Udhay Shankar N wrote:
Bruce Metcalf wrote:
I'm curious to know how the list feels about the junction of fiction and
history. Your thoughts?
There are two kinds of fiction (I know of) that play with this junction,
from opposite ends: The Roman à clef [1] and the secret history [1]. While
the former is a fictionalised account of actual events, the latter is more
interesting to me, being a fiction presented as reality which was until now
hidden from the public.
Not that I disagree with this, but...
I wanted to see how people here felt about the thought that history --
the stuff presented as facts -- is more often a fiction assembled from
the scraps of evidence left by the past, with the gaps and motivations
filled in by the historian.
Is this the general opinion of what history is and what historians do,
or were you thinking of something different?
Just curious....
Cheers,
Bruce
