The first stage in meeting the Malkovich test, then, is to balance the general against the particular in a far more precise way than the writing of most history demands. For induction, in biography, comes chiefly from surviving structures that a single person has left behind. Deduction draws on everything else in the human experience that might help us to understand that person. Biography demands both procedures, but in a peculiarly delicate balance. It’s a little like riding a unicycle: you need to be aware all the time of a wider horizon, even as you concentrate on the single problematic
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