Greg Grandin takes to Gawker to report on a clusterfuck of corruption at the New York Times Book Review:
This Sunday, the New York Times Book Review will publish a review of the first volume of Niall Ferguson’s authorized biography of Henry Kissinger, Kissinger: The Idealist. The reviewer is Andrew Roberts.
Roberts brings an unusual level of familiarity to the subject: It was Roberts whom Kissinger first asked, before turning to Ferguson, to write his authorized biography. In other words, the New York Times is having Kissinger’s preferred authorized biographer review Kissinger’s authorized biography.
…
Oh, and Roberts isn’t just close to the subject of the book he is reviewing. He has also been, for a quarter-century, a friend of the book’s author.
…
The Times, too, normally checks those things. When I’m approached about reviewing books there, I’m usually asked if I know the author or have a conflict of interest.
…
Last May, the Times’ public editor, Margaret Sullivan, weighed in on the topic: How close a connection between reviewer and author (and in this case, between author, reviewer, and subject) is too close a connection? “It’s fine if readers disagree with our reviews,” the Times Book Review editor Pamela Paul told Sullivan, “but they should not distrust them.”
…Still, it’s a “tricky challenge,” Paul said, “to get someone informed but not entrenched.”
If Roberts were any more entrenched, he’d be wearing a Brodie helmet and puttees.
A spokesperson for the New York Times offered the following statement to Gawker, on behalf of Pamela Paul:
“We always ask our reviewers about any potential conflict of interest, as we define it, and disclose any possible conflicts in the review if necessary. In this particular case, we asked Andrew Roberts and were satisfied with his assurances that no conflicts of interest existed that would sway his review one way or the other.”
The Times might as well have asked Kissinger to review his own biography. Or, better, Ferguson himself, since, along with Roberts, there’s not a nano-difference between the three men, at least when it comes to controversies about war.
…
So how is the review itself? Contrary to the bet that an opinionated yet informed expert might turn in an exciting piece, Roberts’s essay is ponderous, and, if possible, even more hagiographic than the authorized biography itself.
“Kissinger’s official biographer,” writes the man Kissinger first asked to be his official biographer, “certainly gives the reader enough evidence to conclude that Henry Kissinger is one of the greatest Americans in the history of the republic, someone who has been repulsively traduced over several decades and who deserved to have a defense of this comprehensiveness published years ago.”
Let me be clear: I think it would be totally legitimate if, say, Ferguson, with his well-known conservative politics, were to review my new, critical book on Kissinger. That might indeed make for an engaging, fun debate; readers would know where author and reviewer stand. However, asking Roberts to review Ferguson, without acknowledging their connections, not to mention Roberts’ history with Kissinger, is a trench too far.
Thus a new genre is born: the authorized review of the authorized biography.
I should admit that I have my own vested interest in the matter. Not only is Greg a friend whose work I have discussed here over the years, but as he reports in his piece:
My friend Corey Robin had a relevant experience. When his book The Reactionary Mind was coming out in 2011, the Times contacted a widely respected intellectual historian to review it. The potential reviewer didn’t know Corey personally or professionally. Although they had never met, Corey had begun blogging that year, and he and the would-be reviewer began exchanging occasional comments on sites like Facebook. Minimal as the relationship was, the Times nixed the reviewer because of their putative entanglement.
The irony of that experience is that the person the Times wound up choosing to review my book—Barnard political scientist Sheri Berman, whose negative review (along with Mark Lilla’s in the New York Review of Books) set off a round of bitter controversy, on this blog and elsewhere, as the Times itself would go onto report—actually does know me personally. She and my wife had done cat rescue work together for years, and on several occasion I had been to her house, where we talked about political science and cats.
In related news, I‘ll be interviewing Greg about his new book on Kissinger—about which I have been blogging over at my site—on Sunday, October 4, at 12:30, at the Brooklyn Public Library. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by.
Update (October 2, 11 am)
Margaret Sullivan, the New York Times public editor, writes a quietly devastating critique of the preferred authorized biographer writing a review of the authorized biography of Kissinger:
In the italic identification line appearing with his review of a new biography of Henry Kissinger, Andrew Roberts is described only as “the Lehrman Institute distinguished fellow at the New-York Historical Society.” And that is true.
But what is also true is that Mr. Roberts had what many reasonable people would consider a conflict of interest as a reviewer: He was Mr. Kissinger’s first choice to write his authorized biography.
The Times Book Review editor, Pamela Paul, told me Thursday that she was unaware of that fact before the publication of a Gawker piece that makes much of that relationship and of Mr. Roberts’s acquaintance with the book’s author, Niall Ferguson.
Gawker’s headline: “Kissinger Biography Is Great, Says Pal of Author and Kissinger in New York Times.” Indeed, the review is kind to Mr. Kissinger and to Mr. Ferguson; it calls the book “comprehensive, well-written and riveting.”
“We rely on our reviewers to disclose conflicts of interest,” Ms. Paul said. Mr. Roberts disclosed no conflict, saying only that he had met Mr. Ferguson a few times but that this wouldn’t affect his review.
She made the point that Book Review editors cannot realistically open full-fledged investigations into their reviewers’ backgrounds. If Mr. Roberts had told editors that he had turned down the chance to write the book himself, Ms. Paul said that it might not have disqualified him as the reviewer but that she would have had him acknowledge that information in the review.
Should he have told editors? If she’d been in Mr. Roberts’s place, she said, “I would have disclosed it.”
…
Indeed, Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Roberts will share a London stage to discuss Mr. Kissinger and the authorized biography later this month.
…
My take: Both assignments were considerably less than ideal. Times readers must be able to believe that a review is an impartial assessment of a book’s merits. That assessment shouldn’t be influenced (or appear to be influenced) by deference to a fellow Times employee or by a significant relationship or circumstance — especially one that goes undisclosed to readers.
But, wait, there’s more.
Not only is Roberts, as Greg Grandin reported in his Gawker piece, a quarter-century-long friend of Ferguson’s (contrary to Roberts’s claim that they only met a few times). He also, my friend Jonathan Stein told me, co-wrote an article with Ferguson back in 1997. In a volume of essays edited by Ferguson.
Here’s the cite: Niall Ferguson and Andrew Roberts, “Hitler’s England: What If Germany had Invaded Britain in May 1940?” in Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals, ed. Niall Ferguson (London: Picador, 1997), 281–320.
One last question: How did Roberts come to be chosen as the reviewer of the Ferguson bio in the first place? He’s not exactly a natural choice in that he’s mostly written about British politics and European war in the 19th century and early 20th century; there are lot of experts on Kissinger and American foreign policy. Indeed, it was just such an expert whom the NYTBR chose to review Grandin’s book on Kissinger in the very same issue of the NYTBR that Roberts reviewed Ferguson’s bio. (And, incidentally, one can tell the difference in the choices: where Roberts’s review is a combination of pabulum and hagiography, the review of Grandin’s book is judicious, scholarly, and intelligently critical). So who suggested Roberts as the reviewer and dealt with him on his review?
{ 148 comments }
Glen Tomkins 10.01.15 at 3:29 am
All I have left for Kissinger is that bit in 1 Kings, as the dying David is advising Solomon on the transition. He gives this advice about Joab, his chief enforcer, “Do not let his hoary head go down to Sheol in peace.”
That’s all the thought and feeling I have left for Kissinger. He doesn’t deserve any more justification and doesn’t need further condemnation, he just deserves to be sent off to Sheol, and not in peace.
Krishna 10.01.15 at 3:56 am
He is a war criminal, and does not deserve the adulation he receives, and the review is nothing but. It is sad that he is given such respectability
reason 10.01.15 at 7:45 am
mmm…
I’m not sure that it is worth a fuss. Niall Ferguson is such a divisive figure, I guess it is impossible to find a neutral reviewer. Anybody reading choosing to read anything by Niall Ferguson knows he will be getting a neo-conservative polemic, with little respect for the truth, so any review will make hardly any difference.
Daragh 10.01.15 at 9:04 am
Is anyone really surprised that the likes of Ferguson would have any problems with this kind of log-rolling? Or would even think there was anything wrong with it (after all, only the people who already agree with Ferguson are smart enough to realise what a genius he is, while criticism is an obvious sign of bias and bad faith. My god those people are so bitter they even stoop to criticise Ferguson for such trivial errata as getting basic facts wrong).
