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A new book on Bob Dylan offers no new insights into what makes the music legend tick, says PETER MASON
THE TIMES THEY ARE A'CHANGING: President Barack Obama hangs the Medal of Freedom around Bob Dylan’s neck at the White House in 2012 [Nasa/Creative Commons]

The World of Bob Dylan
Edited by Sean Latham
(Cambridge University Press, £19.99)

THIS collection of essays supposedly draws on as yet unseen material from the new Bob Dylan archive in Tulsa, Oklahoma, yet it’s hard to find much reference to documents from that voluminous collection.  

Aside from the odd mention of scribbled notes and jottings, most of the authors use other sources to build their arguments and we’re certainly not offered any startling insights based on new information that’s been found in the archive.  

Maybe we’ll have to wait until it has been fully opened and all the material has been combed through properly. But the suspicion must be that it’s unlikely to throw up anything that is not already known, or at least has not been speculated about.

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