Scandalous historians

The media has had much fun of late chronicling the amatory adventures of Niall Ferguson and the smooth political advancement of Lord Mandelson’s comrade Tristram Hunt. But the scandal over Orlando Figes’ anonymous critical assaults on his academic rivals is no laughing matter. One wonders how on earth the author of A People’s Tragedy, his remarkable revisionist account of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, can continue as a professor at one of Britain’s most highly regarded history departments. All that needs to be said on the affair has been said by Robert Service [in The Guardian, Friday].