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Monday, September 18, 2023

The Ross Libel trial


Guest post

From: LULU BOOKSTORE

Search term: THE ROSS LIBEL TRIAL

Published 2023


Charles Taze Russell sued John Jacob Ross for criminal libel in 1913 after Ross published a pamphlet full of personal attacks on him. Picked up by opponents of Russell’s work, the trial has been frankly misused by them, especially since the transcript went missing many decades ago. A fairly recent discovery of part of the transcript allows us to examine what actually happened. Although Russell did not succeed in his action against Ross on a legal technicality, the evidence clearly shows later critics have misued the case to attack him. Relying on secondary sources, and skewed and biased sources at that, does not generally lend itself to fairness and accuracy. Those who repeat past accusations without checking for themselves, and who resort to ad hominem attacks should take note. Although I doubt they will.


5 comments:

Otto Roesch said...

Very nice. I plan to buy this soon.

siveld said...

I have today ordered the book via Lulu.
Shipping to Australia was a fair price.

siveld said...

The book arrived today and is well made. A quick skim through revealed very few typo's.
There is, however, only one image of the publication from which the transcript was derived.
I would have expected a copy of every page available, rather than just a transcript thereof.

B. W. Schulz said...

The author can speak for himself, but there are formatting and image quality issues with that. If I had prepared the book, I'd gone with a transcript as easier to read. Once can always acquire a photocopy or scan from the holding libraries.

See: Worldcat.org

B. W. Schulz said...

As a sometime publisher, I should add that there is a vast difference between a history and a reproduction.