Historian Sarah Milov wrote a book so good that three men on NPR talked about it without naming her.
It must be a great feeling to write an authoritative book on a compelling subject and have it discussed on a substantial national platform. Not so great: when those people fail to name either you or the title of your book! This, per The Lily, was what happened to historian Sarah Milov, who heard large portions of her forthcoming book, The Cigarette: A Political History, referenced (and statistics cited!) on Here and Now, a co-production of NPR and Boston’s WBUR.
“Every single word they said was from my book,” said Milov in an interview with The Lily. While the historians did not quote directly from “The Cigarette,” she said, every cited fact was taken from its pages. “Then I got to the end of a nearly 10-minute segment and did not hear myself credited at all.”
Perhaps most frustrating for Milov is that she does not have tenure while the two male professors who referenced her work without citing it are, in fact, tenured—as Milov herself says, “I’m at a critical stage in my career.”
There hasn’t quite been an apology, but an error has been regretted! If you must read the names of the regretful three, you can click here. Also, you should pre-order the book, which comes out in October from Harvard University Press—it sounds really interesting!
