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Article: In Defense of Facts: What opinion rests on.(Review)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- October 25, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Mr. Kimball is managing editor of The New Criterion. His book The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America is forthcoming from Encounter Books.
It is a pity that Edmund Morris's parents did not acquaint him more thoroughly with the teachings of Samuel Johnson. "Accustom your children constantly to this," Johnson advised; "if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end."
One place it winds up is in books like Dutch. In the controversy over Morris's book (I hesitate to call it a ...