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-'''Michael A. Bellesiles''' (pronounced "bah-LEEL")<ref>{{cite web|url=http://hnn.us/articles/691.html |title=How the Bellesiles Story Developed |publisher=Hnn.us |date= |accessdate=2010-11-08}}</ref> is a former professor of American [[Colonial history of the United States|colonial]] and [[legal history]] at [[Emory University]] best known as the author of ''[[Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture]]'' (2000), a book that won the prestigious [[Bancroft Prize]] in 2001.  The prize was rescinded in 2002 after an inquiry of distinguished historians found Bellesiles "guilty of unprofessional and misleading work."<ref name="emory2002">{{cite web|url=http://www.emory.edu/news/Releases//Final_Report.pdf |title=Stanley N. Katz, Hannah H. Gray, and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "Report of the Investigative Committee in the Matter of Professor Michael Bellesiles," July 10, 2002 |format=PDF |date= |accessdate=2010-11-08}}</ref> Bellesiles responded that he had "never fabricated evidence of any kind nor knowingly evaded my responsibilities as a scholar,"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.emory.edu/news/Releases//B_statement.pdf |title=Michael Bellesiles statement, 2002 |format=PDF |date= |accessdate=2010-11-08}}</ref> but he nonetheless resigned his Emory professorship the same year.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/02/12/bancroft_prize.html |title=Bancroft Prize press release, 2002 |publisher=Columbia.edu |date=2002-12-16 |accessdate=2010-11-08}}</ref>
-==Education and academic career==
-Bellesiles received his B.A. from the [[University of California-Santa Cruz]] in 1975 and his PhD from the [[University of California at Irvine]] in 1986.  He joined the Emory University faculty in 1988 and was promoted to full professor in 1999. There he served as director of undergraduate studies in history, 1991–1998, and as director of Emory's Center for the Study of Violence.
-Bellesiles also taught at the [[University of California, Los Angeles]]. In 1998-99, he was a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Institute, and during 2001-02, a Visiting Fellow at the [[Newberry Library]] in Chicago.
-==''Arming America'' controversy==
-{{Main|Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture}}
-===Thesis===
-Bellesiles's ''[[Arming America]]'' argued that guns were less prevalent in [[History of the United States (1789–1849)|antebellum America]] than is commonly believed. The book expanded on his earlier article in a 1996 issue of the ''[[Journal of American History]],''<ref>Michael Bellesiles, "The Origins of Gun Culture in the United States, 1760-1865," ''Journal of American History'' 83 (September 1996), 425-55.</ref> which Peter Charles Hoffer called "a stunning article on gun ownership in early America."<ref>Peter Charles Hoffer, ''Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, and Fraud in the Writing of American History'' (PublicAffairs, 2004), 145.</ref> The article asserted that neither the frontier experience nor the Revolutionary War had created widespread gun ownership, that American [[militias]] were poorly armed, and that few Americans maintained firearms until after the Civil War, when weapons were mass-produced in large quantities.<ref>Hoffer, 146.</ref> The article won the 1996 Binkley-Stephenson award of the [[Organization of American Historians]] for the best article published that year in its journal. Similarly, the book ''Arming America'' garnered high praise in many early reviews.
