Eric Nelson responded to me by email listing his credentials, and noting that he was a historian, including his degree in history from Cambridge. (I was surprised to discover that the response below, though technically from a student of his, was actually by him, since he then wrote me with the same words). My original point in stating he was "not a historian" was that because he teaches in a different field, and addresses those in a different field, his ideas were not being deliberately addressed by historians to the degree they should be. I have amended that sentence. Nelson also stated to me unequivocally that he is "not a monarchist." I understand his response. But by reading these historical sources in a one-sided way and then making an argument about how we should interpret the Constitution as a consequence, he is presenting a interpretation of that crucial history that can be used in the present by people who support not only monarchical but also authoritarian ideas of governance. If he is not a monarchist (or, as Barr and others have used his book, someone who thinks the president is on some level above the law, since he is really meant to be a king). Although such far right arguments are largely in abeyance for the moment, these arguments are powerful and more than a little scary. They can be used to justify authoritarianism or fascism. While, as Milton says in Aeropagitica, books have a life of their own after we have written the words, the author has the potential to challenge the way such arguments are being used. As for credentials: I too earned my undergraduate degree in history (and physics) from Harvard, have a doctorate in history (from UCLA), have an endowed chair (in history), and while I have written fewer books and articles--I'm a slow and steady kind of scholar who does careful research--I've won many national prizes for my work. But credentials are not and should not be the way to address criticisms of the issues. If he thinks I misrepresented his dismissal of the Declaration of Independence (and its rejection of monarchy), for example, shouldn't he address those claims?
The reader may wonder *who* exactly is a historian. Eric Nelson has three degrees in history (AB Harvard, MPhil and PhD Cambridge, and no degrees in any other field. He has a number of publications in what Prof Brewer would surely agree are history journals (Modern Intellectual History, New England Quarterly, Eighteenth Century Studies, The Historical Journal, Renaissance Quarterly); in fact the vast majority of his published articles are in these journals.
The first three of his four books are substantially works of historical scholarship. Nor is Prof Brewer the first historian to respond to The Royalist Revolution. Gordon Wood, Hannah Weiss Muller, Sascha Weber (in German) all reviewed it, and there are others.
Surely Prof Brewer isn't suggesting that only those scholars currently employed in history departments are historians. Plenty of historians work in other departments (African-American studies, area studies, gender, etc) or, for that matter, outside the academy. Historians of political thought sometimes find themselves in history departments, sometimes in political science, but it's best not to make too much of what is more, in this case, a bureaucratic distinction than a meaningful intellectual one. At Nelson's current employer, James Hankins and Peter Gordon (both of the History department) and Eric Nelson and Richard Tuck (both Government) could quite easily trade places. In practice, Nelson often co-teaches with Hankins in the History department (I was their student many years ago). Tuck, incidentally Nelson's undergraduate thesis supervisor, spent two decades as a member of Cambridge's History faculty before he joined Harvard in 1995. Presumably he did not cease to be a historian when he joined a Government department.
I agree wholeheartedly that political theorists should be engaging with historians and vice-versa. Indeed I agree that the boundaries between the two categories are slippery, and should be slippery, and I appreciate your defense of Nelson. I'm guessing you were one of his students? My comments were particularly about Nelson's approach to the evidence in Royalist Revolution. He writes the book as though it is a kind of legal brief, discounts the views of earlier historians, and ignores evidence that doesn't fit his analysis. Historians traditional perspectives are dismissed in paragraphs that begin with the words "some might argue that" with then not even cursory citation of the historiography. Important sources that disagree with him are also basically ignored, except perhaps for an obscure footnote that doesn't even explore the issues. For example:Thomas Jefferson's Summary View (1774) is sharply critical of the idea of principle of the king's "dominion" in the granting of charters, arguing that is a fragile basis for the rights of an assembly, and noting that the king can on that basis withdraw it at pleasure. Jefferson therefore turns to natural rights theories. Jefferson's authorship of the Summary View was why he was chosen to write the Declaration. It's not of course that Nelson had to deal with everything. It's just he's dismissive of the historiography and cherry-picks sources and doesn't seem to know that much about context. He's not speaking _to_ historians on some level, but to political theorists. That's the origin of my sentence, and what I meant by it. We have all been kind of polite about it (as is the norm) but he's not playing on a level playing field, nor even trying to, as he admits on p. 9, when he writes that he's tracing a thread. And yet in the end, he's making an argument about the origins of the revolution that is based on that partisan perspective.
