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Will the Real David Barton Please Stand Up?

Comment of the Week

by
Marc Tracy
August 26, 2011
(Ravi Joshi/Tablet Magazine)
(Ravi Joshi/Tablet Magazine)

Winner gets a free Nextbook Press book appropriate to his or her comment (provided he or she emails me at [email protected] with his or her mailing address).

This week’s winner is “sk,” who wondered, apropos the arch-conservative historian David Barton’s involvement in Glenn Beck’s rally in Jerusalem, “I thought David Barton was a gym owner in Manhattan, not a historian.”

As columnist Michelle Goldberg explained, Barton is at the very least a pseudo-historian, one who uses dubious methods and interpretations to push an extreme, Christianist narrative of American history.

A different David Barton is, however, a gym owner in Manhattan (although his chain recently filed for bankruptcy).

For being on top of this distinction with a difference, “sk” gets a copy of Melvin Konner’s The Jewish Body.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.