-===Scrutiny===
-Because the book's thesis bore upon ongoing political controversies about [[gun control]] and the [[Second Amendment to the United States Constitution]], [[gun rights]] advocates immediately attacked the book. Actor [[Charlton Heston]], then-president of the [[National Rifle Association]], called the book's argument "ludicrous."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/01/books/l-arming-america-266906.html?pagewanted=1?pagewanted=1 |title=Charlton Heston, letter to '&#39;The New York Times'&#39;, October 1, 2000 |publisher=Nytimes.com |date=2000-10-01 |accessdate=2010-11-08}}</ref> Conversely, a review by [[Roger Lane]] in ''[[The Journal of American History]]'' noted that with research that was “meticulous and thorough,” Bellesiles had "attacked the central myth behind the National Rifle Association's interpretation of the Second Amendment," and Lane declared Bellesiles’s evidence so formidable that “if the subject were open to rational argument,” the debate would be over.<ref>Review of ''Arming America'', ''The Journal of American History'' (Sept. 2001): 614.</ref>
-[[Clayton Cramer]], a software engineer, gun enthusiast, and early critic of Bellesiles, later argued that the reason "why historians swallowed ''Arming America''’s preposterous claims so readily is that it fit into their political worldview so well.... ''Arming America'' said things, and created a system of thought so comfortable for the vast majority of historians, that they didn’t even pause to consider the possibility that something wasn’t right." <ref>Clayton E. Cramer, "What Clayton Cramer Saw and (Nearly) Everyone Else Missed," [http://hnn.us/articles/1185.html ''History News Network''], January 6, 2003.</ref> Historian Peter Charles Hoffer, himself an advocate of gun control, lent support to Cramer’s charge when, in a 2004 examination of the Bellesiles case, he noted that influential members of the historical profession had indeed “taken strong public stands on violence in our society and its relation to gun control.” <ref>Hoffer, 158.</ref> For instance, the academics solicited for [[blurbs]] by Bellesiles’s publisher [[Alfred A. Knopf]] “were ecstatic in part because the book knocked the gun lobby.” <ref>Hoffer, 161: “systematically dismantles one of our most cherished and dangerous national myths.”</ref>
-Bellesiles energized this professional consensus by attempting to play “the professors against the NRA in a high-wire act of arrogant bravado.” <ref>Hoffer, 143.</ref> For instance, he replied to Heston’s criticism by telling the actor to earn a PhD before he criticized the work of scholars.<ref>Hoffer, 162.</ref> He pointed out that Cramer was “a long time advocate of unrestricted gun ownership” while he himself was a simple scholar who had “certain obligations of accuracy that transcend current political benefit.” <ref>Hoffer, 157-58. On February 16, 2000, Bellesiles had been a featured speaker at a symposium sponsored by the [[Brady Center]]. A [http://www.gunlawsuits.org/symposium.asp link] to the Brady Campaign Legal Action Project Second Amendment Symposium, February 16, 2000, was posted by the pro-gun control Potowmack Institute, among others; since then, the Brady Campaign has deleted all references to Michael Bellesiles and their own Second Amendment Symposium from their website.</ref> After Bellesiles claimed he had been flooded by hate mail, both the [[American Historical Association]] and the [[Organization of American Historians]] endorsed a resolution condemning the alleged harassment.<ref>Hoffer, 159-60.</ref> As Hoffer later wrote, Bellesiles was convinced that whether the entire profession agreed with “his stance on gun ownership (and I suspect most did), surely academic historians would not let their expertise be impugned by a rank and partisan amateur like Cramer.” <ref>Hoffer, 158-59.</ref>
-In the end, however, the politics of the issue mattered less to historians "than the possibility that Bellesiles might have engaged in faulty, fraudulent, and unethical research."<ref>Robert C. Williams, ''The Historian's Toolbox: A Student's Guide to the Theory and Craft of History'' (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 117</ref> As critics subjected the historical claims of the book to close scrutiny, they demonstrated that much of Bellesiles' research, particularly his handling of probate records, was inaccurate and possibly fraudulent.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://hnn.us/articles/1157.html |title=The Bancroft and Bellesiles |publisher=Hnn.us |date= |accessdate=2010-11-08}}</ref> This criticism included noting several serious errors in the tables published in ''The Journal of American History'' article, namely, that they did not provide a total number of cases and gave percentages that "were clearly wrong."<ref>Hoffer, 148.</ref>
-In two scholarly articles,<ref>
-{{cite journal |title=Counting Guns in Early America
-|last=Lindgren |first=James |authorlink=James Lindgren
-|coauthors=Heather, Justin Lee
-|journal=William & Mary Law Review
-|year=2002 |volume=43 |issue=5 |page=1777
-|url=http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=692401
-|accessdate= 2008-03-11 |format=abstract}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal
-|title=Fall from Grace: ''Arming America'' and the Bellesiles Scandal
-|last=Lindgren |first=James |authorlink=James Lindgren
-|journal=Yale Law Journal |volume=111 |page=2195 |year=2002
-|url=http://www.yalelawjournal.org/the-yale-law-journal/content-pages/fall-from-grace:-arming-america-and-the-bellesiles-scandal/
-|accessdate= 2010-03-08
-|doi=10.2307/797645
-|format=PDF
-|last2=Bellesiles
-|first2=Michael A.