Trump's cult of radical right QAnon #MAGATerrorists despise America and democracy. Of course they prefer despotism to our democratic republic, that's why they support Tangerine Hitler.
Barr doesn’t cite his source in his 2019 speech, but if you examine the first few paragraphs of his speech, it echoes the beginning of Nelson’s book, and the rest of his speech echoes Nelson’s last few chapters but then takes it to the present. Barr is using Nelson to say the theory of unitary executive is not new, that founders intended a king who held all executive power as his own and should not be hindered by congress (and laws) nor by courts.
But the latter trope of conservative legal thought preexists Eric Nelson! John Yoo, for example, thought that the British Monarchy provided the model for the Executive (I'm not convinced he's right, but he made that claim). So you haven't shown that Eric Nelson has become the bible for such people, only that he has thoughts similar to such people. And which writer was Barr likely to be familiar with, John Yoo or Eric Nelson?
It’s actually Akhil Amar, Yoo’s professor at Yale Law school, who developed that point in America’s Constitution: A biography, though he is more subtle, and you are right that the unitary executive theory precedes Nelson. Mais bien sur. Yoo was 2008 & Kavanaugh’s article on the unitary executive dates to 2009, I think. But the ideas that Barr begins with —the argument that it was a revolution not against a king, but parliament, that its “grammar school history” to think otherwise —are not in Amar. Yoo, Kavanaugh. etc. Read the first two paragraphs of Barr’s speech, then the beginning of Nelson. You can read a preview of it on google books.
Eric Nelson responded to me by email listing his credentials, and noting that he was a historian, including his degree in history from Cambridge. (I was surprised to discover that the response below, though technically from a student of his, was actually by him, since he then wrote me with the same words). My original point in stating he was "not a historian" was that because he teaches in a different field, and addresses those in a different field, his ideas were not being deliberately addressed by historians to the degree they should be. I have amended that sentence. Nelson also stated to me unequivocally that he is "not a monarchist." I understand his response. But by reading these historical sources in a one-sided way and then making an argument about how we should interpret the Constitution as a consequence, he is presenting a interpretation of that crucial history that can be used in the present by people who support not only monarchical but also authoritarian ideas of governance. If he is not a monarchist (or, as Barr and others have used his book, someone who thinks the president is on some level above the law, since he is really meant to be a king). Although such far right arguments are largely in abeyance for the moment, these arguments are powerful and more than a little scary. They can be used to justify authoritarianism or fascism. While, as Milton says in Aeropagitica, books have a life of their own after we have written the words, the author has the potential to challenge the way such arguments are being used. As for credentials: I too earned my undergraduate degree in history (and physics) from Harvard, have a doctorate in history (from UCLA), have an endowed chair (in history), and while I have written fewer books and articles--I'm a slow and steady kind of scholar who does careful research--I've won many national prizes for my work. But credentials are not and should not be the way to address criticisms of the issues. If he thinks I misrepresented his dismissal of the Declaration of Independence (and its rejection of monarchy), for example, shouldn't he address those claims?
"Nelson is also not an historian.."
The reader may wonder *who* exactly is a historian. Eric Nelson has three degrees in history (AB Harvard, MPhil and PhD Cambridge, and no degrees in any other field. He has a number of publications in what Prof Brewer would surely agree are history journals (Modern Intellectual History, New England Quarterly, Eighteenth Century Studies, The Historical Journal, Renaissance Quarterly); in fact the vast majority of his published articles are in these journals.
The first three of his four books are substantially works of historical scholarship. Nor is Prof Brewer the first historian to respond to The Royalist Revolution. Gordon Wood, Hannah Weiss Muller, Sascha Weber (in German) all reviewed it, and there are others.
