In a sense, a very real sense, historical writing is fanfiction. People writing it are fans of the event and write from that bias.
Having done an undergraduate history thesis on the Civil War, I can get behind that idea. Every time I found a new primary or secondary source, I had to check when and where it was first published. Sometimes the battles had different names. Sometimes the ships had different names. Underwater mines were either a thing of genius, a bloody nuisance, or an abomination in violation of all laws of war, depending on whether the person writing about them was a Confederate naval officer, a blockade runner trying to sneak into Charleston harbor in the dark, or Union naval officers who were irritated that they hadn't thought of them first.
Even films about history have their own editorial slant: to stay with the Civil War genre, there's Birth of a Nation or Glory, Gone With the Wind, or Cold Mountain.
no subject
Having done an undergraduate history thesis on the Civil War, I can get behind that idea. Every time I found a new primary or secondary source, I had to check when and where it was first published. Sometimes the battles had different names. Sometimes the ships had different names. Underwater mines were either a thing of genius, a bloody nuisance, or an abomination in violation of all laws of war, depending on whether the person writing about them was a Confederate naval officer, a blockade runner trying to sneak into Charleston harbor in the dark, or Union naval officers who were irritated that they hadn't thought of them first.
Even films about history have their own editorial slant: to stay with the Civil War genre, there's Birth of a Nation or Glory, Gone With the Wind, or Cold Mountain.