Michael Bellesiles - at it again
Some folks just never learn -- or change.
Bellesiles
was in the news back in 2000 through 2002. He published a book that was very well received and then hard questions about his scholarship were asked and not successfully answered.
Bellesiles resigned his full professorship at Emory University in 2002 and the Bancroft Prize which had been awarded to his book was rescinded.
A small sampling of his research pointed to him citing records that had been destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, cited wills for people in Rhode Island who had died intestate, the list goes on...
Now, he is back doing "scholarly" work again. From
The Volokh Conspiracy:
Serious Questions About the Veracity of Michael Bellesiles’s Latest Tale
A few days ago, questions were raised first by Big Journalism and then by me about a story that Michael Bellesiles published in the June 27th issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education: Teaching Military History in a Time of War. I have now read through every DoD casualty report from last fall for both Iraq and Afghanistan and news obituaries for most of them, and I have found none that was even remotely possible as the case that Bellesiles wrote about in the Chronicle. This post discusses the serious questions this raises for the veracity of Bellesiles account.
In the Chronicle Review, after mentioning the military history course that he taught “this last semester,” Bellesiles told a compelling story of a troubled student, his dying brother, and an exceedingly sensitive teacher (himself):On the first day of my military-history class, after a discussion of the concept of democratic warfare, I asked my usual question about veterans or National Guard members present, and if any students had family members serving in the military. Ernesto (I have changed names out of respect for this family’s privacy), a shy but exceedingly bright student, smiled with evident pride as he mentioned that his brother Javier had recently enlisted in the Army. We discussed his brother’s reasons for enlisting, which mostly focused on a sense of gratitude to a country that had given their family refuge.
Two weeks later, the class discussed Baron von Steuben’s training of the American Continental Army . . . . Afterward, Ernesto told me that his brother had been sent to Iraq. He admitted he was worried about Javier’s safety, but had read several articles indicating that the war was winding down.
A little basic research on the 'ole computer shows:
According to the course listings on the Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) website, Bellesiles taught his Military History course in the Fall 2009 semester, not the Spring 2010 semester as his reference to “this last semester” might imply. Thus, the relevant time frame for Bellesiles’s fall 2009 Military History course should have been from August 31, 2009 (his first regularly scheduled class) through December 9, 2009 (his last regularly scheduled class).
ICasualties shows 31 fatalities in Iraq during the period of Bellesiles’s course, 8 of which were from hostile attacks. One of these 8 hostile attacks was from a mortar (not sniper bullets), and 5 of these 8 hostile attacks were IED attacks (4 of these 5 IED attack deaths came on Sept. 8, too soon to fit Bellesiles’s narrative in any event).
Looks like he is pretty well busted. Bellesiles should have learned his lesson but I guess that some people never change. He has a political anti-war/anti-gun agenda and he is going to promote that regardless of whatever pesky facts stand in the way...
I am surprised that neither the Chronicle of Higher Education nor Central Connecticut State University bothered to Google his name and discover his history of out and out fraud.
Posted by DaveH at July 10, 2010 9:55 AM
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