Wiley-Blackwell, a major academic press, was set to release its four-volume Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization this month. According to the encyclopedia’s editor, George Thomas Kurian, the set had been copy-edited, fact-checked, proofread, publisher-approved, printed, bound, and formally launched (to high praise) at the recent American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature conference. But protests from a small group of scholars associated with the project have led the press to postpone publication, recall all copies already distributed, and destroy the existing print run. The scholars’ complaint? The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization, they have reportedly argued, is “too Christian.” “They also object to historical references to the persecution and massacres of Christians by Muslims,” Kurian says, “but at the same time want references favorable to Islam.”
Political correctness in academic publishing is nothing new, but it would be unusual, to say the least, for ideological pressure to lead a publisher to reverse itself so late in the process, especially given the significant financial losses involved in pulping a print run of a gigantic four-volume encyclopedia. As Kurian puts it, “This is probably the first instance of mass book-burning in the 21st century.”
Last week, Kurian e-mailed a memo to his nearly 400 contributors informing them of Wiley-Blackwell’s decision, and of his intention of pursuing on their behalf a class-action breach-of-contract lawsuit. Kurian’s memo was soon distributed on the e-mail list of the Society of Christian Philosophers, and is getting attention in the blogosphere. (Full disclosure: I am one of the contributors to the encyclopedia; to my knowledge, no complaints were raised about anything I wrote.)
