The Chronicle: Colloquy: The question

THE QUESTION

An essay in this week's Chronicle discusses the controversy over Edmund Morris's new biography of President Reagan, Dutch. In the essay, Warren Goldstein, a historian at the University of Hartford, calls the biography a "weird and nutty book" and says that as history, it is "ludicrous." Mr. Goldstein also talks about problems facing historians and biographers generally, and notes that they rarely capture the public imagination or define the way most Americans understand history. Mr. Goldstein says the controversy over Dutch may offer important lessons for historians: "to stick to what we do best -- prose narratives about our subjects (and not about ourselves)." What lessons does the controversy over the new Reagan biography provide for historians? Is it legitimate to create fictional characters within a biography?

For further information, see this background story:

'Dutch': an Object Lesson for History and Biography (10/15/99)

: 11 RESPONSES (New 10/20)

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