"To bristle" can mean to complain, to be indignant, to object, to react in an irritable way. The writer is being insulting or disrespectful to critics. The writer thinks that the critics are like irritable people who take offense at everything and complain about everything. The writier thinks that you can find a thousand pages of history, that mention angry critics "bristling" at something. The writer thinks that none of them have done any good.