Historians In Trouble: Book
Review
Intro to the Study of History, section 01
Spring 2013
University of Northern Iowa
Dr. John D. Baskerville Associate Professor
Jerry L. Hunter III
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Historians are having more and more problems about plagiarism and whether or not their
papers are being cited right. More and more historians each year are being charge of plagiarism
or many other crimes. In Jon Wiener’s book Historian In Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud, and
Politics in the Ivory Tower (The New York Press 2005) he talks about a dozen history scandals,
in which he concludes that only certain media spectacles and careers only when right-learning
external groups demand punishment. Wiener is the author of five other books, some of which
are How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey across America, which is based on
Wiener visiting Cold War monuments, museums, and memorials. He also was the editor and
wrote the introduction to Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago
Eight. Wiener is a Harvard Ph.D. graduate who currently resides in Los Angles and is known
most notably for his 25-year legal battle to win the release of the FBI files on John Lennon. He
now is a professor of United States history at the University of California, Irvine. He also is a
contributing editor to the left-leaning political weekly magazine “The Nation.”
His book seems to primarily float around historians today being accused of fraud,
plagiarism, and punishments in classroom misconduct. The contents of the book include
different cases of controversy surrounding many different historians. The book seems to be made
up of twelve different cases of certain historians who have made errors in their careers. Some
cases were major, with the accused walking away without trouble in some cases, or minor cases
that ended up to a career ending conclusion. It would just depend on who the case was about and
whether or not the suspect had important friends or enemies, the consequences varied due to this.
In his book Wiener seems to be trying to tell the story of how the media is corrupt, and
that certain people got away with more things than a normal person would. “This book, more
than most, is a result of conversations, arguments, and comments from friends. . . Several of the
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chapters here appeared originally in a different form in America’s Oldest Weekly. I am deeply
indebted to the wonderful editors at The Nation who encouraged me to pursue these stories and
then worked to help me get them right.” (Wiener vii) In the Acknowledge portion of his book he
gives credit to many names who helped Wiener write his book and who gave him assistance in
certain chapters and context of his book.
This work was written so that more information could get out there about Historians
getting charged more and more with different types of crimes of fraud in their work
environments. This work should have been written, it helps get more information out there that
there is a problem today with people being charged with certain crimes. But it also shows how
corrupt it is by how some people get off of their charges scot free. The way that Wiener writes
this book though makes it seem like it is very one-sided and that he leans very far to the left end
of the spectrum in his writings, he seems to have many one-sided views on subjects and does not
take into consideration other sides.
Weiner’s book does seem to ask the question are historians really safe out there with
people questioning others credibility. And are historians really safe publishing books about
certain subjects without being accused of fraud or plagiarism. This could harshly affect the
writings of new books and the distribution of new sources and information. If historians are
afraid of writing because they will be accused of plagiarism then the spread of knowledge and
information will start to slow down to a trickle. Wiener’s book does seem to help server the
goals of history by getting information out there that the system is corrupt.
This study does not seem to be new people have had to watch themselves in the past with
fraud because of speculation and accusation of their work or credibility. It seems though as this
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is one of the first books to touch on how corrupt it is and how people need to be careful about
what they publish and who they quote.
The author arrives to his conclusion in a logical manner giving credit to many people
along the way for his writings and where he gathered the information to write the book. The
author seems to be very convincing in his arguments, but he seems very one sided in them and he
does not touch on the other side of reasoning. If he were to try to write about both sides of the
story his writing would come off as even more credible and he would make a more convincing
argument.
One thing he does a good job of though in his writing is to get the fact out there that yes
Historians are in trouble and they need help. He did a good job to convince me as a reader that
there is a problem today and since I would like to be a history teacher I need to keep an eye out
with what I turn in for reports. I am very interested this and I feel as if things need to change so
that more and more people are not wrongly convicted for minor crimes, and that people who are
accused of major crimes need to be punished for what they did.
The book is overall well written he gives a dozen good examples of how corrupt it is and
this helps him make his argument much better. It would be even better if he was not just
reporting from one side. Other than that the read seems to be kind of dry because it is just a
continuation of some cases throughout the years, some of the cases being more interesting than
others. From this paper I learned a lot of information about the system and how it works and it is
very eye opening that this has happened in the United States.
Wiener pulls everything together and gives more information about the aftermath of
certain cases and people’s views about the cases. “Understanding historians in trouble requires
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looking not just inside the profession, at its policies and procedures, but also outside—at larger
forces in the culture and the media. Historians in trouble need to be put in perspective.” (Wiener
208)
Wiener does a good job of getting the information out there to people and it is an
informative piece of work and it makes people think about society today. As mentioned it seems
as if his information seems to tilt to one side, but it still is very eye opening and makes people
think, which is the most important thing about his book.
Overall this book would score a seven out of ten, it is not the most eye opening book nor
is it the most elegantly written. But it does a good job of getting the point across and that it has
made people think and open their eyes a bit on certain situations in history. He does a good job
getting his information out there by choosing a case explaining what happened, and then
explaining what happened and why it was so important to be written about. This makes you
think about what is going on with history today and what you have to keep an eye out for, so that
you can stay credible with your work.