When Princeton history professor Sean Wilentz was a student at Columbia in 1969, a new Bob Dylan record titled The Great White Wonder began popping up in record stores. Completely unsanctioned by Bob Dylan or his label, it mixed Basement Tapes material with informal recordings of Dylan during his early folk period between 1961 and 1962. “It was revelatory,” Wilentz says. “You got to hear Dylan talk, make jokes, boast. It brought you the person behind the idol.” The Great White Wonder became