Publication Date

March 28, 2011

Perspectives Section

Perspectives Daily

William Cronon - The New YorkerOn Sunday, the American Historical Association released a statement deploring the effort to intimidate AHA president-elect William Cronon. A few members have asked for additional information and context for the statement, so we offer the following:

William Cronon
The controversy was initiated by a blog post on Dr. Cronon’s personal web site: “Who’s Really Behind Recent Republican Legislation in Wisconsin and Elsewhere?” In subsequent items on his blog, Cronon details how the Wisconsin Republican Party issued an Open Records Law request for his University of Wisconsin—Madison emails. He has also posted a response from the Republican Party. In connection with the original blog post, Cronon also published a related New York Times op-ed “Wisconsin’s Radical Break.”

Coverage
We highlight a few articles below, but you can find a more extensive list of media coverage on Cronon’s blog.

Association

  • The American Association of University Professors supports William Cronon in his assertion that the request for his emails is “obvious assault on academic freedom” and they have sent a letter (PDF) to the University of Wisconsin chancellor Carolyn (Biddy) Martin.

News

Editorial

This post first appeared on AHA Today.

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