I stumbled across this review of Joe C.W. Armstrong’s Champlain (Macmillan of Canada, 1987) while researching something completely different in the March 1989 issue of the Canadian Historical Review. The reviewer, John A. Dickinson, balances what makes a written biography good or bad. He begins by speaking broadly:
Biography is an exacting discipline which requires keen critical abilities and a solid understanding of the period in question. The author, while being necessarily sympathetic to the ‘hero,’ must remain sufficiently detached to put events in perspective and be able to evaluate opposing views. Retelling a well-known story adds the additional problem of findind new and original details that will make the exercise worthwhile.
The rest of the review is pretty scathing:
Unfortunately this latest biography of Champlain by Joe C.W. Armstrong meets none of these criteria. This book is burdened by all the faults of poor biography: too close adherence to and acceptance of one point of view, lack of perspective, ignorance of the historical period, hyperbole, inconsistencies, unsupported speculation, and errors.
Dickinson later adds ignorance of the recent scholarship to the biographer’s list of crimes.
