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Honest History
Joyce Seltzer
| Recent incidents of plagiarism in historical writing have shaken the relationship between historians and their readers, provoking us to reflect upon the assumptions inherent in that relationship. Such an inquiry has a particular significance to me as an editor of books of history. I assume that the history I read and publish is honest, that is, that the author has created the work of history conscientiously and by fair means and that it represents his or her voice, research, and interpretations. Most important, I assume that the historian has aimed to capture some historical truth, to the best of his or her ability and in accordance with professional ethics, in order to preserve the past and draw meaning from it for the present. Charges of plagiarism and other professional laxities challenge these assumptions. |
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The basis of the relationship between a historian and an editor, of necessity, must be trust. Although a publishing contract formalizes that trust, it remains essentially a good faith commitment by each party to expend his or her energies toward the successful completion and publication of the work. The historian is expected to deliver a manuscript that captures his or her own intellectual point of view and to develop and substantiate it with thorough research and rigorous analysis. I trust that the historian has benefited from an immersion in primary sources and will provide an account that is informed by those sources, insightful as to their meanings, and imaginative in recapturing their context and intent. Although secondary sources can be critically important to the historian's task of reconstruction, it is the fresh encounters with primary sources that afford truly novel interpretations. I, and readers in general, trust our guide to the past to treat sources with the greatest respect. |
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Trust is a difficult quality to define or measure, but it is vital to the author-editor relationship. For the author, trust implies confidence that the editor will become intellectually engaged in the project, will work to make it as strong and effective as it can be, and will care deeply about its execution and publication. For an editor, trust derives from an author's vision, experience, sense of purpose, realistic goals, and candor about the potential and limitations of the project. The latter is most important, influencing how the author conceptualizes the scope and trajectory of a project, and it tells the editor whether the author has done sufficient research and reflection to make the project viable. |
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The honesty of the work is the historian's responsibility and obligation. No one other than the historian can ensure it. The job of the editor cannot replicate the work of the author in this respect. I have neither the time nor the resources to verify an author's sources. I can query a source when it seems inadequate, inconsistent, or inappropriate, but I cannot establish its provenance. Nor can I necessarily know whether evidence was taken out of context or otherwise distorted to fit the author's argument. This is the historian's professional responsibility. Breaking faith with the publisher, and indeed the public, on this issue is a taint not only on any specific work or author but also on the status of the profession itself. If two or three well-known and accomplished historians are found to have used the verbatim words of others without attribution, a question arises: how many others might be committing similar dishonest acts? The offense undermines public respect for the profession as well as for our historical legacy. It becomes incumbent upon us to search for the conditions that might give rise to it and to seek some remedies. |
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