How to ruin your own reputation in a fortnight

Orlando Figes will now have to work hard not to be remembered as the academic who set fire to his own career. Years of building a reputation can be destroyed in an instant.

Posing as 'Historian' when reviewing works of history on Amazon, he raved about his own books and trashed his rivals' work, including Robert Service's biography of Leon Trotsky.

This may be seen initially as trivial, as playground antics, but when his rivals smelt a rat, Mr Figes instructed his lawyers to sue for libel in an attempt to smother their reaction. This tactic backfired when he was forced after a fortnight of posturing to admit his authorship of the caustic reviews.

Such behaviour goes down like Agent Orange in the academic world. Mr Figes is unfortunate in that the extremes of his behaviour will serve as a warning and a case study to other authors similarly tempted to bash competitors' books.

In an increasingly wired world, online reviews can matter: as Mr Service has said, 'there is such a thing as negative publicity' as sales of his book did not benefit from a 'dead-cat bounce' from curious readers wondering if the criticism was over the top. In other words, during the two-week siege, sales of Mr Service's book tanked.

Hmm. If wonder if the lawyers will now pursue Mr Figes, who is now on compassionate leave of ill-health grounds from his post at Birkbeck University?


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