[posted separately due to the infernal 4300-character limit]
In related news, I've been reading Bellesiles' Arming America.
Um, would it be considered unfair to point out that not only has Bellesiles' book been utterly discredited, but in fact the awards that he was initially given for it have been revoked, and the university at which he held a history chair at the time of writing it asked for (and received, with very ill grace) his resignation because it was such a slovenly piece of scholarship?
Much of Arming America was tantamount to asserting that virtually no Americans keep dogs on the grounds that dogs rerely appear as bequests in wills. He in large part based the premise for his research on the a priori assumption that firearms were rare enough that every firearm would be specifically mentioned in a will somewhere, rather than in such common possession that fathers would give their sons a musket or fowling-piece and think nothing of it.
no subject
In related news, I've been reading Bellesiles' Arming America.
Um, would it be considered unfair to point out that not only has Bellesiles' book been utterly discredited, but in fact the awards that he was initially given for it have been revoked, and the university at which he held a history chair at the time of writing it asked for (and received, with very ill grace) his resignation because it was such a slovenly piece of scholarship?
Much of Arming America was tantamount to asserting that virtually no Americans keep dogs on the grounds that dogs rerely appear as bequests in wills. He in large part based the premise for his research on the a priori assumption that firearms were rare enough that every firearm would be specifically mentioned in a will somewhere, rather than in such common possession that fathers would give their sons a musket or fowling-piece and think nothing of it.