The Most Amazing Book Editing Error?

by Daniel Pipes
Mon, 22 Oct 2007
updated Tue, 23 Oct 2007

Send

Comment

RSS

I seem to be making a speciality of catching editors' mistakes these days. A week ago, I ridiculed a weekly's ability to get five out of six captions wrong at "Newsweek's Jaw-Dropping Erratum." Today, the subject is book editors, specifically those at Columbia University Press.

	Title page of The Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism.

The book they messed up is the just-published Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism. As listed on the title page and the website, it was edited by Olivier Roy and Antoine Sfeir. But today, a "Correction Notice" reached me by mail from Derek Warker, an associate publicist at Columbia University Press, dated October 18. It informs me that

Olivier Roy is not an editor of The Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism. … Unfortunately, the book was printed with an error and I am writing to you today to provide you with the correction. The correct citation of the book should be: The Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism is edited by Antoine Sfeir. … Olivier Roy is a contributor to the volume and should not be cited as editor.

Comment: Authors and readers have complained for years about the decline in the quality of editing of American books, especially scholarly ones. This mistake dramatically reveals the extent of the problem. (October 22, 2007)

Related Topics: Academia

TrackBack URL for this post: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/trackback.php/771/389f8/733

Reader comments on this weblog entry

Title	By	Date
Counter Point to inform- Counter Punch to Preserve.- Action Needed. [73 words]	Ynnatchkah	Nov 2, 2007 02:21
Carelessness [33 words]	David W. Lincoln	Oct 28, 2007 04:36
I can beat that--I already have [w/response] [35 words]	Irfan Khawaja	Oct 23, 2007 23:26
What about the title? [84 words]	jennifer solis	Oct 23, 2007 15:52
Liberals in despair and confusion in the way Le Figaro endorses with "honor" [482 words]	Ynnatchkah	Oct 23, 2007 02:43
↔ Incoherence and Illogic Share a Brain [19 words]	Brian Hall	Oct 25, 2007 03:16

Comment on this weblog entry

Name	Email Address (optional) Email me if someone replies to my comment
Title of Comments
Comments:
Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited, before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. Top 25 recent comments Daniel Pipes Blog Homepage

Daniel Pipes Blog Homepage

ADVERTISEMENTS