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Michael A. Bellesiles (pronounced "bah-LEEL") is an American historian specializing in the colonial and legal history of the United States. Bellesiles received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine and subsequently joined the faculty at Emory University, rising to the rank of full professor.

Bellesiles' 2000 book Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture won the prestigious Bancroft Prize in 2001. The prize was rescinded in 2002 after an inquiry by a panel of historians found Bellesiles "guilty of unprofessional and misleading work." Bellesiles responded that he had "never fabricated evidence of any kind nor knowingly evaded my responsibilities as a scholar," but he nonetheless resigned his Emory professorship the same year.

After a lengthy absence from academia, Bellesiles published 1877: America's Year of Living Violently in 2010 and holds a teaching position at Central Connecticut State University.

Education and academic career

Bellesiles received his B.A. from the University of California-Santa Cruz in 1975 and his PhD from the University of California at Irvine in 1986. He joined the Emory University faculty in 1988 and was promoted to full professor in 1999. There he served as director of undergraduate studies in history, 1991–1998, and as director of Emory's Center for the Study of Violence.

Bellesiles also taught at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1998-99, he was a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Institute, and during 2001-02, a Visiting Fellow at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

Arming America controversy

Arming America suggested that the "gun culture" in the US arose after the Civil War and was not present in the colonial period. After suggestions of scholarly misconduct were made first by amateur and then by professional historians, the matter was examined by a committee commissioned by Emory University. The external report on the matter concluded that every aspect of Bellesiles "work in the probate records is deeply flawed" and called his statements in self-defense "prolix, confusing, evasive, and occasionally contradictory." It concluded that "his scholarly integrity is seriously in question."

Bellesiles publicly disputed these findings. He claimed to have followed all of the standards of scholarship and to have corrected all errors of fact known to him. Nevertheless, with his "reputation in tatters," Bellesiles resigned his position at Emory.

In 2002, the trustees of Columbia University rescinded Arming America's Bancroft Prize, the first such action in the history of the prize. Bellesiles's publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, did not renew his contract, and the National Endowment for the Humanities withdrew its name from a fellowship that the Newberry Library had granted Bellesiles. In 2003, Arming America was republished in a revised and amended edition by Soft Skull Press. Bellesiles continued to defend the book's credibility and thesis, arguing that roughly three-quarters of the original book remained unchallenged.

Life after Arming America

For roughly five years, Bellesiles virtually disappeared from academia, writing only a few book reviews in scholarly journals. In 2006, with Christopher Waldrep, he co-edited Documenting American Violence: A Sourcebook, which includes an article defending Bellesiles.

In 2010, Bellesiles published an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education recounting his interactions with a student whose brother had been killed by a sniper in Iraq. After the truth of the story was questioned, notably by James Lindgren, who had earlier challenged the veracity of Arming America, the newspaper determined that the student had lied to Bellesiles and his teaching assistant.

In 2011, Bellesiles was teaching at Central Connecticut State University. In 2010 his book 1877: America's Year of Living Violently was published by The New Press. A review in the Journal of American History called the "old-fashioned narrative tone" of 1877 "so delightfully retro that it is almost cutting edge." The New York Times said the book is an attempted comeback for Mr. Bellesiles and Mr. Bellesiles’s current publisher, the nonprofit New Press, described him as returning to writing after becoming “the target of an infamous ‘swiftboating’ campaign by the National Rifle Association."

Writings by Bellesiles

• Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier (1993)
• "The Origins of A Gun Culture in the United States, 1760-1865," Journal of American History 425 (1996).
• Editor, Lethal Imagination: Violence and Brutality in American History (1999)
• "Exploding the Myth of an Armed America", Chronicle of Higher Education (Sept. 29, 2000)
• "Disarming the Critics", Organization of American Historians Newsletter (2001)
• "The Second Amendment in Action," in Carl T. Bogus and Michael A. Bellesiles (editors), The Second Amendment in Law and History: Historians and Constitutional Scholars on the Right to Bear Arms, The New Press (2001), ISBN 978-1-56584-699-9.
• Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture. Alfred A. Knopf, 2000; 2d ed., Soft Skull Press, 2003.
• Weighed in an Even Balance (2003)
• Editor, Documenting American Violence: A Sourcebook (2006), with Christopher Waldrep
• "The Year 1877 Looks Awfully Familiar Today," History News Network (May 17, 2010)
• "Teaching Military History in a Time of War," The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 27, 2010)
• Bellesiles, Michael A. (2010). 1877: America's Year of Living Violently. New York: The New Press. p. 400. ISBN 978-1-59558-441-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

