You are probably the ten thousandth person I've read or heard admonishing naysayers to "read the book," otherwise you have no business criticizing the author. Quite often this is in reference to an author who has made him or herself infamous via outlandish assertions in the media or, even worse, actual evil deeds.
No I am not required to read anything by David Irving to personally assess the validity of his assertion that the Holocaust never happened. (Finkelstein has been quoted in defense of Irving's scholarship, by the way.) Nor must I read "Mein Kampf," "Chairman Mao's Little Red Book" or Lenin's "What is to be Done" to horrified by the death and destruction their authors unleashed upon the world.
You are probably the ten thousandth person I've read or heard admonishing naysayers to "read the book," otherwise you have no business criticizing the author. Quite often this is in reference to an author who has made him or herself infamous via outlandish assertions in the media or, even worse, actual evil deeds.
No I am not required to read anything by David Irving to personally assess the validity of his assertion that the Holocaust never happened. (Finkelstein has been quoted in defense of Irving's scholarship, by the way.) Nor must I read "Mein Kampf," "Chairman Mao's Little Red Book" or Lenin's "What is to be Done" to horrified by the death and destruction their authors unleashed upon the world.