-|jstor=797645
-|issue=8
-|publisher=The Yale Law Journal Company, Inc.}}</ref> law professor [[James Lindgren]] of [[Northwestern University]] noted that in ''Arming America'', Bellesiles had
-*purported to count guns in about a hundred wills from 17th- and 18th-century [[Providence, Rhode Island]], but these did not exist because the decedents had died intestate (i.e., without wills);
-*purported to count nineteenth-century San Francisco County probate inventories, but these had been destroyed in the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake and fire]];
-*reported a national mean for gun ownership in 18th-century probate inventories that was mathematically impossible;
-*misreported the condition of guns described in probate records in a way that accommodated his thesis;
-*miscited the counts of guns in nineteenth-century Massachusetts censuses and militia reports,
-*had more than a 60% error rate in finding guns listed as part of estates in Vermont records; and
-*had a 100% error rate in the cited gun-related homicide cases of seventeenth-century [[Plymouth]].
-Critics also identified problems with Bellesiles's methods of citation. Cramer noted that Bellesiles had misrepresented a passage by [[George Washington]] about the quality of three poorly prepared [[militia]] units as if his criticism applied to the militia in general. (Washington had noted that the three units were exceptions to the rule.)<ref>[http://www.nationalreview.com/weekend/books/books-cramer092300.shtml Clayton E. Cramer, "Shots in the Dark: Bellesiles Arming America is novel in both senses"], ''National Review'', 23 Sep 2000, accessed 30 Mar 2010</ref> Cramer wrote, "It took me twelve hours of hunting before I found a citation that was completely correct. In the intervening two years, I have spent thousands of hours chasing down Bellesiles’s citations, and I have found many hundreds of shockingly gross falsifications."<ref>[http://hnn.us/articles/1185.html Clayton E. Cramer, "What Clayton Cramer Saw and (Nearly) Everyone Else Missed"], History News Network, 1-06-03, accessed 30 Mar 2010</ref>
-===Emory investigation and resignation===
-As criticism grew and charges of scholarly misconduct were made, Emory University conducted an internal inquiry into Bellesiles's integrity, appointing an independent investigative committee composed of three leading academic historians from outside Emory University.<ref>Unlike the initial wave of criticism of Bellesiles, which came primarily from observers outside the discipline of history and often outside academe, professional historians conducted this investigation. The three historians were Stanley Katz of Princeton, [[Laurel Thatcher Ulrich]] of Harvard, and Hanna Grey, emerita at the University of Chicago.</ref> Bellesiles failed to provide investigators with his research notes, claiming the notes were destroyed in a flood.<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/08/books/08GUNS.html?scp=3&sq=bellesiles&st=cse "Historian's Prizewinning Book on Guns is Embroiled in a Scandal", ''The New York Times,'' December 8, 2001]. There was water damage to the building containing Bellesiles's office—as was reported in [http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_REPORT/erarchive/2000/May/ermay.8/5_8_00bowden.html Emory University's daily paper]—but critics disputed the plausibility of Bellesiles's claim that the problem explained his missing research records. The waterline break at Emory occurred in April 2000, after ''Arming America'' went to press. In the initial hardcover edition of the book, Bellesiles did not give the total number of probate records which he had investigated, but the following year, after the "flood," Bellesiles included in the paperback version the claim that he had investigated 11,170 probate records. "By his own account," writes Hoffer, "the flood had destroyed all but a few loose papers of his data. It was a mystery how supposedly lost original data could reappear to enable him to add the number of cases to the 2001 paperback edition, then disappear once again when the committee of inquiry sought the data from him" (Hoffer, 153). One critic tried, unsuccessfully, to destroy penciled notes on yellow pads by submerging them in his bathtub, in order to prove that water damage would not have destroyed Bellesile's notes; Jerome Sternstein, [http://hnn.us/articles/742.html "'Pulped' Fiction: Michael Bellesiles and His Yellow Note Pads,"], History News Network, May 20, 2002.</ref>
-The scholarly investigation confirmed that Bellesiles's work had serious flaws, calling into question both its quality and veracity. The external report on Bellesiles concluded that "every aspect of his work in the probate records is deeply flawed" and called his statements in self-defense "prolix, confusing, evasive, and occasionally contradictory." It concluded that "his scholarly integrity is seriously in question."<ref name="emory2002"/>
