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Michael Crichton: A Prolific Author And Movie Director

Michael Crichton, the prolific author and movie director, has died at 66. I can say that I knew Crichton, but only slightly. He was two years ahead of me at Harvard and was a colleague on the Crimson. As I recall, he was the book editor at one point and often ran his anthropology papers as book reviews, which tended to be long and tedious. You can look them up at theharvardcrimson.com. I wouldn't have guessed then that he would be a bestselling author, but he certainly was that--and more. Check out this Crichton piece from 1993 on "the coming end of the media's information monopoly." He also wrote a terrific essay on environmentalism as religion. Sad to lose him at what seems to me now a young age.

By Michael Barone

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