Is Historical Bias OK?

This week I've been reading The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. For the most part the book is excellent, engrossing and more than a little tough to put down. However, every now and then Morris, whose voice usually fades into the background as he tells the story, will pipe in with his own opinions on some of TR's choices. For example, when discussing TR's opposition to a minimum wage he spends a couple of paragraphs making it clear he doesn't agree with TR and treating his subject as unenlightened (never mind that it's still a legitimate debate with good arguments on both sides). The same thing occurs when he's discussing TR's hunting exploits. He makes it clear he doesn't approve of how high the body counts were.

As I'm reading the book I've found these incidents to be distracting. But as I thought about it I began to wonder if what was bugging me was that Morris is occasionally commenting or that he's commenting negatively on a man I greatly admire.

I am not someone who considers bias to be a dirty word, especially when it comes to current events and contemporary politics. Actually, I think respectful bias is important and has a long tradition in the American system. A political system without bias scares me far more than one with. However, I do think it's important to be upfront about bias. From that perspective I think my annoyance at Morris is legitimate. This isn't a book making an argument one way or another about TR. It's simply telling the story of his life. To me that makes even occasional bias inappropriate.

I'd gotten this far in my thought process when I began to then wonder what my reaction would be if the historical subject in question was someone I didn't admire as much. If, for example, something similar happened while I was reading a biography of TR's distant cousin Franklin Delano (a great leader to be sure but one who, in my opinion, is more flawed) would I be upset by similar occasional criticism but from a conservative perspective?

The truth is, I don't know.

Intellectually I would say that if you're writing a book that is not agenda driven, you have a duty to keep your opinions out of it. Realistically I'd say I'm not sure that's completely possible and in this case I would say I was probably bothered more by the nature of the criticism than by the criticism in and of itself. Even more to the point, does a highly opinionated/biased guy like myself have any cause to complain about bias no matter what the context is?

And now for the anticlimactic ending of this post: I don't have a good answer to these questions at this point. It's an issue that's very interesting to me both intellectually and personally. I'm still thinking through this one (as you well know after reading through my jumbled thoughts!). If I come up with a more concrete answer on this I'll let you know.


Note: I want to briefly restate that anything I've said in this post isn't meant to take away from Morris's work. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt is a great book. Any small qualms I have do nothing to detract from that.