Fun question from @Sam__Enright:
— Alec Stapp (@AlecStapp) February 21, 2025
What’s the “anti-reading list” in your field of expertise? pic.twitter.com/vawry5SLok
This is an interesting question by Alec Stapp. What books are widely popular but regarded by scholars or experts within their respective fields as bunk?
I have expertise in nothing, but the question reminds me of The Age of Arthur by John Morris. It's a history of early medieval Britain. The author, a highly respected historian, argues for the historicity of Arthur as an actual person. Although widely read, other historians regard it as preposterous and the work greatly damaged Morris's reputation.
Reading it, I could understand why. Morris describes historical records of various Celtic warlords in Fifth Century Britain and leaps to the conclusion these necessarily describe a real Arthur instead of, well, just various Celtic warlords.
More generally, I'm skeptical of general purpose public intellectuals. I think it's impossible to be an expert in more than one field, so I hesitate to give credence to scholars writing or speaking outside of their expertise. And we should not underestimate the capacity of experts to be wrong.
What books do you think should be on an anti-reading list as defined by Sam Enright?
(Not just books that you don't like.)
Comments (7)
I am not an expert either but my personal library has over thirty books covering the history of the American Indian Tribes. Biographies of the major players, multiple in some cases, along with histories of major events, battles, and massacres - The Trail of Tears, The Long March, Custer, Sitting Bull, Cochise, Geronimo, Red Cloud, The Osage - It's fair to say I'm well read.
If one is looking for an objective point of view as told by the Indian side, this isn't it. Dunbar-Ortiz is much too casual with the word genocide. She writes from the view that colonization by itself is an act of genocide and it's all downhill from there. A brief overview of the remarkable state structure of the Iroquois Confederacy, but no mention that to get there, they destroyed the Mohicans, Huron, Neutral, Erie, Susquehannock, and northern Algonquins, with brutality many historians have labeled genocide. The founding of Jamestown is the Roots of Genocide; a second sub-chapter: Settler-Parasites Create The Virginia Colony.
This history is nothing more than a biased diatribe against white America.
The book is essentially a fraud. Bellesiles develops his narrative using property records which don't exist (like probate records destroyed in the San Francisco fire of 1906). Many of his quotes and citations are totally out of context. It was essentially acclaimed for entirely political reasons and once historians took a deeper look at it, its merit completely evaporated. But you will occasionally see people cite it either unaware of the issues or because they believe the work was the result of political backlash.
Ian McCollum (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nhUpPbqD44) and C&Rsenal both did pieces on him.