-Bellesiles publicly disputed these findings. He claimed to have followed all of the standards of scholarship and to have corrected all errors of fact known to him. Nevertheless, with his "reputation in tatters," Bellesiles issued a statement on October 25, 2002, announcing that he would resign his position at Emory by year's end.<ref>Hoffer, 166. Emory accepted Bellesiles' resignation effective December 31, 2002.</ref>
-===Aftermath of the scandal===
-In 2002, the trustees of Columbia University rescinded ''Arming America'''s [[Bancroft Prize]], the first such action in the history of the prize. Bellesiles's publisher, [[Alfred A. Knopf]], did not renew his contract, and the [[National Endowment for the Humanities]] withdrew its name from a fellowship that the [[Newberry Library]] had granted Bellesiles.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.neh.gov/news/archive/20020521.html |title=Statement of NEH Chairman Bruce Cole on Newberry Library Fellowship Award (2002) |publisher=Neh.gov |date=2002-05-21 |accessdate=2010-11-08}}</ref> In 2003, ''Arming America'' was republished in a revised and amended edition by [[Soft Skull Press]]. Bellesiles continued to defend the book's credibility and thesis, arguing that roughly three-quarters of the original book remained unchallenged.<ref>[http://www.softskull.com/files/weighed_even_balance.pdf Michael Bellesiles, "Weighed in an Even Balance"], Soft Skull Press (2003)</ref>
-Bellesiles's most vocal defender has been [[Jon Wiener]], a historian at [[UC Irvine]], where Bellesiles received his PhD. Wiener argued in ''The Nation'' that Bellesiles's errors were no more numerous than those in many other books, that no fraud was committed, and that, at worst, Bellesiles had been sloppy in his use of the probate records. Weiner also criticized the findings of the scholarly investigative committee, saying that it was "marred by a kind of tunnel vision."<ref>[http://www.oah.org/pubs/nl/2003feb/wiener.html Jon Weiner, "Emory's Bellesiles Report: A Case of Tunnel Vision,"] ''Perspectives,'' newsletter of the [[Organization of American Historians]] (2003). In defending Bellesiles, Weiner noted that the Bancroft Prize committee had not rescinded its award and that Garry Wills and Edmund Morgan had "refused demands that they withdraw or alter their published praise for the book."[http://www.thenation.com/article/fire-will Jon Weiner, "Fire at Will"], ''The Nation'' (October 17, 2002). Subsequently, the Bancroft Committee rescinded the award and both Wills and Morgan retracted their praise.</ref>
-Other historians who initially admired ''Arming America'' ceased to defend Bellesiles. The nationally prominent historian [[Garry Wills]], who had enthusiastically reviewed ''Arming America'' for the ''New York Times'',<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/10/books/spiking-the-gun-myth.html?scp=1&sq=bellesiles+wills&st=nyt Garry Wills review in New York Times] (Sept. 10, 2000)</ref> later said, in a 2005 interview on [[C-SPAN]], "I was took. The book is a fraud." Wills noted that Bellesiles "claimed to have consulted archives he didn't and he misrepresented those archives," although "he didn't have to do that," since "he had a lot of good, solid evidence." Wills added, "People get taken by very good con men."<ref>[http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/184749-1 Garry Wills Interview], ''BookTV'', C-SPAN (Jan. 2, 2005)</ref>
-The historian [[Roger Lane]], who had reviewed the book positively in the ''[[Journal of American History]]'',<ref>[http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url=http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/88.2/br_2.html Roger Lane, review of ''Arming America,'' ''Journal of American History''] (September 2001)</ref> offered a similar opinion: "It is entirely clear to me that he's made up a lot of these records. He's betrayed us. He's betrayed the cause. It's 100 percent clear that the guy is a liar and a disgrace to my profession. He's breached that trust."<ref>{{cite web|last=Sternstein |first=Jerome |url=http://hnn.us/articles/1074.html |title=Quoted in article published at History News Network |publisher=Hnn.us |date= |accessdate=2010-11-08}}</ref> Historian [[Pauline Maier]] reflected that it seemed historians had "ceased to read carefully and critically, even in the awarding of book prizes."<ref>quoted in Hoffer, 169-70.</ref>
-As Hoffer concluded, "Bellesiles's condemnation by Emory University, the trustees of the Bancroft Prizes, and Knopf provided the gun lobby with information to blast the entire history profession....Even though H-Law, the [[Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture|Omohundro Institute]], the [[Organization of American Historians|OAH]], and the [[American Historical Association|AHA]] rushed to his side and stated principled objections to the politicization of history, they hesitated to ask the equally important question of whether he had manipulated them and betrayed their trust."<ref>Hoffer, 171.</ref>
-==Life after ''Arming America''==
