleisles is the NRA’s worst nightmare[/b].” – Michael Zuckerman, author of [i]Peaceable Kingdoms[/i]

Hmmmm, wonder what these 'historians' think now? Belleisles is the anti-gun Left's worst nightmare!

[b]The lying little Shit![/b]

Eric The(Giggling)Hun[>]:)]

[RushLimbaughLaugh]

[nana]

[/RushLimbaughLaugh]

One down!!!... lets hammer away at this Michael Zuckerman clown [brick]

The sad part is that the copies that were printed will wind up in academia. I'm sure most universities will have a copy of it, where the untra-liberal curriculum will make it required reading.

In time it'll be hailed as a progressive piece of literature to be hailed as revolutionary; where only the primitive minds of the conservatives and pro-gun owners will be unable to digest as truths.

Mark my words.

10-4...Mayday