There’s an interesting post at Dimitri Rotov’s blog concerning history as a “narrative,” and how it implies that historians must write “linear.” This confuses me as narrative does not imply linear, it only suggests “a[n] account of events, experiences…”
Narratives can be non-linear (I prefer the term “fractured”). The key element to a narrative style of writing, as Shelby Foote demonstrates, is the ability to tell a story. Too often history books become dry and untenable (especially for my high school students) because they are decidedly non-narrative in form. There is no attempt to tell the story of history, only to present its cold, hard, and dead facts (though facts are rarely found).
To me to suggest that history should be written in the “narrative” form simply implies that it should be written with an attempt to tell “the story.”
To tell the story, to me, means that the combination of micro and macro is brought together. When a battle narrative intertwines the reactions, emotions, and thoughts of regular soldiers, generals, and bystanders it is then reaching the level of a “narrative.”
The story of the battle is in the details that go beyond what regiment was making what maneuver, but in the human story involved in the details.
