History is present in all my novels. And whether I am directly talking about the sociological moment or just immersing my character in the environment, I am very aware of it.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Novels taught me that history is dramatic. I wanted my students to know that, too.
History is one of those marvelous and necessary illusions we have to deal with. It's one of the ways of dealing with our world with impossible generalities which we couldn't live without.
History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.
History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.
All history is defined by shifting modes of reality and time and how things change. That's what I love about cinema. It changes in the moment.
We've all faced the charge that our novels are history lite, and to some extent, that's true. Yet for some, historical fiction is a way into reading history proper.
What is history? An echo of the past in the future; a reflex from the future on the past.
History releases me from my own experience and jogs my fictional imagination.
A feeling for history is almost an essential for writing and appreciating good science fiction, for sensing the connections between the past and future that run through our present.
History is the history of human behavior, and human behavior is the raw material of fiction. Most people recognize that novelists do research to get the facts right - how a glove factory works, for example, or how courtesans in imperial Japan dressed.