A Harvard professor has resigned from the Cambridge University Press (CUP) editorial board after the organization withheld a book from publication because it feared violent retaliation by Greek nationalists.

Professor of Anthropology Michael Herzfeld has accused CUP of infringing on academic freedom in the wake of its decision not to publish Anastasia Karakasidou's study on Greek-Macedonian identity.

CUP executives have defended their decision, saying that the organization's employees in Greece would be endangered by the book's publication.

The controversy over Karakasidou's work, Fields of Wheat, Rivers of Blood, stems from her assertion that residents of the Greek province Macedonia may consider themselves Slavo-Macedonian rather than Greek. The conclusion, if true, would threaten Greek authority in that region.

In the past, this issue has ignited militant activism by Greek nationalists. At the height of the controversy in the summer of 1994, Karakasidou herself received death threats from nationalists.

CUP representatives defended the organization in a February 9 article in The Times Higher by saying that the British embassy and the Foreign Office both "drew attention to recent cases of terrorist violence against other foreign cultural institutions in Greece that were associated with what were perceived to be 'anti-Greek' organizations."

CUP also noted in the article that no formal contract to publish the book had been signed.

But Karakasidou said in a telephone interview yesterday that after a year-long review and revision process, the book should have been published.

"That's the common practice in the academia," she said.

Endangered Academic Freedom?

Herzfeld has charged that CUP limited academic freedom by not printing the book.

"Academic freedom is a fragile plant," Herzfeld said. "It is the moral duty of the university presses to defend it as far as they are able to and [CUP] did not do that."

A Cambridge alumnus who had served on the CUP Editorial Board since 1989, Herzfeld was one of the editors of a series of ethnographic books about different countries. Karakasidou's books would have been the next in that series.

Herzfeld submitted his resignation to the board in late December because he said he felt that continuing on CUP's editorial board has become "incompatible with the principles governing my academic life."

In addition, Herzfeld and his colleague at the University of Minnesota, Stephen Gudeman, have circulated the so-called "Internet Manifesto," an e-mail message that asks professors to refrain from submitting manuscripts to CUP.

But, Herzfeld stressed that he is not calling for a boycott of the manuscripts that have been published. To do so, he said, would be to commit the same mistake of restricting academic freedom.

Herzfeld said CUP's concerns about its employees, while justified, are grounded in shaky evidence.

He said that the press only consulted the British embassy in Athens about potential reprisals by nationalists, and did not contact the Greek government or any other Greek authorities who would have been more qualified to assess the risks from publishing the manuscript.

"The decision was based on the stereotype of Greeks as being violent and uncontrollable," Herzfeld said.

Herzfeld asked for police protection for Karakasidou when she served at Harvard as a visiting scholar in 1994-95. But the fact that she was not threatened at Harvard is evidence "of the absence, not presence...of any substantial risk," he said.

Moreover, Karakasidou said, the issue has become less controversial.

"I think at this point, the Macedonian questions over the region are really in the back burner; it's not as hot and sensitive as it was two years ago," she said.

Many professors interviewed yesterday agreed that CUP had an obligation to publish the book.

Seferis Professor of Modern Greek Studies Margaret B. Alexiou, for one, said she has written a letter of protest to CUP.

"They owe it to the academic world to give a public explanation," she said.

Alexiou said she believes CUP's decision to rescind publication was motivated by other financial interests--such as English-language examinations and schools operated by CUP in Greece--and not any threat to safety.

"I think [publication] would have caused no serious danger to any of [CUP's] staff," she said.

Meanwhile, Karakasidou has signed her first book with the University of Chicago Press, which will market Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood next year.

T. David Brent, the senior editor at the University of Chicago Press (UCP), said Herzfeld brought attention to Karakasidou's script after CUP turned it down.

He added that the grounds for turning down the manuscript were not sufficient, even with the potential threat to employees