| Letters to the Editor | The Journal of American History, 89.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 307 words from this article are provided below; about 1182 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Letters to the Editor | The Journal of American History, 89.4 | The History Cooperative

Letters to the Editor

To the Editor:

In my review of Paul V. Murphy's book The Rebuke of History (September 2002 JAH ) I committed the cardinal sin of book reviewers: I drew more attention to myself than to the work under review. It does not stop there. At the close of the review I suggested a similarity between the program of beliefs of Islamic fundamentalism (a territory I should have known is replete with contending positions) and a summarized version of the belief system espoused by the Southern Agrarians. This analogy was in no way intended to implicate the author, Professor Murphy, as an adherent to either belief. He merely wrote a book about the Agrarians and American conservatism. Unfortunately, some readers of the review have concluded that I intended the association.

I apologize to those readers for writing so as to mislead them. I apologize to Professor Murphy as well for placing this burden on him and his book. A colleague suggested that what I did was the equivalent of joking about shoe-bombs in an airport. He is right; I should have know better.

Michael Kreyling

Vanderbilt University

Nashville, Tennessee

To the Editor:

Michael Kreyling's review of Paul V. Murphy's book, The Rebuke of History, in the September 2002 issue of the Journal of American History deserves a response. Please note, for the record, that I was chair of Murphy's dissertation committee at Indiana University. I write not out of any proprietary interest, but out of a sense that a genuine injustice has been done here. More importantly, I write out of a belief that Kreyling's review reflects some of the more disturbing aspects of our academic culture, in which ideological caricature and pigeon-holing often substitute for serious argument. Such practices, never useful to begin with, are especially dangerous in these perilous times. . . .

There are about 1182 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.