Arming America : the origins of a national gun culture /
Michael A. Bellesiles.
- New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.
- 603 pages : 25 cm.
This book serves as a rare example of a discredited non-fiction item by a once respected contemporary academic.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
In search of guns -- European gun heritage -- Role of guns in the conquest of North America -- Guns in the daily life of colonial America -- Creation of the first American gun culture : Indians and firearms -- Brown Bess in the wilderness -- People numerous and unarmed -- Government promotion of gun production -- From indifference to disdain -- Creation of a gun subculture -- Arming of the American people. ch. 1. ch. 2. ch. 3. ch. 4. ch. 5. ch. 6. ch. 7. ch. 8. ch. 9. ch. 10.
Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture is a discredited 2000 book by historian Michael A. Bellesiles about American gun culture, an expansion of a 1996 article he published in the Journal of American History. Bellesiles, then a professor at Emory University, used fabricated research to argue that during the early period of US history, guns were uncommon during peacetime and that a culture of gun ownership did not arise until the mid-nineteenth century.
Although the book was awarded the prestigious Bancroft Prize in 2001, it later became the first work for which the prize was rescinded, following a decision of Columbia University's Board of Trustees that Bellesiles had "violated basic norms of scholarship and the high standards expected of Bancroft Prize winners."