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Discredited 2000 book

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the book was awarded the prestigious Bancroft Prize in 2001, it later became the first work for which the prize was rescinded, following a decision of Columbia University's Board of Trustees that Bellesiles had "violated basic norms of scholarship and the high standards expected of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."

The thesis of Arming America is that gun culture in the United States did not have roots in the colonial and early national period but arose during the 1850s and 1860s. The book argues that guns were uncommon during peacetime in the United States during the colonial, early national, and antebellum periods, that guns were seldom used then and that the average American's proficiency in use of firearms was poor. Bellesiles maintains that more widespread use and ownership of guns dated to the Civil War, a period of widespread advance in firearm manufacturing and a consequent reduction in price and improvement in accuracy.

In 2002, the trustees of Columbia University rescinded Arming Americas Bancroft Prize, the first such action in the history of the prize. Alfred A. Knopf, publisher of Arming America, did not renew Bellesiles' contract, and the National Endowment for the Humanities withdrew its name from a fellowship that the Newberry Library had granted Bellesiles. In 2003, Arming America was republished in a revised and amended edition by Soft Skull Press. Bellesiles continued to defend the book's credibility and thesis, arguing that roughly three quarters of the original book remained unchallenged. In a 2019 podcast interview with Daniel Gullotta, Bellesiles blamed the controversy on his decision not to publish his book through a university press. He also disputed claims that he had written the book with a left wing agenda, claiming he had identified as a Burkean conservative Republican trying to dispute the idea that gun violence was an inherent part of American culture and that white Americans in the 18th and early 19th centuries were “mass murderers" and "genocidal lunatics." Historians who initially admired Arming America ceased to defend Bellesiles. The nationally prominent historian Garry Wills, who had enthusiastically reviewed Arming America for the New York Times, later said, in a 2005 interview on C SPAN, "I was took. The book is a fraud." Wills noted that Bellesiles "claimed to have consulted archives he didn't and he misrepresented those archives," although "he didn't have to do that," since "he had a lot of good, solid evidence." Wills added, "People get taken by very good con men." Historian Roger Lane, who had reviewed the book positively in the Journal of American History, offered a similar opinion: "It is entirely clear to me that he's made up a lot of these records. He's betrayed us. He's betrayed the cause. It's 100 percent clear that the guy is a liar and a disgrace to my profession. He's breached that trust." Historian Pauline Maier reflected that it seemed historians had "ceased to read carefully and critically, even in the awarding of book prizes." However, some scholars and commentators continued to defend Bellesilles.

Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000)
Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, 2d ed. (Brooklyn, New York: Soft Skull Press, 2003)