A Perfectly Nice History of the Met

By Neal 

A short item in New York‘s “Intelligencer” section takes aim at Museum, a new oral history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accusing Danny Danzinger and Viking of cutting out various unflattering bits after the galley circulated among the 50 interviewees. An unnamed Viking spokesman describes the excised material as “run-of-the-mill editorial changes,” and Danzinger wasn’t available for comment when we sought further amplification, and then it turned out that the galley I had sitting around the living room was the “approved” version, anyway. Still, even a flurry of anti-buzz like this has to be good news for 740 Park author Michael Gross, whose own history of the Met won’t be coming out for some time. “Kind of makes you long for an unauthorized book about the Met, doesn’t it?” he jokes on his blog.