Abstract
Sheila Fitzpatrick has provided a useful history of our field in recent times, and she has done so in a gracious and personally revealing way. She is perhaps the most prolific and influential member of the field, and her observations cannot help but be tasty food for thought, especially as they come to us without the bitterness and defensive spite to which she might be entitled.Here I would like to reflect on some of the reasons why I think the controversy became so angry, why it went beyond the bounds of normal academic dispute. And bitter it was. In addition to vilification in print, our universities received unsolicited tenure letters suggesting that we were incompetent and dangerous. Editors published angry unsolicited book reviews submitted by our critics. One editor continued to solicit readers' reports on an article I submitted until he finally got a negative one. With five reports, four to one in favor of publishing, he nevertheless rejected the piece. Sometimes you just cannot win.
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