Critics of “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America” have accused its author, professor Nancy MacLean of Duke University, of mangling quotations to change their meaning, asserting facts that are not only false but are not supported by her own footnotes, and drawing wildly speculative conclusions about matters regarding which she has no documentary evidence. In short, critics accuse MacLean of making stuff up. Co-blogger Jonathan Adler links to many of these (and other) critiques in this post.
Many historians and others who have become aware of these criticisms have responded not by investigating the allegations, but by reasoning that MacLean is a respected historian, and respected historians don’t just make things up, and therefore MacLean’s critics must be wrong. (Adler also links to a couple of substantive defenses).
That’s where her allegations of a coordinated conspiracy against her book come in. As Adler notes, MacLean was asked in her recent interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Do you have any evidence for your claim in that Facebook message [that you wrote] that the attacks on your work are ‘coordinated’?”
She responded, “I’m not saying they called each other up and planned a series of critical responses to my book. What I’m saying is many of the critics come from similar backgrounds — they are libertarians who trained at or are employed by the very institutions I write about in my book.”
In other words, no, she doesn’t and didn’t have any evidence of coordination. 

Massaging if not mutating quotes, generating factoids, complaining of a plot by her critics--sure does sound a lot like beseiged "pseudo-historian" David Barton, except that MacLean is a "real" historian because she has the documents to prove it. Read about the whole silly thing, here and also here at reason.com.