-For roughly five years, Bellesiles virtually disappeared from academia, writing only a few book reviews in scholarly journals.  In 2006, with Christopher Waldrep, he co-edited ''Documenting American Violence: A Sourcebook'', which includes an article defending Bellesiles.<ref name="johansen_silenced">Bruce E. Johansen, ''Silenced! Academic Freedom, Scientific Inquiry, and the First Amendment Under Siege in America'' (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2007; ISBN 978-0-275-99686-4)</ref><ref>Asked by a reporter in 2010 what he had been doing since 2002, Bellesiles wasn't "entirely forthcoming," saying only that he had done some teaching in England and had worked as a freelancer for a textbook company. Tom Bartlett, "Michael Bellesiles Takes Another Shot," [http://chronicle.com/article/Michael-Bellesiles-Takes/123751/ ''Chronicle of Higher Education'', August 3, 2010]</ref>
-In 2010, Bellesiles published an article in ''[[The Chronicle of Higher Education]]'' recounting his interactions with a student whose brother had been killed by a sniper in Iraq.<ref>{{cite web|last=Basken |first=Paul |url=http://chronicle.com/article/Teaching-Military-History-in-a/66023 |title='&#39;The Chronicle of Higher Education'&#39; |publisher=Chronicle.com |date=2010-06-27 |accessdate=2010-11-08}}</ref> After the truth of the story was questioned,<ref>{{cite news|last=Cohen|first=Patricia|title=Scholar Emerges From Doghouse|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/books/04bellisles.html|newspaper=The New York Times|date=August 3, 2010}}</ref><ref>[http://volokh.com/2010/07/09/serious-questions-about-the-veracity-of-michael-bellesiles%E2%80%99s-latest-tale/ Jim Lindgren, "Serious Questions about the veracity of Michael Bellesiles's Latest Tale"], The Volokh Conspiracy, 9 July 2010</ref> notably by [[James Lindgren]], who had earlier challenged the veracity of ''Arming America,'' the newspaper determined that the student had lied to Bellesiles and his teaching assistant.<ref>[http://chronicle.com/article/Teaching-Military-History-in-a/66023 Editorial endnote to Bellesiles article, ''The Chronicle of Higher Education,'' 2010]. Bellesiles said he regretted having unknowingly passed on a story that was inaccurate.</ref>
-In 2011, Bellesiles was teaching at [[Central Connecticut State University]].<ref>[http://thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task=view_title&metaproductid=1763 New Press blurb]</ref> In 2010 his book ''1877: America's Year of Living Violently'' was published by [[The New Press]].<ref>[http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/126605.html History News Network news item, 2010].</ref> A review in the ''[[Journal of American History]]'' called the "old-fashioned narrative tone" of ''1877'' "so delightfully retro that it is almost cutting edge."<ref>Robert E. Weir review of ''1877'' in the ''Journal of American History'' 98, no. 1 (June 2011), 210-11.</ref>
-==Writings by Bellesiles==
-* [http://books.google.com/books?id=eVCkx7428QoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=bellesiles&cd=2#v=onepage&q&f=false ''Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier''] (1993)
-* "[http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8723(199609)83%3A2%3C425%3ATOOGCI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q The Origins of A Gun Culture in the United States, 1760-1865]," ''Journal of American History'' 425 (1996).
-* Editor, [http://books.google.com/books?id=iuAzDHsAHT0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=bellesiles&cd=5#v=onepage&q&f=false  ''Lethal Imagination: Violence and Brutality in American History''] (1999)
-* [http://chronicle.com/article/Exploding-the-Myth-of-an-Armed/35897 "Exploding the Myth of an Armed America"], ''Chronicle of Higher Education'' (Sept. 29, 2000)
-* [http://www.oah.org/pubs/nl/2001nov/bellesiles.html "Disarming the Critics"], Organization of American Historians Newsletter (2001)
-* "The Second Amendment in Action," in Carl T. Bogus and Michael A. Bellesiles (editors), ''The Second Amendment in Law and History: Historians and Constitutional Scholars on the Right to Bear Arms'', The New Press (2001), ISBN 978-1-56584-699-9.
-* ''[[Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture]]''. [[Alfred A. Knopf]], 2000; 2d ed., [[Soft Skull Press]], 2003.
-* [http://www.softskull.com/files/weighed_even_balance.pdf ''Weighed in an Even Balance''] (2003)
-* Editor, [http://books.google.com/books?id=avNCBX6-HnsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=bellesiles&cd=3#v=onepage&q&f=false ''Documenting American Violence: A Sourcebook''] (2006), with Christopher Waldrep
-* [http://www.hnn.us/articles/126790.html "The Year 1877 Looks Awfully Familiar Today,"] History News Network (May 17, 2010)
-* [http://chronicle.com/article/Teaching-Military-History-in-a/66023 "Teaching Military History in a Time of War," ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' (June 27, 2010)]
-* {{Cite book
-  | last1 = Bellesiles | first1 = Michael A.
