REVIEW MACCLEAN PROFESSIONAL
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I’m not saying they called each other up and planned a series of critical responses to my book. It made me feel vulnerable and exposed (which may have been their intent).ĭo you have any evidence for your claim in that Facebook message that the attacks on your work are “coordinated”? Needless to say, the combined impact was unnerving. She’s a historical victimologist who produces nothing of value.” That same commenter actually supplied information on my home - he had gone so far as to look up where I lived. On Mises Wire, one commenter wrote, “No doubt she’s a rabid feminazi, anti-Southerner, socialist and pathologically focused on race and gender. Someone, unbeknownst to me, had set up a Wiki page on me that featured the attacks.Īnd some of the comments were vicious. Very combative “reviews” were appearing on Amazon from people who appeared not to have read the book but to be recycling the talking points from these critiques in sometimes crude terms.

REVIEW MACCLEAN PROFESSIONAL

Misleading critiques from the right had shot up so far on Google that if you searched my name, you saw these critiques before any of my usual personal or professional information (department webpage and such). In short order one afternoon, after a string of very positive reviews and interviews, a number of things happened. Can you confirm that you wrote this message? Many on social media have been circulating a message said to be from you in which you call for help and attack your critics for trying to destroy your reputation. On the other hand, people have pointed out to me that sometimes a vehement reaction can be a backhanded compliment: This kind of strong reaction can suggest that a work is timely and important and lead more people to want to check it out. On the one hand, it’s been disheartening that people - in particular, some scholars - are willing to criticize the book without having read it. What’s your general reaction to the controversy over your book, which started with critiques from libertarians but has now come to encompass attacks from a few critics on the left as well? As I say in the book, climate scientists and investigative reporters, among others, have received similar treatment from right-wing critics when they published their work. Our questions and her answers, below, have been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.ĭescribe the experience of coming under attack for your book. Through her publicist, MacLean, a professor of history and public policy at Duke University, agreed to respond to questions submitted via email. T he Chronicle Review asked Nancy MacLean to comment on the uproar sparked by her new book, Democracy in Chains (Viking).

Duke Photography Nancy MacLean, professor of history and public policy at Duke U.: “Both my research and my observations as a citizen lead me to believe American democracy is in peril.”

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