Silly books (moved from "Caesar Sôter")

[Jona Lendering]

Visit a bookshop, any bookshop, and you will find silly books on ancient history. E.g., "Was Jesus Christ Julius Caesar?" by Carotta, and the opera omnia by Von Däniken, Velikovsky, and -here in Holland- Charles Vergeer.

I referred to this in another thread (Caesar Sôter) and remarked that academics appear to be willing to publish lousy books as well. Here is a link to a thread about book that is not sold as "alternative history", but as serious history, but is in fact substandard: link from old RAT.

Quoting my earlier message:

Worse, if people are employed by a university, that is not a guarantee that they don't write rubbish. Here in Amsterdam, a professor has published a book on the history of the Roman empire. It contains more than 340 factual errors. Titles are misquoted, there are inconsistencies, he mentions wrong regnal years and other dates, makes geographic errors, accepts propaganda for fact. On a map of the Roman empire in the second century before Christ, he shows the Taunus limes.

Because I know this man, I wrote him about an error that he could easily admit without loosing face. I hoped he would reply by asking that if I noticed other errors, I would tell him. He did not ask for it. Still, I had eleven pages with constructive criticism. Now it happens that he and I share our publisher. So I wrote the publisher and asked if he could tactfully send the professor my comments. In his reply, the publisher referred to taking back the book from the stores; so he knows that the book is bad. Still, it has been reprinted twice, without revision.

So here we have a professor who publishes a lousy book; a publisher who knows that it is lousy; people who trust the professor spend their good money and are fooled; and -worst of all- a professor who thinks that he does not have to look for the truth.

This last thing is worrying me most. Scholarship is threatened by alternative histories (Black Athena, Chariots of the gods, Was Jesus Christ Julius Caesar?, etc.). I can not blame the authors, because they are no academics and do not pretend to be really scholars. If a reader buys their crap, so be it.

However, serious academics also write books and are not interested in truth any more; had our Amsterdam professor been a true scholar, he would have shown that he was devoted to truth by correcting errors. This is the only thing, I guess, we may request from the people of the universities: that they have a passion for finding the truth and are willing to be corrected. I notice that our Amsterdam professor lacks this quality.

So my question is: how can we do something against barbarism now that the barbarians are inside the fortress of scholarship?

[Carlton Bach]

Exchange opinions. Publishing often seems to be a very 'closed shop' industry where you don't say bad things about people unless you have a position of power already. Not much of a chance of actual quality alone having an effect on the reviews, I'm afraid. But I am on several mailing lists devoted to various historical topics, and we often exchange book recommendations or warnings. I've often found them more helpful than publishers' blurbs or newspaper/journal reviews.

And I remain a strong believer in amazon's rating and review system. A single nuanced review on any of their sites will probably do more for (or against) a given book than one in JRS. Of course if you ever find anyone whose book you tore into on amazon sitting on a tenure or grant committee...

[Jona Lendering]

I agree that mailing lists and websites like RAT are more important than newspaper reviews. But actually, this means that we can no longer rely upon newspapers. In combination with the fact that the universities apparently don't give a damn about the quality of books for the general reader, I think this is quite disturbing.

The "academic freedom" of the universities in reality means that scholarship now can be defined as 'the activities of professional scholars, who control themselves'. However, the universities are financed because the humanities should humanize us, that they should offer Bildung.

If a professor fails to live up to this standard, the universities will not correct them. The government can not do it, because that would be an infringement upon the academic freedom.

So here we are: lousy books sell excellently, and instead of stressing that facts must be checked and that academics are driven by an unquenchable passion for truth, the universities have given up this ideal. What can we do about it, except for joining the choir of cynics?

[Praefectusclassis]

Publish better books ourselves and outsell the bad ones.

[Jona Lendering]

Publish better books ourselves and outsell the bad ones.

We will never outsell sensationalist nonsense, because people like entertainment better than scholarship. And offering true scholarship is difficult if paid scholars can always claim that they work for a university; so they have a competive advantage. Often, they offer good books; but when an academician offers rubbish, there's nothing to check it.

[Praefectusclassis]

Possibly. On the other hand, this IS a marketing instrument, in a way. :wink:

[Jona Lendering]

That is true, and besides, you (Jasper) are one of the few academicians who do something to bridge the gap between "hard scholarship" -I mean the type of articles that will find its way to JRS and so on- and the wider audience.

And indeed, as Carlton also pointed out, the internet does offer possibilities, and RAT is one of them. We share a passion for establishing the truth. But it worries me that this very passion, which should be the heart and soul of the university, appears to be absent from the university itself. Of course there are many good scholars; but they devote themselves to small articles for specialists. They don't show the same attitude to the larger audience.

If one writes a book for a larger audience, that is not an excuse for leaving errors. The same passion for truth that is shown in articles in scholarly journals, must be displayed when you publish for the general audience. Otherwise, stop being a professor.

Whatever one thinks about Carotta, Von Däniken, Vergeer, Velikovsky: at least they don't claim to work at a university, they don't claim to have a passion for truth, and are no hypocrites.

[Praefectusclassis]

In defence for the serious academics, it should be noted that at least in this country academics are judged by their publications. Simple numbers apparently now say most about the capabilities, production and quality of an academic. In that number's game 'popular' publications (i.e. things that get read by more than 25 people :wink: ) count for less than the specialized stuff. Publishing outside of the accepted academic circles is still often frowned upon and younger academics especially have to focus on the hardcore stuff first. (so what am I doing here again?)

[Jona Lendering]

This is all true; there's no need to defend serious academics.

What worries me is that serious academicians don't care about their professional standards once they are addressing a larger audience, and do not correct errors.

It is as if a physician behaves as a true physician when he is talking to his colleagues, but plays the quack when he has to cure an ordinary person.

[Robert Vermaat]

Publish better books ourselves and outsell the bad ones.

Not bl.... likely! Look at Dan Brown and his drivel novel. The bad stuff always outsells the good stuff..