Some historians accused of misconduct have their careers ruined, while others are awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Bush. Why is that?

Historians have been in the news recently, and the news has not been good—accusations of plagiarism, research fraud, and classroom misconduct have made headlines, brought protracted investigations, and, in some cases, landed big names in the courtroom.

In Historians in Trouble, Jon Wiener examines a dozen history scandals of the last few years, and asks why some charges end up on page one and end careers, while others do not. He argues that media spectacles end careers only when powerful groups outside the profession demand punishment—and that such campaigns typically come from the right rather than the left.

Focusing on controversies ranging across the political spectrum and representing a wide variety of charges, Wiener looks at the well-publicized cases of Michael Bellesiles, the historian of gun culture accused of research fraud; accused plagiarists Steven Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin; Joseph Ellis, who lied in his classroom at Mount Holyoke about having fought in Vietnam; and Emory's Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, who received the National Humanities Medal from George W. Bush despite a lawsuit charging her with sexual discrimination. He also examines the research misconduct of Allen Weinstein, who nevertheless was nominated by President Bush to be Archivist of the U.S.

Professor of History

Department of History
229 Murray Krieger Hall
Irvine, CA 92697-3275

tel: 949.824.6339
fax: 949.824.2865
email: wiener@uci.edu


Fields of Interest:

Recent American history; Cold War culture.

Publications:

“America, Through a Glass Darkly” (on Richard Hofstadter). The Nation, Oct. 23. 2006, pp. 36-40.

Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Eight. Edited with an introduction by Jon Wiener; afterword by Tom Hayden; drawings by Jules Feiffer. New York: The New Press, August 2006.

Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud and Power in the Ivory Tower (New York: New Press, 2005)

Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI File (University of California Press, 2000)

Professors, Politics and Pop (London and New York: Verso Books, 1994)

“Civil War, Cold War, Civil Rights: The Civil War Centennial in Context, 1960-1965.” in Alice Fahs and Joan Waugh, eds., Civil War Memory. (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2004.)

"Pop and Avant-Garde: The Case of John and Yoko." Popular Music and Society 22.1 (1998), 1-18.

"Thinking in Public." American Literary History 10.1 (1998), 77-83.

"Radical Historians and the Crisis in American History, 1959-1980," Journal of American History 76 (1989), 399-434; "Rejoinder," 475-78.

"The Responsibilities of Friendship: Jacques Derrida on Paul de Man's Collaboration." Critical Inquiry 14 (1989), 797-803.