I'm interested in the JFK assassination, though I tend towards the more conspiratorial side (Mark Lane, etc)
I want to tackle Reclaiming History one of these days, but it's a daunting piece of work. How is it regarded among historians? Are there any critiques of it? Is it worth reading? Thanks
The JFK assassination comes up here from time to time. Here's a great discussion led by u/eternalkerri some years back. Likely most of the people answering questions here would agree with him.
It was the last thing Bugliosi wrote, and he seemed to have wanted to have the last word on a subject. A subject which clearly bothered him: that somehow, despite very clear evidence, lots of people didn't want to think Oswald was acting alone. As a career prosecutor, he clearly could not understand why this was a difficult conclusion for the public to reach. After decades of being angry he set out to bury the opposition under mountains of data and argument. It could have been edited, as Bugliosi's prose seems almost a transcript of him exhorting a jury- laying out his evidence, pointing out flaws in the opposition and then pouring scorn on their assertions. Perhaps he even dictated the book. If you prefer prose that's careful, dry, and only perhaps a little witty, Bugliosi's hectoring can be annoying.
However, big, the book is well researched and nicely organized for reference. There's a section for each theory: the Mafia, the Grassy Knoll, the Russians, etc. And though you might tire of the writing style, he does I think get across the salient point about the conspiracy theorists: they have magnified hugely the tiniest discrepancies in the statements of witnesses and the evidence pointing to Oswald as lone gunman, but have been willing to completely overlook the far greater and more obvious problems that come with their own alternative explanations.
But, if you tend towards believing the conspiracies, you may not like Bugliosi's book; he will demand that you stop.
A large part of Bugliosi's argument around the physical evidence is from a forensic technique called neutron activation analysis, used to match samples of lead from the bullet allegedly found on a gurney at Parkland Memorial Hospital with the bullet fragments allegedly found in Governor Connally's wrist. This technique was actually discredited in 2007, the same year reclaiming History came out, by scientists testing boxes of vintage 6.5 Carcano ammunition.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180811082429/http://www.science.tamu.edu/news/story.php?story_ID=550