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Don’t Know Much About History: The Allure and Danger of Sanitized Biography

Hagiography does no one any favors. It’s unfair to the subject, presenting a saint instead of a sinner. And it’s unfair to the audience, who make a good-faith assumption that they are not merely reading a well-written tale or watching a good film, but that they are reading or seeing something that reflects reality and basic accuracy.

Andrew Roberts’s Wall Street Journal weekend review of a new biography on Mahatma Gandhi serves as a good reminder in this regard. Contrary to the sanitized portrayal of Gandhi in popular culture, Roberts explains that Gandhi could be unusually cruel, racist, and sexually perverse—among other vices.

Those interested in the real story of Gandhi might also want to read Richard Grenier’s “The Gandhi Nobody Knows” (Commentary, 1983), which was a response to Richard Attenborough’s 1982 Gandhi film.

If a biographical subject seems too good to be true, there’s often a reason for that.

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