The more a person reads by various good authors (meaning authors who list sources and attempt to be honest and impartial), the more a person is apt to get the complete picture of someone.
I agree, but I also think that it's impossible for an author to be completely unbiased. When a book is level-headed and well-researched, that's okay. But what's I can't stand is when an author makes an ad hominem attack against a historical figure who can't fight back -- being "bitchy" is how I would best describe it.
For instance, I was flicking through A. N. Wilson's
After The Victorians (have a look
here) the other day, and I noticed how many people the author dismisses with one broad, over-critical brushstroke.
This is what he says about George VI:
He was an edgy, bad-tempered and in many ways weak man, though passionately dutiful, a kind husband and father, and a devout Christian.
A nice little put-down there.
He has a bit more to say on Edward VIII, and since he's the subject of this thread...
Being Prince of Wales isn't a job, but David did his duty as heir to the throne with enough ablomb to make him a matinee idol on the world stage... He liked smoking. He wore outrageous clothes, jazzy socks, turn-ups on Oxford bags, bright tweeds, all the garments that would have made Jeeves wince had Bertie Wooster insisted on wearing them.
Being King gave Edward less time than he would have wanted for his amusing friends, and much has been made of his bored expression during the grotesque summer ceremony when 600 debutantes were "presented" at court, or his failure, during a summer holiday in Scotland, to turn up and open a hospital. But the truth is, he did far more than Queen Victoria had ever dreamed of doing in the way of public duties, and he performed some of them with imagination and aplomb. His occasional lapses are not to be compared with the temper-tantrums and awkward shyness of his brother Bertie throughout his public life both as Duke of York and George VI... Edward would have made a perfectly satisfactory king had be been allowed to stay in place, but history, extraordinarily babyish in this respect, has to depict him as a selfish sybarite, a Nazi sympathiser, a man who would have "brought down" the monarchy, and his brother -- a decent enough person in his way for someone all but talentless -- as a sort of saint.
Ouch.
The book is enjoyable enough in itself, but A. N. Wilson seems to delight in taking tiny details of his subject's lives and distorting them beyond significance. In my mind the above quote outlines a point of view that is put across quite unsubtly and one that distorts the truth. To the best of my knowledge George VI never chucked a tantrum in public, yet in order to elevate Edward VIII the author has to denigrate his brother.
Similarly, he dismisses Edward VIII's other rather impetuous acts and paints his Nazi sympathies as some sort of act of jealousy.
In my mind this isn't the sort of historical writing that lets the reader decide things for themselves. It would be very easy to present the above paragraph in a way that doesn't so obviously editorialise.
I highly recommend A. N. Wilson's book for its scope, but after reading it I come away with the feeling that the author is a sort of historical film critic -- evaluating historical figures and always feeling slightly disappointed with them.