posted 01-08-2003 12:42 PM
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Publisher Stops History Book Publication
Tue Jan 7, 5:34 PM ET
By HILLEL ITALIE, Associated Press Writer

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.
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And thankfully for freedom loving people everywhere, only 24,000 copies were ever sold. Compare that to the millions of copies for conservative, pro-gun authors like G. Gordon Liddy, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, et. al. and it starts to make me think that we could yet win the war, not just this battle.

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