Something Thoughtful

Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts. You are free to agree or disagree with him.

            How much of what historical novels give readers is in any way related to history? Allowing for inevitable anachronisms and so forth, don’t historical novels really present the values and attitudes of the times in which they are written, rather than the values and attitudes of the times they purport to represent? And yet don’t historical novels have a greater influence on the way people see the past than sober history books do?

            These questions have interested me for years. For a preliminary discussion of some of my conclusions, I cordially invite you to the following presentation.