Newspaper Article

BOOKS:'Past Imperfect' delves into historians' cheating jags

Weinberg, Steve

2004

Overview

\"Past Imperfect\" demonstrates that [Peter Charles Hoffer] was the right guy for the job. An insider who helps monitor the honesty of fellow academics through the American Historical Association, Hoffer offers persuasive evidence that [Stephen Ambrose], [Doris Kearns Goodwin], [Joseph Ellis] and [Michael Bellesiles] are all guilty. Yet rather than present an aggressive prosecutorial version, Hoffer offers tough love as he explains how his colleagues fell from their pedestals. Many Ambrose devotees concluded that their beloved author, who defended himself vigorously until his death in 2002, was guilty of nothing more than occasional carelessness; Hoffer, an Ambrose fan before the allegations arose, thought some explanation might emerge that would clear the air. Instead, he concluded that \"Ambrose reduced the other scholars from whom he appropriated exact language virtually to the status of research assistants, incorporating into his own documents and passing off as his own their findings and their unique way of looking at those findings.\" \"Everyone who undertakes to write about or teach American history in a thorough manner has an almost intolerable burden,\" Hoffer says, \"to balance a critical approach and a rightful pride. The effort to carry that burden began with the creation of the American nation, continued through two centuries of historical scholarship, and provides the context for the achievements and failings of Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis and Goodwin. For in different ways they tried to shoulder that burden, and in different ways it proved too heavy for them.\"

• Publisher: Atlanta Journal Constitution, LLC
• Subject: American History From Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis and Goodwin / Books-titles / Historians / Hoffer, Peter Charles / Nonfiction / Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud