The society today seems to be debating various interpretations of history and assigning meanings that are new, innovative and yet debatable. I have a passing glance at history writing, in the niche of historical novels. In essence I tend to adhere to the facts as known, the people as known but then try to meld them into a story in an attempt to explain what was happening. My two efforts look at the early 7th century and the development of the Muslim faith and the breaking of the integrated Christian one and then the 14th century with the decline of classic feudal ideas and the conflict between pope and people. On the one hand we see the entry to the Dark Ages, albeit a poor play on words, and in the second the end of the Middle Ages, again a poor play on words.
On one hand I try to adhere to the facts as are known from primary and secondary sources. Thus in the 6th century one reads the writings of Gregory in Rome and Columbanus. Those of Justinian and the early Fathers of the Church. In contrast in the 14th century one reads Dante to Chaucer, each reflecting the societal understandings of their age.
The challenge then is to introduce one's self as the story teller, attempting to make these events in the past come alive as a whole. It is history through the eyes of an independent observer. However that observer brings all other view and biases to the table and in turn slants the tale in ways that may actually detract from the facts.
My concern today is that many who denigrate the founders of this country do so first without any basis in the underlying facts and second they bring their personal biases to the fore. This is not history, its is not historical fiction, it is the very best political polemic. There are no unbiased historians in the Academy today. They all bring their cultural biases. Moreover we see the designation as "historian" applied to those who have not the slightest capacity in the field.
Historians are akin to police detectives. They must gather facts, reach conclusions, gather more facts, and then present them in a court of public review. They do not always get a conviction and many times they convict the wrong person because of how the slanted or delimited the facts. But there is a dialectic at work in the field of the historian and the detective. In the historian it should be other historians. In the case of the detective it is the defense attorney and the jury. However today we see that any dialectic in the field of the historians is politically suppressed and the normal course of give and take as one seeks to determine based on facts has been suppressed.
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