-  | title = 1877: America's Year of Living Violently
-  | location = New York
-  | publisher = The New Press
-  | year= 2010
-  | pages = 400
-  | month = August
-  | isbn = 978-1-59558-441-0 }}
-==References==
-{{Reflist|2}}
-==Further reading==
-* Jack N. Rakove, Gloria L. Main, Ira D. Gruber, Randolph Roth, and Michael A. Bellesiles, [http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/wm/59.1/ "Forum: Historians and Guns,"] ''[[William & Mary Quarterly]]'' (Jan. 2002)
-* James Lindgren, [http://www.yalelawjournal.org/the-yale-law-journal/content-pages/fall-from-grace:-arming-america-and-the-bellesiles-scandal/ "Fall From Grace: Arming America and the Bellesiles Scandal"], ''[[Yale Law Journal]]'' (May 2002)
-* James Lindgren and Justin Lee Heather, [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=268583 "Counting Guns in Early America,"] ''William & Mary Law Review'' (2002)
-* Don Williams, [http://historynewsnetwork.org/articles/article.html?id=741  "Could Bellesiles's Problems Undermine Gun Control?"] History News Network (May 20, 2002)
-* Jon Weiner, [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20021104/wiener "Fire at Will,"],''[[The Nation]]'' (Nov. 4, 2002)
-* Jerome Sternstein, [http://hnn.us/articles/1074.html "Shooting the Messenger:  Jon Weiner on ''Arming America''"], History News Network (Oct. 28, 2002)
-* Joyce Lee Malcolm, [http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/disarming-history "Disarming History,"] ''[[Reason Magazine]]'' (March 2003)
-* Peter Charles Hoffer, ''Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud--American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin'' (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004): 141-171.
-* Ron Robin, [http://books.google.com/books?id=mVMJzt_B0xsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=arming+america&cd=2#v=onepage&q=arming%20america&f=false ''Scandals & Scoundrels: Seven Cases that Shook the Academy.''] (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004)
-* Jon Wiener, ''Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud, and Politics in the Ivory Tower''. (New York: [[The New Press]], 2005). ISBN 1-56584-884-5.
-* Clayton E. Cramer, [http://www.plagiary.org/why-footnotes-matter.pdf "Why Footnotes Matter: Checking ''Arming America'''s Claims"] ''Plagiary'' (2006)
-* Clayton E. Cramer, ''Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie'' (Nashville, Nelson Current, 2007) ISBN 1-59555-069-0.
-* Scott McLemee, [http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee290 "Amazing Disgrace,"] Inside Higher Ed (May 19, 2010)
-* Tom Bartlett, "Michael Bellesiles Takes Another Shot," [http://chronicle.com/article/Michael-Bellesiles-Takes/123751/ ''Chronicle of Higher Education'', August 3, 2010].
-* Patricia Cohen, "Scholar Emerges From Doghouse", [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/books/04bellisles.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=Patricia%20Cohen&st=cse  ''New York Times'', Books, 3 Aug 2010.]
-==External links==
-* [http://www.emory.edu/news/Releases//Final_Report.pdf Report of the Investigative Committee in the Matter of Professor Michael Bellesiles] (7/10/02)
-* [http://www.emory.edu/news/Releases//B_statement.pdf Bellesiles response to the Emory report and resignation statement]. (2002)
-* [http://www.emory.edu/news/Releases//bellesiles1035563546.html Emory University's press release] announcing the resignation of Dr. Bellesiles (10/25/02)
-* [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/02/12/bancroft_prize.html Columbia University's press release] rescinding Bellesiles' Bancroft Prize (12/16/02)
-{{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. -->
-| NAME              = Bellesiles, Michael A.
-| ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
-| SHORT DESCRIPTION =
-| DATE OF BIRTH     =
-| PLACE OF BIRTH    =
-| DATE OF DEATH     =
-| PLACE OF DEATH    =
-}}
-{{DEFAULTSORT:Bellesiles, Michael A.}}
-[[Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]]
-[[Category:Living people]]
-[[Category:American historians]]
-[[Category:Academic scandals]]
-[[Category:Central Connecticut State University faculty]]
-[[Category:Emory University faculty]]
-[[Category:University of California, Santa Cruz alumni]]
-[[Category:University of California, Irvine alumni]]