Authorized vs. Unauthorized Biographies. Preference?

authorized but the author should be independent.

it depends. for highly ethical people, the intimate aspect of an authorized biography makes its preferred. access to private notes/archives being a large historical asset to the work.

for many subjects, who will shut off from view unflattering or even immoral/criminal aspects of their past, the unauthorized route can bring these things to light.

for many important people, you might want both.

the most trusted authorized biographies are those where the subject relinquishes editorial control to his/her biographer.

The best ones I've read were written by Terrence Stamp, Dirk Bogarde and David Niven. I guess those were authorized and the writers were particularly good.

On this topic, I have to say that history itself is quite difficult to get quite right and that the biases of the authors involved easily contort facts into lies. We also need to be aware of how the zeitgeist of the author may conflict with the zeitgeist of our current era, thus leading to an anachronistic view of the past. Our slave owning founding fathers, when taken in the context of their era would be liberal, but in the context of our era they can get painted as conservatives.

In effect, you need multiple sources and an understanding of the events of the time surrounding a person's history to get an adequate understanding of that person. It's not a matter of preferring biographies that have been authorized or are unauthorized, both are historically inaccurate on their own. One could likewise argue that to truly understand the person, you need to understand how that person sees himself and how others of that era saw that person.

I ONLY READ BIOGRAPHIES...AND I ONLY READ AUTHORIZED.

Books?? This is a movie chat board, Bubba.

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