‘Arming America’ Under Fire; Historian Will Undergo Inquiry

A disputed, prize-winning book about the role of guns in the U.S. will undergo a formal inquiry from Emory University, where author Michael Bellesiles is a professor of history.

In a statement released this week, Emory official Robert A. Paul said the Atlanta-based school has initiated a process for “addressing allegations of misconduct in research.”

“Both the history department and Michael Bellesiles have now requested that we initiate this process, and we have done so,” said Paul, dean of Emory College, an undergraduate division of the university. “Professor Bellesiles says that he welcomes the review by his faculty colleagues and other scholars in this forum.”

Bellesiles, on a fellowship for the academic year, did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment.

Bellesiles spent 10 years working on “Arming America,” published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2000. The book challenges the idea that the United States has always been a gun-oriented culture and that well-armed militias were essential to the Revolutionary War.

Relying on numerous sources, Bellesiles wrote that only a small percentage of people possessed firearms in colonial times and that militias were mostly ineffective. Only after the Civil War, he contends, did guns become important to the culture.

“Arming America” was praised by the New York Times and the New York Review of Books, and won the Bancroft Prize for history. Many cited it as a devastating statement against the country’s alleged historical love affair with firearms.

“The way we think about guns and violence in America will never be the same,” wrote Michael Zuckerman, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. “Michael Bellesiles is the NRA’s worst nightmare.”

Gun advocates quickly attacked the book, with National Rifle Assn. president, actor Charlton Heston, complaining that Bellesiles had “too much time on his hands.”

But scholars and critics also became skeptical. Bellesiles has been accused of ideological bias, selective scholarship and misleading statements. He has acknowledged some errors, but defends his book as fundamentally sound.

Jane Garrett, Bellesiles’ editor at Knopf, said Thursday in a statement that some corrections already have been made in the paperback edition. She added that “other corrections will be made in subsequent printings with regard to the few additional factual errors that have been discovered.”

“We hasten to point out, however, that the majority of the matters that have been raised are matters of interpretation,” Garrett said.

In a highly anticipated forum appearing in the upcoming issue of the William & Mary Quarterly, four leading historians evaluate “Arming America,” and Bellesiles provides a lengthy defense. Many in the academic community believe his reputation depends on how effectively he responds.

The statement from Emory referred to the William & Mary article and said that “questions remain concerning his research.”

The participants in the William & Mary forum, which comes out next week, criticize “Arming America.” Gloria L. Main, a history professor at the University of Colorado, says in the quarterly that Bellesiles greatly underestimates the level of gun ownership in colonial times. Randolph Roth, professor of history at Ohio State University, finds Bellesiles guilty of letting his theory guide his research, rather than the other way around.

Bellesiles’ response in the forum is aggressive yet cautious. He defends his scholarship, and worries about the public’s belief in the power of militias. But he also emphasizes that his book offers no definitive proof and notes the uncertain nature of historical scholarship.