Here is Phillip W. Magness at the libertarian magazine Reason:
But a discovery from Kruse’s past may now put Princeton’s Twitter warrior under a microscope of his own, raising the question of whether he holds himself to the same standards that he imposes on his internet adversaries. A key passage from Kruse’s doctoral dissertation on the history of race relations in Atlanta displays uncanny similarities to a 1996 book on the same subject by Ronald H. Bayor, a now-retired historian from Georgia Tech.
Bayor introduces his academic monograph, Race and the Shaping of Twentieth Century Atlanta, by outlining the reasons he chose to study the burgeoning Georgia metropolis: “For many reasons, Atlanta appeared to be a good city to study for such an analysis. It had a singular place in the South as a transportation and business center; it is a leading New South and Sunbelt center; it was a headquarters city for a number of civil rights organizations and is a center of black higher education; and it has hailed itself as ‘a city too busy to hate’—one of progressive race relations.”
Compare that to how Kruse introduces his dissertation at Cornell four years later: “Atlanta struck me as a logical site for such an analysis. It holds a singular place as the political and economic leader of the New South; it served as a headquarters for a number of civil rights organizations; it has been a center of black higher education. Furthermore, Atlanta has hailed itself as the ‘city too busy to hate’—one of ‘progressive’ race relations.”
The similarities do not stop there. In outlining the background for his study, Bayor provides a long list of Atlanta’s famous African-American residents: “At one time or another such notables as W.E.B. Du Bois, Walter White, Martin Luther King Jr., Whitney Young, John Lewis, Andrew Young, Vernon Jordan, Ralph Abernathy, and Julian Bond lived within its borders.”
Kruse’s dissertation repeats the same list, subject only to a minor reorganization of the text: “Central figures in civil rights history—such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Walter White, Martin Luther King, Sr. and Martin Luther King, Jr., Whitney Young, John Lewis, Andrew Young, Vernon Jordan, Ralph Abernathy, and Julian Bond—have lived inside its limits at one time or another.”
A few sentences later, Bayor begins to summarize his book’s thesis, writing “While Atlanta, like any other city, is unique in certain ways, I do not believe Atlanta is unique in regard to the impact of race.”
Compare that to how Kruse lays out his dissertation’s thesis, which holds that Atlanta’s experience may be representative of other southern cities in the era of segregation: “While Atlanta, like any other city, is unique in certain ways, I do not believe it is unique in regard to its struggles over race and rights.” The only difference in this case appears to be a cosmetic change of the last few words.
Magness asked Kruse to respond:
I asked Kruse for an explanation of the aforementioned examples from his dissertation. Responding by email, he indicated his “intellectual debts to Prof. Bayor and Prof. Sugrue in the text, endnotes and bibliography” but acknowledged that I had “found instances here in which I inartfully or incompletely paraphrased them. Again, thank you for bringing this to my attention and for giving me the opportunity to respond.”
Read the rest here.
As of now, Kruse has not commented on Twitter. But his political enemies and others have:
This is going to blow-up today on Twitter and elsewhere. I am away from the computer all day, but I will do my best to keep abreast of this story and cover more as soon as I can.
I’m sure you find an excuse for him in the way you covered for the 1619 Project and Democracy in Chains. In your world the narrative is the truth no matter what the facts might be.
Not entirely true William. I am a bit bothered by the way most academic historians are circling the wagons. No one wants to talk about this. Kruse has gone silent and hardly any historians are tweeting about this. All of the criticism on Twitter is coming from the Right and they are mostly ad hominem attacks. This is a learning moment that we can use to get a better sense of what counts as plagiarism and what doesn’t. Did Kruse plagiarize, or was he just sloppy? But no one wants to talk about it. Where are all the big name Twitterstorians addressing this issue?