Surely Prof Brewer isn't suggesting that only those scholars currently employed in history departments are historians. Plenty of historians work in other departments (African-American studies, area studies, gender, etc) or, for that matter, outside the academy. Historians of political thought sometimes find themselves in history departments, sometimes in political science, but it's best not to make too much of what is more, in this case, a bureaucratic distinction than a meaningful intellectual one. At Nelson's current employer, James Hankins and Peter Gordon (both of the History department) and Eric Nelson and Richard Tuck (both Government) could quite easily trade places. In practice, Nelson often co-teaches with Hankins in the History department (I was their student many years ago). Tuck, incidentally Nelson's undergraduate thesis supervisor, spent two decades as a member of Cambridge's History faculty before he joined Harvard in 1995. Presumably he did not cease to be a historian when he joined a Government department.
I agree wholeheartedly that political theorists should be engaging with historians and vice-versa. Indeed I agree that the boundaries between the two categories are slippery, and should be slippery, and I appreciate your defense of Nelson. I'm guessing you were one of his students? My comments were particularly about Nelson's approach to the evidence in Royalist Revolution. He writes the book as though it is a kind of legal brief, discounts the views of earlier historians, and ignores evidence that doesn't fit his analysis. Historians traditional perspectives are dismissed in paragraphs that begin with the words "some might argue that" with then not even cursory citation of the historiography. Important sources that disagree with him are also basically ignored, except perhaps for an obscure footnote that doesn't even explore the issues. For example:Thomas Jefferson's Summary View (1774) is sharply critical of the idea of principle of the king's "dominion" in the granting of charters, arguing that is a fragile basis for the rights of an assembly, and noting that the king can on that basis withdraw it at pleasure. Jefferson therefore turns to natural rights theories. Jefferson's authorship of the Summary View was why he was chosen to write the Declaration. It's not of course that Nelson had to deal with everything. It's just he's dismissive of the historiography and cherry-picks sources and doesn't seem to know that much about context. He's not speaking _to_ historians on some level, but to political theorists. That's the origin of my sentence, and what I meant by it. We have all been kind of polite about it (as is the norm) but he's not playing on a level playing field, nor even trying to, as he admits on p. 9, when he writes that he's tracing a thread. And yet in the end, he's making an argument about the origins of the revolution that is based on that partisan perspective.
Trump's cult of radical right QAnon #MAGATerrorists despise America and democracy. Of course they prefer despotism to our democratic republic, that's why they support Tangerine Hitler.
Where's the evidence that Eric Nelson actually influenced the pro-monarchical takes?
Barr doesn’t cite his source in his 2019 speech, but if you examine the first few paragraphs of his speech, it echoes the beginning of Nelson’s book, and the rest of his speech echoes Nelson’s last few chapters but then takes it to the present. Barr is using Nelson to say the theory of unitary executive is not new, that founders intended a king who held all executive power as his own and should not be hindered by congress (and laws) nor by courts.
But the latter trope of conservative legal thought preexists Eric Nelson! John Yoo, for example, thought that the British Monarchy provided the model for the Executive (I'm not convinced he's right, but he made that claim). So you haven't shown that Eric Nelson has become the bible for such people, only that he has thoughts similar to such people. And which writer was Barr likely to be familiar with, John Yoo or Eric Nelson?
It’s actually Akhil Amar, Yoo’s professor at Yale Law school, who developed that point in America’s Constitution: A biography, though he is more subtle, and you are right that the unitary executive theory precedes Nelson. Mais bien sur. Yoo was 2008 & Kavanaugh’s article on the unitary executive dates to 2009, I think. But the ideas that Barr begins with —the argument that it was a revolution not against a king, but parliament, that its “grammar school history” to think otherwise —are not in Amar. Yoo, Kavanaugh. etc. Read the first two paragraphs of Barr’s speech, then the beginning of Nelson. You can read a preview of it on google books.
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Royalist_Revolution.html?id=xTyWBAAAQBAJ
Barr’s speech is linked in my original article.