Book’s off
Remember last May when Naomi Wolf was informed on live radio that she was wrong on some of her facts?
A couple of days ago her US publisher just threw the whole book out.
The US publisher of a new book by Naomi Wolf has cancelled its release after accuracy concerns were raised.
Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalisation of Love details the persecution of homosexuality in Victorian Britain.
But during a BBC radio interview in May, it came to light that the author had misunderstood key 19th Century English legal terms within the book.
Legal terms that were crucial to her whole argument. She thought they recorded executions when they did the opposite.
Following the BBC radio interview, Wolf admitted there were “misinterpretations” in her book.
Her UK publisher, Virago, had already published the book by the time the interview was broadcast, but said it would make “necessary corrections” to future reprints.
However, US publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt delayed publication, and has now cancelled it altogether, according to the New York Times.
You can’t blame them after this:
Dr Wolf alleged she had discovered that “several dozen” men were executed for having homosexual sex during the 19th Century.
“I don’t think you’re right about this,” Sweet replied, before detailing the term “death recorded” in fact meant that judges had abstained from handing down a death sentence.
“I don’t think any of the executions you’ve identified here actually happened,” he said.
In one particular case, he pointed out a 14-year-old boy had been discharged and not executed as she had detailed.
Oops.
Wow, I’m cringing inside–my PhD work required me to understand and interpret several nineteenth century English legal and governmental terms and administrative processes, and I went to experts to get them to explain them to me.
Wikipedia has a good article on the practice.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_recorded
I feel awful for her. I can easily see myself taking a word or phrase as so obvious that it wouldn’t even occur to me to ask an expert if it meant something special. I hope I wouldn’t go so far as to put together a book without consulting experts in the field, but I can’t say for certain.
Two anecdotes come to mind:
When the Russian coup was rebuffed in a short time; NPR ran a comedy skit about one of those books that were to pop up instantly after major events. This “author” was being awkwardly interviewed about Russia After the Coup when the whole premise of his book was no longer valid.
I saw a performance involving a young countertenor, and he gave a talk before the concert. He styled himself a mezzo-soprano, modeled female singers, and could not name a single other countertenor he admired. He also spouted many untruths about the history of countertenors. I’m no expert, but I studied as a countertenor and knew several professional countertenors, so I’m not completely ignorant on the subject. One might think this singer would have been better informed if he didn’t isolate himself as he did.
Yes, I cringe for her too, and can also easily imagine taking the phrase for granted…except, on the other hand, she was claiming to have found hidden history that everyone else had missed, and in that case I would think consultation of colleagues should be the first move. Maybe she didn’t want to because scoop…but academic history shouldn’t be about scoops of that kind (see: David Irving, passim). She based an enormous claim on a tiny piece of purported evidence, and I don’t think sober historians work that way.