David Irving’s Action Report On-line — Jan 01, 2005 #9135
·177 words·~1 min read
⚠️ Historical Documentation Notice
Historical Documentation Notice
This document is part of a historical archive and is presented for scholarly research and educational purposes.
The content reflects historical perspectives and should be understood within its historical context.
today’s ” AR-online” again AR-Online recent issues: May 1999 April 1999 March 1999 February 1999 January 1999 December 1998 November 1998 October 1998 September 1998 To the Editor: The headline on your June 26 Arts & Ideas pages article about the writer David Irving asks whether “a Holocaust skeptic” is “fit to be a historian.” Who is to say?
Unlike law or medicine or architecture, the profession of history-writing has no legally defined qualifications for practice. What does disqualify Mr. Irving from being taken seriously is his turning to the law of libel in response to his critic Deborah Lipstadt . History is a field of discourse, not a contest of law. I might feel contempt for Mr. Irving’s apparent project of writing a sympathetic history of the Nazi era. But I would not seek to force silence upon him.
Those who claim to be serious historians who believe in free inquiry cannot be considered so if they turn to the power of the state to silence their critics. EDWARD COUNTRYMAN Dallas, June 26, 1999 The writer is a professor of history at Southern Methodist University.
FEW WRITERS have the self-confidence to promote their own work with an 'endorsement' like this.[]PoliticosDecember (?) 2002DECEPTION AND DECEITJulian Lewis...