Needless to say, the man himself is shamelessly puffing quotes from the Roberts review on his Twitter feed.
Ed 10.01.15 at 10:09 am
It actually would be interesting if the NY Times Book review had Kissenger himself review his own biography. And this would mostly improve the conflict of interest situation.
One problem with having Andrew Roberts write the review is that readers might not necessarily know that “Andrew Roberts” is in fact a close friend of both the author, and the subject of the biography. But if “Henry Kissenger” reviews a book about Henry Kissenger, any reader should know exactly what they are getting. And if they went all the way and had the author review his own book, then it would be clear that people are reading an advertisement for the book.
Yes, having someone with no connection to the author and subject, but with interesting things to say, review the book would be better, but I know the Times and I know we are not going to get that. At least then make it clear where everyone stands.
Salem 10.01.15 at 10:34 am
Why is it always so hysterical with Robin?
Yes, they should declare conflicts of interest. No, this isn’t “corruption.”
Bill Benzon 10.01.15 at 10:43 am
I thought the review was weirdly fawning, but didn’t know this back story. Now it makes sense. And, of course, eery time I think of Kissinger I think of Peter Sellers’ Dr. Strangelove character from the movie.
Daragh 10.01.15 at 11:01 am
@Salem – for better or worse, the book is a commercial product. The NYT Review of Books is supposed to offer potential consumers of that product a reasonably objective assessment of it’s quality and worth. If selecting people with an obvious material interest, or who are personally and professionally close to people who have a material interest in the product’s success isn’t ‘corruption’ I don’t know what is. It’s not Watergate or Teapot Dome to be sure, but it is incredibly scuzzy.
oldster 10.01.15 at 11:16 am
Actually, Salem, this is corruption.
Salem 10.01.15 at 11:34 am
It would be corrupt if the NYRB (or its employees) were taking side-payments from Ferguson or Kissinger to assign the book to a reviewer who they knew would be favourable. Or, similarly, if the reviewer were taking side-payments. But if the NYRB assigns the review to someone who they knew would be favourable to it, because the NYRB collectively thinks Kissinger is the bees’ knees, that’s not corrupt, that’s just having an ideological slant.
There’s no suggestion here that Roberts’ review isn’t Roberts’ genuine feelings on the book, and on Kissinger (to the contrary, the allegation is that Roberts is so close to author and subject that his view is biased). There’s no suggestion here that the NYRB, or anyone there, benefited in any way from giving this review to Roberts as opposed to a hostile critic. So corruption it ain’t, although I agree that it is scuzzy not to declare the potential conflict of interest.
otto 10.01.15 at 11:49 am
“Thus a new genre is born: the authorized review of the authorized biography.”
I doubt this is a new genre.
Corey Robin 10.01.15 at 11:51 am
otto: “I doubt this is a new genre.”
Can you find another instance of the original preferred authorized reviewer, who is also friends with the author (and indeed stated publicly six years before the biography was written that he knew it would be excellent), reviewing the authorized biography?
Neil 10.01.15 at 12:01 pm
Think of the phrase “intellectual corruption,” Salem. This seems pretty paradigmatic..
otto 10.01.15 at 1:12 pm
Well I can’t, off hand, but book-reviewing and biography-writing being as incestuous as it is, I really doubt something pretty similar has not occurred before. It’s an insiders’ game from top to bottom.
Ed 10.01.15 at 1:14 pm
This thread is somewhat naive, though I see a Marginal Revolution thread that doesn’t even acknowledge the problem. “Pay to play” or “payola” has been pretty established with American publications. Advertiser buys alot of ad space in newspaper or magazine x, or the owner of x has some real estate investment somewhere, or even money just changes hands, and a glowing review of y materializes. Y in this case is most likely to be a restaurant, but could conceivably be a book.
The New York Times is supposed to be above this sort of thing, but over the decades they’ve added alot of “Style” pages, and there is pretty much no reason other than payola to publish this stuff.
My own strategy to deal with this is to just not read American newspapers and magazines, or at least not take them seriously as I turn directly to the sports sections. But its worth pointing out that this happens, or when it spreads to places that were supposed to be above it.
Marc 10.01.15 at 1:34 pm
This is a real problem with book reviews. If memory serves, they hired a reactionary as lead editor for the book review, and he has a habit of combining fawning reviews of right-leaning books (Stanley Fish on Sarah Palin…) with harsh reviews of left-leaning ones.
And, yes, I do agree that this represents corruption. You’re giving a real financial edge and, more to the point, intellectual edge to a book with a high profile favorable review. You don’t need to have cash change hands directly.
Bill Benzon 10.01.15 at 1:43 pm
@Salem: A minor point in the scheme of things, but we’re talking about the NYTimes Book Review, not the NYRB.
Lynne 10.01.15 at 1:51 pm
I find this disgusting. How can readers do anything but distrust their reviews?
Anarcissie 10.01.15 at 1:54 pm
All this is like complaining that Soviet Pravda praised a speech by Brezhnev. It’s not corruption, it’s what the New York Times evidently conceives of as its job. I would be more distressed if someone I respected got a favorable review.
NomadUK 10.01.15 at 1:56 pm
And, of course, eery time I think of Kissinger I think of Peter Sellers’ Dr. Strangelove character from the movie.
That’s easy to do (and I often do it myself), probably because of the accent, but, in fact, Dr Strangelove is meant to be a caricature of Edward Teller.
jonnybutter 10.01.15 at 2:12 pm
#14 It’s not, strictly speaking, ‘pay [money] to play’, which makes it more, not less, disturbing. That in this case it’s so brazen – almost unhinged – is also disturbing, in other ways I suppose. “Kissinger’s official biographer…certainly gives the reader enough evidence to conclude that Henry Kissinger is one of the greatest Americans in the history of the republic”. What is that sentence supposed to mean exactly?
William Berry 10.01.15 at 2:47 pm
@Salem: It’s the New York Times Review of Books (NYTRB), not the New York Review of Books (NYRB). It matters, at least a little, given that, on average, the NYRB has much the better reputation.
William Berry 10.01.15 at 2:49 pm
OK, I see Bill Benzon made that point already. Sorry.
Patrick 10.01.15 at 2:51 pm
This thread reads like a Deepfreeze entry. It’s got it all- a charge of “corruption,” a putative conflict of interest based on “friendship” with nothing clarifying what that really means, an admission that no one would object to a review from an enemy even though that would presumably be just as “corrupt,” and a sneaking suspicion on my part that the underlying issue isn’t “corruption” or “bias,” it’s a dislike for Kissinger and a desire to see him slammed.
William Berry 10.01.15 at 2:55 pm
Well, I’ll get it right eventually: NYTBR, actually, not NYTRB.
@NomadUK: right on the Teller bit, but I’m thinking that the principal creator of the H-bomb and the author of NSC-68 (and other atrocities) are pretty much different versions of the same sort of fellow.
Monte Davis 10.01.15 at 2:59 pm
What… you want the Times staffers to be excluded from the best dinner parties and receptions? Don’t let musty old policy differences make you so cruel, dear fellow.
The Temporary Name 10.01.15 at 3:00 pm
I hope this is in the first few paragraphs because it’s hilarious and should be all the reader needs.
Daragh 10.01.15 at 3:00 pm
“the author of NSC-68 (and other atrocities)”
I’m sorry, the policy of containing Stalin’s USSR was an ‘atrocity’ now?
Monte Davis 10.01.15 at 3:18 pm
@William Berry: Strangelove combined some Herman Kahn, some Wernher von Braun, and very possibly some Teller,. I like this writer’s tongue-in-cheek (?) suggestion that after 1964 Kissinger may have unconsciously (?) modeled himself on Strangelove:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/1999/03/who_was_dr_strangelove.html
William Berry 10.01.15 at 3:19 pm
@Daragh: No, the policy of accelerating an arms race that we were already far ahead in (little real danger of being surpassed militarily by the Soviets, phony “bomber gap”, “missile gap”, etc.), undermining our political-economy by absurd levels of military spending, subverting democracy by creating a national security super-state that is still with us, intensifying a cold war that contributed to the impoverishment and deaths of tens of millions all over the world, was an atrocity. We are still living with the consequences.
NSC-68 was just one cold war atrocity among many. Kissinger had a hand in a lot of them. He was one of the slimiest, most vile, and evil bastard of the era. The world is worse off because of him, and that is something to be able to say about one man.
HK was one of the things that Hitchens got right.
From what I have read of your comments, we are unlikely to agree on much, so whatever.
Marc 10.01.15 at 3:27 pm
@23: You should know, in a review, that the reviewer has extremely close ties to the review, just as you should know that the reviewer has a hostile relationship to the subject. It’s flat malpractice to not do this in reviews of politically charged subjects.
mds 10.01.15 at 3:46 pm
Patrick @ 23:
I second this criticism. Professor Robin shamefully omits from his excerpt the clarifying portions of the Gawker post, portions which cast quite a different light on the matter:
—The Guardian, 18 June 2006
(emphasis added)
—The Scotsman, 26 August 2009
(emphasis added)
See? No mention of occasional interaction on social media at all, which is considered disqualifying by the same NYT that greenlighted Roberts.
Indeed. Professionals who disagree with other professionals on controversial subjects are enemies in exactly the same way that Roberts is a “friend” to Ferguson and Kissinger. Grandin really gives the game away when he acknowledges that he would welcome a (presumably critical) review from Ferguson of his own book, even though Ferguson once shot his puppy.
Quite so. Robin and Grandin are caught dead-to-rights on this one. It’s not that an openly-declared longtime friend of both author and subject wrote a review absolutely oozing sycophancy; it’s not even that someone favorably disposed towards the author and subject should be able to judge a work in a less-fawning fashion; it’s that the review must parrot leftist talking points about “war crimes,” or the “illegal” “bombing” of “Cambodia.” And that’s to Robin and Grandin’s discredit, or would be if left-wing Kissinger-bashing academics such as themselves had any credit to begin with. Please cancel my subscription forthwith.
Daragh 10.01.15 at 3:50 pm
William Berry @29 – If you think the US was ‘far ahead’ of the USSR in 1950 I’m afraid you’re mistaken. And while you seem to be keen to blame the US and the West (which, I know, is evil and always wrong about everything, no matter the topic) for the onset and intensification of the Cold War, I believe many Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Germans might strongly disagree with that interpretation.
JohnTh 10.01.15 at 3:52 pm
It is at times like this when I prefer the less hypocritical slant that English papers have – the Telegraph would let also Roberts review Ferguson on Kissinger, but over here everyone knows what you would get from a Ferguson/Roberts review in either direction, and everyone knows you read the Telegraph to get reactionary column inches rather than an impartial view.
What’s silly here is the NYTBR pretending that this is anything else. Perhaps they genuinely didn’t know those two are soulmates.
William Berry 10.01.15 at 3:54 pm
@Daragh:
As I said, we are not likely to agree on much.
You sound like a dupe of the neo-liberal ideology of legitimation.
Boring.
William Berry 10.01.15 at 3:57 pm
@mds: I am sure that CT will cheerfully refund the entire cost of your subscription.
Wow. So predictable. A post on Kissinger, and the neo-liberal apologists come crawling out of the woodwork.
Daragh 10.01.15 at 4:33 pm
William Berry @34
“You sound like a dupe of the neo-liberal ideology of legitimation.”
Well you may not have arguments, or facts, but you do have magic code-words to show that you’re not part of the system, like all those other sheeple maaaannn!
Kiwanda 10.01.15 at 4:34 pm
“Kissinger’s official biographer certainly gives the reader enough evidence to conclude that Henry Kissinger is one of the greatest Americans in the history of the republic”
It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice.
Stephen Colbert: Great American? Or: Greatest American?
I can’t understand all this fuss about ethics in book review journalism; book publishing is a small industry. Much smaller than, say, video games.
LFC 10.01.15 at 4:40 pm
@William Berry
I’m thinking that the principal creator of the H-bomb and the author of NSC-68 (and other atrocities) are pretty much different versions of the same sort of fellow.
Kissinger can reasonably be charged with various things (e.g., Cambodia, Chile, tilt to Pakistan in ’71 Bangladesh crisis), but the authorship of NSC-68 is not one of them, as far as I know. If memory serves, the main author of NSC-68 was Paul Nitze.
William Berry 10.01.15 at 4:47 pm
@Daragh:
Guy with no facts or arguments says someone has no facts or arguments. SOP, for the type.
Also, says “sheeple” (presumably mockingly, but no-one else said it).
Fuck off.
William Berry 10.01.15 at 4:55 pm
@LFC: You are correct; that was Nitze. I apologize for the derail!
Kissinger, as you say, can be charged with other things (my favorite is his role in Chile and SA; the assassination of Schneider, the Condor Legion, etc.) but not NSC-68.
It was really just a throw-away remark that VSP Daragh had to make something of.
LFC 10.01.15 at 4:55 pm
mds @31
the “illegal†“bombing†of “Cambodia.â€
One can argue the legalities (maybe or barely), but there was a Cambodia and the U.S. did bomb it (secretly) and then invaded it. Bracketing the supposed justifications etc, why do you put the words Cambodia and bombing in quotes? Makes no sense at all.
LFC 10.01.15 at 4:56 pm
sorry, the line below ‘mds’ is from his/her comment @31
Kalkaino 10.01.15 at 4:57 pm
Although this seems like a new level of fecal impaction, the Times pretty consistently assures even the most ludicrous right-wing crap the best review it can get by assigning a right-winger to review it. More and more the nation’s “paper of record” is written by assholes for assholes, and that starts on the front page (Hillary Sends Classified Emails!) and continues on to the last word of infomercial under Style or Travel.
mds 10.01.15 at 5:08 pm
William Berry @ 35:
The eerie thing is … they already did.
LFC @ 41:
If you read the comment by Patrick @ 23 to which I am responding, you might notice the use of quotation marks around words such as “friendship,” as if they were suspect terms rather than fairly obvious definitions. His comment, along with Roberts’ review, suggests that poor Dr. Kissinger hasn’t been able to catch a break due to a little bit of hair-mussing in southeast Asia. So I decided that in fairness, I should treat the very existence of Cambodia, not to mention the bombing thereof, with the same regard.
Also, I had really hoped that “Please cancel my subscription forthwith,” if not the entire tone of the comment, would function as a tell. Alas, I yet again failed to include explicit <snark> tags.
LFC 10.01.15 at 5:25 pm
mds @44
I’ve got it now; sorry for the misinterpretation.
William Berry 10.01.15 at 5:27 pm
Well, I Should apologize to one and all for being so damned cranky.
I worked all night, turned sixty-four yesterday, and should just go to bed already.
Lyle 10.01.15 at 5:47 pm
Kalkaino @ 43 nailed it. Nuff said, really.
Ronan(rf) 10.01.15 at 6:37 pm
I agree with johnth that it’s not unusual.
Not a gotya, but how is it different than,for example, this?
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n22/corey-robin/dedicated-to-democracy
adam.smith 10.01.15 at 6:38 pm
I have to disagree with the consensus view here. I think this was a masterpiece of subversion by the NYTBR editor. Sure, they could have assigned the review to someone like Grandin, he’d have ripped the book to shreads, he’d have been right but have not convinced anyone.
Instead, they get a second-rate sycophant like Roberts to write hillarious stuff like:
(read this again–his evidence for it not being a hagiography is that it describes Kissinger as a demanding boss and not describing Kissinger as the nicest guy on earth, just as the “one of the greatest Americans”)
thus exposing the intellectual corruption around Kissinger, Ferguson et al. much more effectively than an ostensibly critical reviewer could have.
LFC 10.01.15 at 7:09 pm
Ronan @48
I think it’s different. For one thing, Corey’s review of The Last Colonial Massacre appeared in LRB in 2004; was he even acquainted personally w/ Grandin then? “No” seems like a very plausible answer, though I don’t know. Anyway, in the Ferguson/Roberts case you’ve got the ‘authorized bio’ angle — it’s more than ‘friend/acquaintance reviews friend’s book’, which prob does happen w a certain regularity (NYRB was once called by a wag “the review of each other’s books”).
Ronan(rf) 10.01.15 at 7:22 pm
I was thinking they might not have been acquainted at the time.
But even beyond that, to have people so ideologically in agreement review each others books? I think that’s just as much an issue. I would think that regardless of Ferguson/Roberts relationship, Roberts review was likely to be positive. I don’t doubt his review is genuine, just that it took an incredible lack of imagination at the nyt to get someone with Roberts priors to review the book.
I don’t know if the ‘authorized bio’ angle is all that unusual. It’s probably just an extreme example of a more general phenomenon(ie academics who have written biographies, with or without access, on historical figures reviewing other biographies of said figure)
Trader Joe 10.01.15 at 7:27 pm
While I think it kinda smells to have essentially an “insider” review a book like this…I guess, as an average reader of book reviews, I would never assume something as inherently commercial as a book review is arms-length and objective. 9 times out of 10 I know at most a little about either the author or the reviewer, so I’d never assume its automatically objective whether the final review is a slam, praise or anywhere in between.
I also think is more than a little over the top to call it “A clusterF**K of corruption” Its a freakin book review.
Volswagen is cluster of corruption
Syria is a cluster
House republicans are a cluster
is a cluster
A book review? Gimme a break…..its a pumpkin spice latte of corruption.
TM 10.01.15 at 8:08 pm
49 makes a good point. You couldn’t savage the book any better than that quote:
“[H]e certainly gives the reader enough evidence to conclude that Henry Kissinger is one of the greatest Americans in the history of the Republic.”
I read the NYRB and the book reviews, especially but not only of controversial books, are mostly disappointing. I rarely read a review that does a decent job summarizing the book’s content and pointing out, in fair and constructive manner, some of the flaws. Books are rarely seriously criticized at all, and all too often the reviewer is mostly concerned with their own opinions on the topic, or even on other topics.
Patrick 10.01.15 at 8:35 pm
mds- Don’t pretend that “friends” is some objective status with an obvious meaning even when used by a dueling reviewer to attack his dueling opponent (ironically, without disclosing that connection). To what extent are these guys actually friends? “Well known holders of similar opinions” is not a conflict of interest. That’s just an interest.
novakant 10.01.15 at 9:04 pm
Writers scratching each other’s backs in public ? – why I’ve never heard of such a thing, it’s an outrage, somebody call the police. The most endearing examples of this practice are to be found on the backs of serious academic books that nobody reads where one professor praises another professor’s work, sometimes they’re even from the same department.
novakant 10.01.15 at 9:20 pm
TM – I actually like that about the NYRB, to me it’s added value: in the best cases you get brilliant essays by experts in their field. I find conventional book reviews a bit bland.
geo 10.01.15 at 10:12 pm
Kiwanda @37: I can’t understand all this fuss about ethics in book review journalism
Me neither. Who cares about book reviews?
Corey Robin 10.01.15 at 10:20 pm
And now the preferred authorized biographer and the author of the authorized biography are scheduled to have a cozy little chat about the subject of the biography in London. Which was probably scheduled long in advance of the review itself.
http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/niall-ferguson-henry-kissinger-reappraised/
geo 10.01.15 at 10:28 pm
Forgive the lame humor @57. I find the Times Book Review’s behavior every bit as disgusting as Grandin and Corey do. Not merely because Kissinger is vile and criminal, and so public a figure that every decision to give him editorial space or a speaker’s platform or an honorary degree — or a dinner-party invitation, for that matter — is a confession of intellectual and moral unseriousness, but also because the Times makes such an absurd fuss about “objectivity” but nonetheless publishes self-serving leaks from administration insiders, disproportionately quotes exponents of received wisdom as “authorities,” and snubs anyone who, even in the remote past, has dared criticize America’s Newspaper of Record. They are all — Pamela Paul, Sam Tanenhaus (not a bad writer but an unimaginative editor, and especially Barry Gewen, the nonfiction editor — thoroughgoing lightweights.
engels 10.01.15 at 10:55 pm
Where is Mark ames when you need him?
JW Mason 10.01.15 at 11:39 pm
it’s what the New York Times evidently conceives of as its job
This seems like a problem specific to the Sunday review supplement edited by Tanenhaus, no? I doubt you’d have seen this review in the daily paper, tho I admit I don’t follow it closely. Anyway, when institutions fail to meet their own professed standards it can be a useful organizing device to point out their hypocrisy, even when the facts would support cynically dismissing it as business as usual.
LFC 10.02.15 at 12:07 am
JWM @61
the Sunday review supplement edited by Tanenhaus
for some reason I get the NYTBkRev by email (not that I usu. read it, except if something esp. catches my interest) so I happen to know that Tanenhaus doesn’t edit it any more. It’s P. Paul who edits it. (At least she signs the chatty “intro” or overview msgs or whatever you want to call them.)
mds 10.02.15 at 12:08 am
I don’t know, perhaps someone should ask them. The people at the NYT Book Review who have been oh-so-concerned with such putative associations in other cases, for instance.
Still, your general point remains. Can we really know anything? Why, I met a stranger on the bus just yesterday, yet told everyone we’d been friends for fifteen years. It happens. Maybe your name isn’t even Patrick, and you were Fafnir all along.**
**Semi-obscure internet tradition. And so is “internet tradition,” for that matter. It’s turtles all the way down.
Thomas Everett 10.02.15 at 12:28 am
It makes sense that Ferguson would be his biographer, since his field is largely fiction, though they dress it up by calling it counter factual history. Seems like the perfect biographer for attempting to rehabilitate the war criminal. And the Times probably had to go with their incestuous circle jerk of authors for the review, since who else would read Ferguson on purpose. Jesus, does his wife even read his crap?
LFC 10.02.15 at 12:38 am
From the Andrew Roberts review (as linked in the OP):
The referenced view is *not* a “conspiracy theory.” It’s a position to which some very serious historians subscribe. That does not *necessarily* mean it’s correct in every particular, of course, but to describe it as a “conspiracy theory” and associate it only with Hersh, Hitchens, and some (unnamed) “others” is irresponsible. Roberts clearly does not know the first thing about the history of the Vietnam War and that in itself shd have disqualified him from reviewing the Ferguson volumes.
By contrast, I see the NYTBkRev assigned Grandin’s bk to be reviewed by Mark Atwood Lawrence, a historian who has specialized in diplomatic history and whose first bk was about early postwar (i.e., Truman-era) US policy in Vietnam w/r/t the French etc. So they gave the Ferguson bk to Roberts and they gave the Grandin bk to a professional historian. N.b. Haven’t read the Lawrence review yet.
jkay 10.02.15 at 12:54 am
But the Vllage can’t be wrong. ;-)
That perfectly-nukable Vllage, that is. ;-)
Kiwanda 10.02.15 at 3:02 am
I wonder what he makes of the statements of people directly involved, like Richard Allen, Richard Holbrooke, and Nixon himself?
geo: “Me…who…book…?”
Not sure what your point was there.
Daragh 10.02.15 at 10:03 am
William Berry @41
“Kissinger, as you say, can be charged with other things (my favorite is his role in Chile and SA; the assassination of Schneider, the Condor Legion, etc.)”
While I don’t want to overlook Kissinger’s many awful acts, I’m pretty certain organising the Nazi intervention in the Spanish Civil War wasn’t one of them.
novakant 10.02.15 at 11:16 am
And I’m pretty certain he meant Operation Condor and that you could have guessed that.
Daragh 10.02.15 at 11:38 am
navakant @70
Glass houses dude, glass houses.
William Berry 10.02.15 at 2:46 pm
Of course I meant Operation Condor, and of course Daragh knows that, and of course he would be glad to overlook HK’s awful acts, and of course, since he nothing to say except to snipe at others, he will continue to be a smug smart-ass.
Anarcissie 10.02.15 at 3:03 pm
JW Mason 10.01.15 at 11:39 pm @ 62:
‘it’s what the New York Times evidently conceives of as its job’
‘This seems like a problem specific to the Sunday review supplement edited by Tanenhaus, no?’
No. It is probably true that only the book review would present the grotesque, incestuous orgy rightly called a ‘clusterfuck’ here, however. Elsewhere the portrayal of Dr. Kissinger as the noblest of Americans would have to be taken as overly brutal satire.
Corey Robin 10.02.15 at 3:08 pm
All of you should check out the update I just posted to the OP. It’s funny to me that some folks here think there’s nothing untoward about this story. The New York Times Public Editor just wrote a piece about it, and she clearly thinks there’s a problem.
Sebastian H 10.02.15 at 3:24 pm
You’re so dramatic. No one thinks there is “nothing untoward” about the story. They just think that on a scale of 1-10 of important things it is like a 3. In the face of Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump you want to worry about Niall Ferguson getting a good book review? Even on the scale of academic drama it is like a 4. You’re hyping it like it is an 11.
Worrying about ethics in video game journalism is literally more important.
Kiwanda 10.02.15 at 3:34 pm
Margaret Sullivan is the first Public Editor, Ombudsman, or whatever, at the NYT or WaPo who actually seems to be a voice for journalistic integrity and for the reader. How did that happen?
Corey Robin 10.02.15 at 3:42 pm
Sebastian H: When the NYT Public Editor feels compelled to weigh in on an issue, it’s a pretty big deal. When she criticizes her own paper (taking, I might add, the same view I took in my OP and Grandin took in his Gawker piece), it’s an even bigger deal. so, if I were you, I’d back away from the keyboard right now. Last time you commented on a post of mine, you wound up making a complete ass out of yourself. In part, because as is the case here, you didn’t actually understand the story you were commenting on (which in this case, of course, is not that Ferguson got a good book review). So, go away and make your ill-informed comments on some other site.
Daragh 10.02.15 at 3:46 pm
William Berry @72
You’ll note that in addition to agreeing with Corey’s substantive complaint here, I’ve criticised Kissinger (who I think did terrible things during his tenure in power and is now demonstrating his basic amorality by shamelessly shilling for Putin’s Russia) elsewhere.
novakant 10.02.15 at 4:21 pm
It’s funny to me that some folks here think there’s nothing untoward about this story.
FWIW I do think there’s something untoward about this case, but a sympathetic review by a like-minded and friendly reviewer is simply not very extraordinary – happens all the time, especially in academia and it doesn’t even always have to be a bad thing let alone “corruption”.
TM 10.02.15 at 4:32 pm
So everybody is essentially in agreement but people still manage to pick fights. Come on. there’s no need to be jerks. It’s a beautiful Friday.
Sebastian H 10.02.15 at 4:35 pm
Yes, for the world of the NYT Book review, it is a huge deal. Like TOTALLY ENORMOUS. But that is a really small world.
I understand the issues presented, they just aren’t actually that important.
If, worst case scenario, it turns out that Niall Ferguson bribed some one in the NYT Book Review with actual money, prostitutes, and promises of access to Donald Trump, that would mean what? That we can’t trust the NYT Book Review (anymore?!?) ? That neo-con pseudo-academic authorized biographers can’t be trusted (anymore?!?) ? That Rush Limbaugh now can make a throwaway line about “even the liberal NYT Book Review realizes that Kissinger wasn’t so bad”?
The possibility of Vatican corruption around the Pope meeting Kim Davis is at least an order of magnitude more important to how things will play out in the wider world.
I understand how subculture things can be important in subculture ways. I was annoyed with those gay developers who had a fund raiser with Ted Cruz. But come to think of it, if they had incrementally contributed to the possibility of Ted Cruz being more successful, even that story would have been more important.
Corey Robin 10.02.15 at 4:36 pm
novakant: “but a sympathetic review by a like-minded and friendly reviewer is simply not very extraordinary.”
You’re right. But that is not the situation here. As I asked someone else upthread: can you name a single other instance where the *preferred* authorized biographer writes a review of the authorized biography? Where the preferred authorized biographer and the actual authorized biographer had been friends for 25 years? And not just friends but co-authors? And where, when asked whether there were any potential conflicts of interest between himself and the author under review, the preferred authorized biographer simply lies and says, no, I only met the actual authorized biographer a few times?
That’s a pretty big deal. And it goes considerably beyond “a sympathetic review by a like-minded and friendly reviewer.”
What’s more, the New York Fucking Times clearly thinks it’s a big deal. And not just the Public Editor, but the editor of the Book Review, who says that at a minimum the preferred authorized biographer should have disclosed these facts to her.
I don’t mind arguing over the significance of this issue, but, please, have a sense of the actual facts of the matter before you yawn and say nothing new under the sun.
Sebastian H 10.02.15 at 4:39 pm
Ugh, in retrospect, it is even less important to criticize what you think is important. [takes a breath].
Stupid defensiveness when attacked over something unimportant is just stupid defensiveness. [And to be crystal clear, that is a self-criticism.]
Sorry about that.
Barry Freed 10.02.15 at 4:41 pm
Corey, please, the next time you decide to write something, whether a blog post or, say, your next book, please make sure to vet your topic with Sebastian H first as you wouldn’t want to waste your time on any unimportant issues when there are so many other important things you could be writing about instead.
Barry Freed 10.02.15 at 4:49 pm
84 before seeing 83. Carry on.
Harold 10.02.15 at 5:03 pm
The book review has been impossible for years. I find it distressing that even the NYT travel section is now devoid of content – they used to have some decent essays — I mean in the near past. And now Bittman is gone — or going.
Roger Gathman 10.02.15 at 6:48 pm
Ms. Paul is stonewalling. Her comment makes no sense. How, after all, if she doesn’t have time to do any research on the reviewer, was Roberts chosen at all, as opposed to, say, Kim Kardashian? Cause maybe somebody suggested his name? Of course the people who made that choice knew what they were doing. Jim Horgan wrote an interesting column a while back about reviewing for the NYT. He was reviewing Patrick Tierney’s book, Darkness in Eldorado, with its blistering portrait of Napoleon Chagnon’s anthropology. Even before the process began, there were emails urging him one way or another.
“I was still working on my review of Darkness when I received emails from five prominent scholars: Richard Dawkins, Edward Wilson, Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett and Marc Hauser. Although each wrote separately, the emails were obviously coordinated. All had learned (none said exactly how, although I suspected via a friend of mine with whom I discussed my review) that I was reviewing Darkness for the Times. Warning that a positive review might ruin my career, the group urged me either to denounce Darkness or to withdraw as a reviewer.”
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/the-weird-irony-at-the-heart-of-the-napoleon-chagnon-affair/
It seems to me much more likely that Roberts was selected to give a good review to the book than that Roberts was selected in total ignorance of who he was. The latter idea is not only insulting to the reader’s intelligence, but suggests that the Book Review is run by idiots.
Corey Robin 10.02.15 at 7:24 pm
Margaret Sullivan, the NYT Public Editor, just issued the following update (sorry, I still don’t know how to do block quotes or indents on these comments):
“Update:
“Corey Robin, an author and political science professor at Brooklyn College and CUNY, pointed out in a post today that Mr. Roberts and Mr. Ferguson co-authored a chapter in a 1999 book edited by Mr. Ferguson. That almost surely would have disqualified Mr. Roberts as a reviewer had it been known.”
adam.smith 10.02.15 at 7:39 pm
@Corey. You can create pretty blockquotes by putting the quote between
<blockquote> and </blockquote> (the “and” would be the blockquote here). Hope this is going to work in display. Miss the days when this had a preview.
Corey Robin 10.02.15 at 7:44 pm
Thanks, adam.smith.
Corey Robin 10.02.15 at 8:03 pm
In a followup post, Greg Grandin gives the dialectical knife a final turn:
http://www.thenation.com/article/theres-no-conflict-of-interest-in-the-nyts-review-of-kissingers-biography/
Corey Robin 10.02.15 at 8:03 pm
adam.smith: By gum, it worked!
Bill Benzon 10.02.15 at 8:40 pm
Way to go, Corey! At last the Gray Lady has some color in her face. The blushing pink of embarrassment.
novakant 10.02.15 at 8:45 pm
Oh come on, if we weren’t talking about the biography of Kissinger, the war criminal who shaped US foreign policy for half a century, but the biography of, say, a writer, painter or musician, few would care if the biographer and reviewer were pals – this is only interesting because Kissinger is politically controversial and Grandin wants to push back against the hagiography promoted by the establishment, which is fair enough.
Corey Robin 10.02.15 at 8:48 pm
novakant: In other words, you can’t find a single instance of anything at quite this level occurring before. Fair enough.
novakant 10.02.15 at 9:35 pm
I have no idea, how on earth would I find that out? The point still stands: for some reason or other you’re trying to make this about journalistic ethics and are expecting the Judith Miller WMD in Iraq NY Times of all rags to adhere to the highest standards, while I find that this line of attack is not very fruitful. But hey, if it helps promote Grandin’s book and thereby demolishes Kissinger’s image further, who am I to complain.
The Temporary Name 10.02.15 at 9:43 pm
However awful the NY Times has been and continues to be, elites take it seriously and therefore trying to get the paper to behave as something other than a backscratching club for the already-entrenched is a noble goal. Or is Judith Miller some ha-ha footnote only worth an eye-roll?
novakant 10.02.15 at 10:05 pm
So what if the NYT had somebody without any connection to either Kissinger or the biographer submit the exact same review? The highest standards of journalistic ethics would have been adhered to, but it still would have been the same back scratching establishment club that it has always been.
The Temporary Name 10.02.15 at 10:13 pm
That review, then, wouldn’t have been back-scratching, would it? One down, a billion to go.
novakant 10.02.15 at 10:24 pm
Of course it would: the NYT scratching Kissinger’s back, the foremost paper of the nation cuddling a war criminal who is also a darling of the establishment, which is the real scandal, though hardly surprising.
The Temporary Name 10.02.15 at 10:34 pm
That’s a point, but I don’t agree that a stupid review equals a corrupt one, nor that the thing to do with what remains the most influential newspaper in the US is to lie back and think of the English press.
Harold 10.02.15 at 10:46 pm
Greg Grandin is a wonderful writer. The NYT review is obviously a pre-emptive strike.
LFC 10.02.15 at 10:57 pm
I know this thread is not mainly about the substance of various evaluations of Kissinger (and, to be clear, I am very much not a fan of Kissinger), but I can’t say I find the Grandin piece in The Nation (linked by Corey @91) to be all that illuminating on substance. To make what cd be a long elaboration short, I would say that the Kissinger/Nixon actions re Vietnam and Cambodia derived mainly from the (perceived) need to force the North Vietnamese to come to ‘reasonable’ terms, i.e., the root problem was N & K’s embrace of ‘credibility’ and ‘honorable peace’ as the drivers of their policy. The problem there, in other words, was not so much a generalized commitment to militarism/intervention as the embrace of a specific, flawed rationale for policy (maintenance of ‘credibility’ and avoidance of ‘humiliation’ and ‘defeat’). The cost was an additional 20,000 (roughly) U.S. deaths and a much larger number of Vietnamese (and Cambodian) deaths.
Harold 10.02.15 at 11:48 pm
There will be many interpretations of Kissinger’s career and astuteness or lack of it., but the point is that there are many people who for years have adhered to and still believe in a domestic “stabbed-in-the-back” theory about Vietnam and our defeat there. Some of these people were associated with Nixon and will not want to see our policy there shown up for all to see as the catastrophe it was by so eloquent and perceptive an analyst as Grandin.
John Quiggin 10.02.15 at 11:48 pm
A bit OT, but does Kissinger have any real support base these days? Of course, he’s a member in good standing of the Foreign Policy Community and therefore entitled to command deference no matter what crimes he commits or how disastrously his policies fail.
But even among those sympathetic to realpolitik in general terms, I don’t get the impressions that Kissinger is regarded as a positive role model. Anyone closer to the action care to comment?
Corey Robin 10.03.15 at 12:13 am
Pamela Paul, editor of the Times Book Review, has a lengthy response to the Margaret Sullivan critique:
http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/conflicts-and-kissinger-a-tale-of-two-book-reviews/
In addition, the Times has appended the following editor’s note to the Roberts review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/niall-fergusons-kissinger-volume-i.html#addendums
oldster 10.03.15 at 12:19 am
“we are satisfied that in this case, Mr. Roberts reviewed the book fairly.”
And with that, we may now close the thread.
When the NYT is satisfied, it is not for the likes of us to feel dissatisfaction.
engels 10.03.15 at 12:52 am
does Kissinger have any real support base these days?
“Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state. He checked in with me regularly, sharing astute observations about foreign leaders and sending me written reports on his travels….”
LFC 10.03.15 at 1:48 am
JQ @105
I’m not much better positioned than you to answer your question, but my guess would be that Kissinger has friendly or friendly-acquaintance relations w a lot of people in the ‘foreign policy establishment’. A review of the Grandin book in Wash Post opened with an anecdote about Kissinger and Samantha Power attending a NY Yankees game together (with Power, iirc, rooting for the Red Sox and Kissinger for the Yankees). However, being a respected and well-connected “elder statesman” is different from being a “positive role model.” Someone like Power probably doesn’t view him as a war criminal but also probably doesn’t think of him as a role model.
geo 10.03.15 at 2:17 am
Sebastian @75 and 81 asks, not unreasonably, why a minor scandal at the NY Times is a big deal. Because the Times heavily influences newspaper and television coverage throughout the US. Most newspaper editors and television producers weigh the Times’s national and international coverage heavily in choosing what to cover in their own publications. Quite often they simply print stories from the Times. Those who publish in or are reported on (or reviewed) in the Times go into the rolodex of talk show producers and op-ed page editors. Etc.
The prerogatives of being a national newspaper of record are a little like those of issuing the preferred international currency. (I exaggerate, but … )
Ben 10.03.15 at 3:42 am
“We were not aware of this . . . had we known . . . Had editors been aware . . .”
The first page of google results searching for Andrew Roberts and Niall Ferguson gives me, just through the preview text below the links:
Who is this “we didn’t know” crap designed to fool?
Harold 10.03.15 at 4:44 am
Well, Google will give you what other people are looking at at the moment. But if you don’t accept their “We didn’t know .. we were just following orders”, then you are calling them a liar. Not gentlemanly.
Dipper 10.03.15 at 7:17 am
“certainly gives the reader enough evidence to conclude that Henry Kissinger is one of the greatest Americans in the history of the republic, someone who has been repulsively traduced over several decades and who deserved to have a defense of this comprehensiveness published years ago.â€
In dictatorships critics find ways of conveying their message in ways that don’t challenge the regime. I think this is a fine example.
Ben 10.03.15 at 7:44 am
Harold, for that argument to wash, you’d have to think the issue of International Socialism (“a quarterly journal of socialist theory”) which also shows up on the first page is being propped up there by “what other people are looking at at the moment”.
I myself find that unconvincing.
However, I’m perfectly willing to concede that the editors at the New York Times Book Review may have a process of due diligence before assigning reviewers for conservative books that is less revealing about conflicts of interest than looking at the first page of Google results for the names of the reviewer and reviewed author.
JPL 10.03.15 at 8:09 am
Corey @106
Just a small point. (I’m reading this thread sort of from the bottom up.) The NYTBR editor Pamela Paul says, “The second objection is that because Mr. Roberts was asked by a publisher to write Kissinger’s biography himself, and declined that offer, he should not have reviewed the book. This would not have disqualified Roberts from writing the review, though had we known, ….” That maybe doesn’t sound so bad, …
But the objection, at least as expressed by Corey in the OP, was, “It was Roberts whom Kissinger first asked, before turning to Ferguson, to write his authorized biography.”
I don’t know whether or not any request from a publisher to write a biography will necessarily be regarded as an invitation to write the “authorized” biography of the subject. But the Times editor’s response to the “second objection” could have been expressed more honestly as something like, “That the reviewer of the authorized biography of Kissinger (implying the assent and cooperation of the subject) was the subject’s first choice as his authorized biographer. And that this situation raises the problem that, if it’s the case that an authorized biography of a (controversial) subject is usually regarded as being prone to hagiographic tendencies, a review by the preferred (first choice) authorized biographer would be rightly suspected of sharing those hagiographic tendencies, rather than taking up a critical view. A critical view would require an author capable and willing to take a position opposed to the “authorized” one on arguable questions. And if the review is not critical in this sense it is devoid of intellectual value and a waste of everyone’s time, although it might result in more book sales from unsuspecting consumers. And that to fail to disclose these facts about authorized biographers, which are well known in the relevant intellectual circles, and easily checkable, amounts to at least negligent deception, and that such deception would raise questions of ulterior motive and continued trust in the source.”
That’s more like the objection that we would like a response to. If one is going to respond to an objection, one should address the objection that was actually made; otherwise it is just a straw man being knocked down. (In any case, an “authorized” biography of a controversial subject should probably be regarded more as part of the data, rather than as part of the argument about the significance of the subject. To have an “authorized” review of an authorized biography doesn’t get us anywhere.)
(I apologize if people upthread have made these same points.)
kidneystones 10.03.15 at 11:09 am
111@ Many here assume a literacy and due diligence on the part of the NYT (and others working in media) that seems, at best, open to serious question. My own direct experience with people under the age of 30 convinced me to toss the computers from the class, for the most part, and insist that all gradable work be completed in pencil on paper in class. I’m currently teaching an advanced seminar in research techniques with students who routinely go first to Wiki, or some equally unreliable site, and there remain.
The Kissinger review doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, therefore. The NYT and the Wapo are, after all, the print organs of the US establishment, much more than the WSJ, which is openly pro-business. Falling revenues, scandal,wage cuts, and intense competition from other media have done nothing to disturb the conviction of staff and readership that all is well, has always been well, and will always be well at the world’s paper of record. I expect the fact-checking was either not done at all, or handed-off to an intern or B-grade fact-checker unable to perform the task. The senior editors, probably overworked and of an age where routine elementary tasks are not normally scrutinized, may well have simply expected the job to be done right. Factor in the extremely low status attached to text-books on nearly-dead, highly unpopular, white guys who did some shit long before the internet was, like, even invented and it isn’t so difficult to imagine that with standard algorithm Harvard-Academic-State Department-NSC boxes all ticked no alarm bells went off. It’s easy to forget the Judith Millers and Paul Krugmen Enron employee the NYT relies upon for really important stuff.
Working at the NYT is always going to be much more important than actually working at the NYT. If nothing else, this review should regarded as the real benchmark of the due diligence practices of the NYT and Wapo. Kissinger is an establishment icon and the establishment press organs protect and take care of their own.
Barry 10.03.15 at 12:57 pm
Kidneystones: “…Paul Krugmen Enron employee the NYT relies upon for really important stuff.”
There’s a book I read long ago, set after the ‘Great Fire’ which killed most of the human race. In the aftermath, there were deformed people (called ‘mutants’). The theology was that Satan can’t create, only copy, and his copies *must* be flawed, because Satan is evil and flawed.
This was a big deal for the protagonists, who are telepaths :(
Similarly, Kidneystones, you end up a very good (eloquent and concise) analysis of the NYT’s world, only to conclude it with ‘Paul Krugmen Enron employee the NYT relies upon for really important stuff’.
This is wrong for two reasons:
First, as anybody paying actual attention knows, Krugman has been the most correct person the NYT employs, and likely the most correct person in punditry today.
Second, Krugman was an early critic of Enron, and played a significant role in publicizing what they did, and showing that they were indeed manipulating the market.
I think that this comment is telling, because it backs the theory that you are *incapable* of writing truth – you *must* add something fallacious.
kidneystones 10.03.15 at 2:32 pm
@117. I’m not entirely sure why you employ stars rather than quotation marks – you seem to want to be able to argue that saying true things about people you like constitutes ‘untruth.’ Krugman is by his own admission a member of the elites and argues that taking 50k from Enron is a non-issue. You clearly agree.
I see things differently. Krugman is an elite economist who commands high fees from the very rich in order to help the rich make as much money as possible. That’s what he was doing when he took the Enron money – http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/enron.html
In 1999, Krugman could have been using his formidable skills to scrutinize unearth the suspect accounting practices at Enron, rather than taking the 50k from the board. Better still, Krugman could have spent a little less time patting himself on the back for all the big fees he was getting from the rich and a little more doing something substantial – such as helping prevent Clinton the very same year set the stage for the financial crisis of 2007-11.
The fact that Krugman now may be one of the ‘better’ voices at the NYT does nothing to change the fact that he had his hand in the cookie jar while sucking up to the rich at a time when he could have made a real difference.
Layman 10.03.15 at 2:56 pm
“My own direct experience with people under the age of 30 convinced me to toss the computers from the class, for the most part, and insist that all gradable work be completed in pencil on paper in class. ”
Teh kids these days, with their hippitty hop!
Barry 10.03.15 at 2:58 pm
Kidneystones” “…Krugman is by his own admission a member of the elites and argues that taking 50k from Enron is a non-issue. You clearly agree…..”
Read my post, and then google the topic, and learn some facts.
steven johnson 10.03.15 at 3:02 pm
Barry @117 It’s important to be specific on the important issues: It’s John Wyndham’s Re-Birth, aka The Chrysalids in the UK.
bob mcmanus 10.03.15 at 4:42 pm
Kidneystones is more correct than wrong, and I would put Krugman as the rightmost of the centrist economists including DeLong, Shiller, Stieglitz, Jamie Galbraith, Wray, Thoma, Quiggin, Piketty. At least in his column and blog, where he is very careful to be as is said, correct and as unthreatening as possible (while being correct) to the holders of power. He is very very good, and probably somewhat more liberal than that persona presents. Offtopic to go into details.
TM 10.03.15 at 5:11 pm
“Krugman is an elite economist who commands high fees from the very rich in order to help the rich make as much money as possible.”
I don’t want to help derail the thread but I’ll bite – you put that statement in the present, so whom is Krugman taking “high fees” from and whom does he help “make as much money as possible”?
adam.smith 10.03.15 at 5:26 pm
@TM — I’d be surprised if he doesn’t do high-paying speaking gigs anymore, and as per Krugman that was really all Enron was about. He’s certainly listed with an up-to-date biography at Leigh: http://www.leighbureau.com/speakers/PKrugman/ I’d guess he’s now at the top tier of the circuit and can command >100k, probably more especially for corporate gigs. (I think those fees are crazy, but I don’t see why he shouldn’t do it. Enron in 1999 didn’t look like a particularly evil corporation, so it wasn’t an unusual place for a liberal economist to speak. And there’s nothing deceitful or dishonest about Krugman doing this: he’s always called himself a liberal, not a revolutionary socialist. I’d assume the other folks on mcmanus’s list do these gigs to, to the extent they can get them)
TM 10.03.15 at 6:23 pm
Sure he gets paid speaking fees but the part about “help(ing) the rich make as much money as possible” is far-fetched. The only way Krugman could “help” the rich is by way of his expertise as an economist and he gives that to everybody for free on his blog and other publications. And “the rich” don’t listen to him anyway.
TM 10.03.15 at 6:36 pm
Krugman wrote back about Enron that “scrupulously following the Times conflict of interest rules, I resigned from that board as soon as I agreed to write for this newspaper”. I don’t know what the conflict of interest rules have to say about speaking engagements. I assume they require at least disclosure when writing about a party that he took money from. Of course we have seen that these rules are not always followed but afaik nobody has ever caught Krugman violating them.
I think NYT should require all columnists to report all outside income for the sake of transparency.
hix 10.03.15 at 6:53 pm
Not Piketty. He does not do those gigs and was actually angry when he got an offer.
Nine 10.03.15 at 6:54 pm
kidneystones @117 – “In 1999, Krugman could have been using his formidable skills to scrutinize unearth the suspect accounting practices at Enron, rather than taking the 50k from the board.”
Say, what … Krugman is now Superman, with an amazing skillset & a plethora of incredible powers ?!!
Krugman is a macro-economist, not an accountant of any sort. Auditing Enron was Anderson Consulting’s job. And that of dozens of independent analysts & risk assessors who all got it wrong. This is like asking a physicist to use her formidable powers to debug Volkswagen’s wrongdoing.
One of the dumber comments yet.
kidneystones 10.03.15 at 10:29 pm
Wah! The stampede to defend the ‘honor’ of a celebrity academic using his elite credentials and position at the establishment paper of record to build brand is truly giggle worthy. What Krugman is doing beyond that is anyone’s guess. Placing Krugman alongside Miller at the end of the original post as a reminder that blindly trusting the world’s paper of record to get it right is a bad idea in matters big and small.
@129 Point taken. Your objection, if hyperbolic and insulting, is nonetheless certainly correct. It is unreasonable to expect a celebrity macro-economist and card-carrying member of the academic elite interested only in inflating his own wealth and status to act outside his area of expertise and for the public good.
So, why mention Krugman at all within the context of Corey’s original and updated OP? In part for the reasons addressed in this comment, but more because Krugman and Ferguson are very much academic peacocks of the same self-promoting feather. Both have agents, both want to profit as much as possible from their places within the establishment, demand and get high speaking fees, and seek out the spotlight for these and other reasons.
Being a member of the establishment elite means being held to a different standard: as in none at all. Consider the cases of DK Goodwin and Ambrose, whose clearly documented plagiarism did not see either banished to the academic wilderness. Why? Because both belong to a club which exists to exclude, and to remind the lower orders that we are just that. This stratification extends to both academics and to the arts – the NYT (according to the catechisms of the NYT) decides who belongs and who does not. And that is how, I suggest, we should read every utterance from the NYT, responses from the public editor included.
Within this context the double standard regarding the Ferguson book review is a feature, not a bug.
Have a nice weekend!
Layman 10.03.15 at 10:56 pm
“So, why mention Krugman at all within the context of Corey’s original and updated OP?”
Because trolling?
Harold 10.03.15 at 11:16 pm
They have puffed the Ferguson book and damned the Grandin book with (very) faint, almost indiscernible praise. That seems to have been their editorial intention, irrespective of the respective merits or demerits of either one. This is why no one can take them seriously.
thelastbeatpoet 10.04.15 at 12:12 am
Gentlemen (because that is all there is apparently),
Below is a breakdown (not guaranteed) of the list of 127 or so commentators on this thread. Is there a single one that is identifiable as female, or should I say, not male? If there is not then what does this say about the conversation?
Daragh 8 (8=number of comments)
William Berry 10
novakant 8
LFC 9
Harold 4
The Temporary Name 4
Glen Tomkins
Krishna
reason
Ed 2
Salem 2
Bill Benzon 2
oldster 2
otto 2
Neil
Marc 2
Lynne “I find this disgusting.”
Anarcissie 2
NomadUK
jonnybutter
Patrick 2
Monte Davis 2
mds 3
JohnTh
Kiwanda 3
Kalkaino
Lyle
Ronan(rf) 2
Bill Benzon
adam.smith 3
Trader Joe
TM 5
geo 3
engels
JW Mason
Thomas Everett
Sebastian H 3
Barry Freed 2
Roger Gathman
jkay
John Quiggin
engels
Ben 2
Dipper
JPL
kidneystones 3
Barry 2
Ze K
Layman 2
steven johnson
bob mcmanus
hix
Nine
kidneystones 10.04.15 at 2:44 am
More evidence of the NYT’s inability to adhere to even minimal standards of accuracy via Duncan Black. http://www.eschatonblog.com/2015/09/oh-dear-nyt-visits-outer-provinces-again.html
Click for a nice dose of DB snark and then proceed to the now ‘corrected’ piece at the NYT. Even when NYT tries to get something really easy like identifying a restaurant chain and a neighborhood in Philadelphia right with help, the NYT ‘fact checkers’ screw it up. What it is.
geo 10.04.15 at 2:48 am
@133: Quite right. Corey, your OP and subsequent comments positively discouraged female participation in this thread. And the rest of us let you get away with it.
Thank you, thelastbeatpoet.
LFC 10.04.15 at 3:16 am
thelastbeatpoet:
Is there a single one that is identifiable as female…?
Yes.
Lynne @18
Anarcissie (probably, based on the spelling) @19
If there is not then what does this say about the conversation?
Well, it says there aren’t many female commenters in this thread. Beyond that, I don’t think it says much of anything. Are women for some reason likely to take a different view of this particular topic than men? I mean, approx. 3/4 of the commenters seemed to agree the NYTBR deservedly has egg on its face b.c it ran a review it knew, or should have known, was going to give the phrase “puff piece” a whole new dimension. Why would views on this differ by sex?
Val 10.04.15 at 3:37 am
There is at least one woman on that list and possibly one or two more, but yes it does seem that the great majority are male. I don’t know that that is so unusual for CT threads, the only ones that seem to get many female commenters are Belle’s.
geo @ 135, as so often it’s hard to tell if you’re serious. If you are, I guess you’re suggesting the title and Corey’s subsequent justifications of it might have put women off? I guess that’s possibly true, but for myself it’s probably more because it’s one of the US-centric posts here.
There don’t seem to be many women who comment on CT much, and given the apparent US preponderance of commenters, there seem to be very few female US commenters. Maybe that’s a question worth looking at also?
LFC 10.04.15 at 3:53 am
geo @ 135, as so often it’s hard to tell if you’re serious.
geo @135 is being sarcastic/humorous, not serious. It’s quite obvious. (Actually was pretty funny.)
Also, there are plenty of non-U.S. commenters on CT. Probably more male than female, yes.
Val 10.04.15 at 4:48 am
@138
Think you misread what I said. I’m aware that there are non-US commenters, being one myself. I asked about the apparent dearth of female US commenters (when being snarky about someone’s comment, should at least know what they said).
what was the funny part of geo’s joke?
Harold 10.04.15 at 5:01 am
I say unto you, in cyberspace there will be no death nor male and female .. but an awful lot of hyperbole.
Peter T 10.04.15 at 5:10 am
and litotes?
Harold 10.04.15 at 5:27 am
Not too many.
LFC 10.04.15 at 2:32 pm
Val:
Think you misread what I said. I’m aware that there are non-US commenters, being one myself. I asked about the apparent dearth of female US commenters
Val @137
There don’t seem to be many women who comment on CT much, and given the apparent US preponderance of commenters, there seem to be very few female US commenters. Maybe that’s a question worth looking at also?
I took your phrase “given the apparent US preponderance of commenters” to mean you thought that US commenters outnumbered non-US ones. If I misread your intent, apologies.
LFC 10.04.15 at 2:35 pm
p.s. I see now you might have been referring only to this thread, not CT in general, but it wasn’t entirely clear. (And I’m aware you’re Australian, btw.)
Jacques Engelstein 10.04.15 at 3:16 pm
Just bought The Reactionary Mind. Thanks for the tip!
Anarcissie 10.04.15 at 3:29 pm
Perhaps males are primatishly more concerned with the condition of the Power Structure. The fatuous arrogance implicit in a small thing like the exhibition of the Kissinger ‘clusterfuck’ may betoken worse problems at a higher level, and consequently presage greater errors than even those we have seen. And one’s enemies’ error may be either one’s inconvenience or one’s opportunity. Whereas for females there is never a shortage of fatuous arrogance to observe right in daily life.
Barry 10.04.15 at 5:38 pm
Kidneystones: “So, why mention Krugman at all within the context of Corey’s original and updated OP? In part for the reasons addressed in this comment, but more because Krugman and Ferguson are very much academic peacocks of the same self-promoting feather. Both have agents, both want to profit as much as possible from their places within the establishment, demand and get high speaking fees, and seek out the spotlight for these and other reasons.”
Yhe biggest difference I see is that Krugman has produced a massive amount of information and truth, while Ferguson annihilates information and produces lies and bullsh*t.
I would say that you don’t see it at all, but I rather think that you support the annihilation of information and the production of lies and bullsh*t.
Val 10.04.15 at 7:20 pm
LFC @ 143 and 144
It is my impression that there are more US commenters than non-US commenters on CT generally (unless the topic is, say, UK elections or rugby etc). That may be right or wrong (hard to tell) but it wasn’t the main point.
Jimmyjames 10.06.15 at 1:45 pm
Wait, wait . . .
Kissinger has friends?
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