References

1. "How the Bellesiles Story Developed". Hnn.us. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
2. ^ "Stanley N. Katz, Hannah H. Gray, and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "Report of the Investigative Committee in the Matter of Professor Michael Bellesiles," July 10, 2002" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-11-08.
3. "Michael Bellesiles statement, 2002" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-11-08.
4. "Bancroft Prize press release, 2002". Columbia.edu. 2002-12-16. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
5. Hoffer, 166. Emory accepted Bellesiles' resignation effective December 31, 2002.
6. "Statement of NEH Chairman Bruce Cole on Newberry Library Fellowship Award (2002)". Neh.gov. 2002-05-21. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
7. Michael Bellesiles, "Weighed in an Even Balance", Soft Skull Press (2003)
8. Bruce E. Johansen, Silenced! Academic Freedom, Scientific Inquiry, and the First Amendment Under Siege in America (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2007; ISBN 978-0-275-99686-4)
9. Asked by a reporter in 2010 what he had been doing since 2002, Bellesiles wasn't "entirely forthcoming," saying only that he had done some teaching in England and had worked as a freelancer for a textbook company. Tom Bartlett, "Michael Bellesiles Takes Another Shot," Chronicle of Higher Education, August 3, 2010
10. Basken, Paul (2010-06-27). "''The Chronicle of Higher Education''". Chronicle.com. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
11. Cohen, Patricia (August 3, 2010). "Scholar Emerges From Doghouse". The New York Times.
12. Jim Lindgren, "Serious Questions about the veracity of Michael Bellesiles's Latest Tale", The Volokh Conspiracy, 9 July 2010
13. Editorial endnote to Bellesiles article, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2010. Bellesiles said he regretted having unknowingly passed on a story that was inaccurate.
14. New Press blurb
15. History News Network news item, 2010.
16. Robert E. Weir review of 1877 in the Journal of American History 98, no. 1 (June 2011), 210-11.
17. Scholar Emerges From Doghouse by By PATRICIA COHEN, August 3, 2010 The New York Times

Further reading

• Jack N. Rakove, Gloria L. Main, Ira D. Gruber, Randolph Roth, and Michael A. Bellesiles, "Forum: Historians and Guns," William & Mary Quarterly (Jan. 2002)
• James Lindgren, "Fall From Grace: Arming America and the Bellesiles Scandal", Yale Law Journal (May 2002)
• James Lindgren and Justin Lee Heather, "Counting Guns in Early America," William & Mary Law Review (2002)
• Don Williams, "Could Bellesiles's Problems Undermine Gun Control?" History News Network (May 20, 2002)
• Jon Weiner, "Fire at Will,",The Nation (Nov. 4, 2002)
• Jerome Sternstein, "Shooting the Messenger: Jon Weiner on Arming America", History News Network (Oct. 28, 2002)
• Joyce Lee Malcolm, "Disarming History," Reason Magazine (March 2003)
• Peter Charles Hoffer, Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud--American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004): 141-171.
• Ron Robin, Scandals & Scoundrels: Seven Cases that Shook the Academy. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004)
• Jon Wiener, Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud, and Politics in the Ivory Tower. (New York: The New Press, 2005). ISBN 1-56584-884-5.
• Clayton E. Cramer, "Why Footnotes Matter: Checking Arming America's Claims" Plagiary (2006)
• Clayton E. Cramer, Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie (Nashville, Nelson Current, 2007) ISBN 1-59555-069-0.
• Scott McLemee, "Amazing Disgrace," Inside Higher Ed (May 19, 2010)
• Tom Bartlett, "Michael Bellesiles Takes Another Shot," Chronicle of Higher Education, August 3, 2010.
• Patricia Cohen, "Scholar Emerges From Doghouse", New York Times, Books, 3 Aug 2010.

External links

• Report of the Investigative Committee in the Matter of Professor Michael Bellesiles (7/10/02)
• Bellesiles response to the Emory report and resignation statement. (2002)
• Emory University's press release announcing the resignation of Dr. Bellesiles (10/25/02)
• Columbia University's press release rescinding Bellesiles' Bancroft Prize (12/16/02)

Template:Persondata

• Living people
• American historians
• Academic scandals
• Central Connecticut State University faculty
• Emory University faculty
• University of California, Santa Cruz alumni
• University of California, Irvine alumni