In their proposal, Wilson and Kelling drew on recent patrol experiments and on a rethinking of police history to call for a return to an older, watchman style of policing. Their perspective on police history was further developed in an article co-authored by Kelling and Mark H. Moore. This author argues that Wilson, Kelling, and Moore have misinterpreted police history in several important ways: they exaggerated the depersonalization of American policing from the 1930's to the present, they overemphasized the crime control orientation of the police, they presented no valid historical evidence to prove that the police formerly enjoyed substantial political legitimacy, and they failed to recognize that the watchman style of policing was inefficient and corrupt. Despite these analytical problems, a revitalized, community-oriented policing approach is a goal both worth pursuing and feasible. 3 notes and 26 references