Kwame Anthony Appiah receives Gittler Prize from Brandeis

[quirkily]

I'm curious - why exactly does this bother you so much? You've posted this on every single video featuring Prof. Appiah, provided no real proof that he was as wrong as you propose, and - even if that were the case - he's certainly still brilliant. One factual mistake doesn't make him a "moron."

[maureenOWW]

How can you give this person an award?

In his book review entitled 'How Muslims Made Europe' he states the following:

'Charlemagne's rule included at its high point most of France, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, the west of Germany, Italy as far south as Rome, a strip in the north of Spain, and parts of Hungary and the Balkans. At nearly three and a half million square miles, it was larger than the continental United States.' Do I have to point out how wrong these statistics are?

[maureenOWW]

He's completely (and quite obviously) wrong. Charlemagnes empire at it's height was 1.2 million square kilometres. The 48 continental united states (not including alaska etc) are over 8 million square kilometres. That's almost SEVEN times the size. Even if he had conquered all of europe up the the borders of russia he would still only be halfway to the size of the US.

So this 'brilliant' man has no actual grasp of basic things like the size of countries, or how to check 'facts'.

What a moron.