Laura Miller on Perlstein

by Laura Miller

A similar ulterior motive lies behind the accusations of plagiarism leveled against Rick Perlstein by author and consultant Craig Shirley this week. As Salon’s Dave Dayen detailed on Wednesday, Shirley claims that Perlstein infringed on the copyright of his 2005 book, “Reagan’s Revolution: the Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All.” In letters to Perlstein’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, he demanded, according to the New York Times, “$25 million in damages, a public apology, revised digital editions and the destruction of all physical copies of the book.” The 19 alleged infractions in Perlstein’s 880-page history include citing of historical facts and paraphrasing descriptions of events that Shirley witnessed (and Perlstein didn’t) with attribution. (For a more in-depth account of Shirley’s charges, see Dayen’s excellent piece.)
While kibitzers like to pronounce on plagiarism cases as if they are cut-and-dried affairs, in truth, most accusations come with some sort of baggage — even if it’s usually not as glaring as Shirley’s. If Perlstein were a right-wing compatriot offering a vision of Reagan as worshipful as Shirley’s own, no ruckus would have been raised, no letter addressed to Simon & Schuster and certainly no $25 million demanded along with the pulping of tens of thousands of books. Granted, in this instance, Perlstein’s particular approach as a historian — he writes epic syntheses incorporating the work of many other writers, rather than digging up new facts from primary sources — leaves him vulnerable to bad-faith charges when he covers material that has been covered before. But that’s why Perlstein cites his sources so scrupulously — 125 times in the case of Shirley’s book — and has published a comprehensive, hyperlinked notes section for “The Invisible Bridge” online. It’s possible to argue (although I wouldn’t) that Perlstein’s is a lightweight, armchair-bound approach to writing history, but he can’t be credibly accused of dishonesty.