ABSTRACT
More than once, I heard Jim March utter, with just a hint of disdain, “I will not commit autobiography.” Although I never inquired into the rationale behind his commitment, I suspect that he considered such self-accounts problematic in at least two regards. For starters, they require a certain level of vanity, believing that strangers want to learn about your life. Although I suppose that one could claim that an autobiography allows the author to explore his or her own history for personal reasons, much as one would write a diary, the introduction of an audience tends to change both the topics that one covers and the way in which one writes about them.
