Harry Turtledove Opening Atlantis

Some people look at history as a boring subject, but that’s because they haven’t thought of it like a marvelous tale of action, drama, tragedy, and whole lot of chaos. By thinking of it that way, it will make the subject much more interesting.

As humans we always ask ourselves some three questions about us. Who are we? Why are we here? And why should we continue to live in this place? We come to these origin tales and myths for answers to these questions. In the Native American myths “The Walam Olum” and “The World on Turtles Back” it clearly shows just how the Native American tribes started there, and should continue to live at the places they started at.

So we are presented with a narrative history quite similar to a modern history but which goes off on tangents on subjects when they first appear in the narrative (this of course includes tangents off of tangents).

When comparing books, timelines are a peculiar thing to think about. Timelines are the backbones of books because of how important they can be to the plot, characters, and setting of a book. The books Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank and Anthem by Ayn Rand have an interesting timeline when put together, and it is because Anthem takes place after Alas,Babylon when comparing the two books.

One of the most well known parts of American history is how Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean in 1492 and evidently discovered the Americas. Where some historians view Christopher Columbus as a heroic adventurer who forever changed history, some view Christopher Columbus as a conqueror who was responsible for one of the world’s worst genocides. These two theories help prove that in history historians tend to use subjective history. Subjective history is w hen history is shown from an opinionated or emotional stand point rather than what actually occurred. Additionally subjective history is something all historians use to some degree considering it’s nearly impossible to record history with hundred percent accuracy. One example of subjective

But, there are some books that with historical accuracy would just not make sense. By shaving out some of the historical facts, it allows the author to better teach the message he or she is trying to show more clearly. There are some books, though, like The Lord Of The Flies that found a good balance between truth and things that they left out in order to create a fiction novel, with the real truth and message of the piece being backed by truthful historical background. So, in words of conclusion, it does matter how historically accurate authors are when they write books and such. But, if they can use just enough truth to convince the reader and not take away from the message, the book or novel gets even

There are moments in history that can almost mirror later events. Patterns can be found in the types of people that obtain power, how they obtain power, and what the circumstances of the state surrounding their rises to power are. There are also events that can seem entirely different from each other, and yet when looked at closely show real resemblance in specific ways that power shifts throughout history. Catiline is an example of failure to secure power. He raised an army of revolutionists who were found out before they could carry out their plan to murder hundreds of senators. Fidel Castro, who did achieve power later in his political career, created a plan to attack that Moncada Barracks which failed, in the end. Catiline’s Conspiracy

Historians use historiography, the study of historical writing, to research topics from different perspectives. The historiography of the Columbus myth showed how several authors caused Columbus to be thought of as a hero. Washington Irving wrote a book which characterized Columbus are brave and heroic, and Samuel Eliot Morrison depicted Columbus as a great sailor in his book. Many things about Columbus were proven false, such as how Columbus was the only one who believed the world was round, yet many people still believe in the myth today. These two books helped me understand how historical writings caused people to believe in the Columbus myth despite its many

      Atlantis is known to most people as a legend or myth written by the Greek poet Plato, but is it possible that this lost continent really existed? Is it all legend or could there be some fact to it? Contrary to common belief there have been numerous geological and historical findings that actually give proof to the existence of this lost city. In the book Imagining Atlantis it tells us the story written by Plato. "According to ancient Egyptian temple records the Athenians fought an aggressive war against the rulers of Atlantis some nine thousand years earlier

Most people have read at least one story about a certain period of time or about a particular person in history, these stories are what novelist classify as historical fiction. Historical fictions are books written about a period, people or a characteristics of a time in history. Therefore, these stories are extremely popular in terms of bringing in moments of history and expanding them to create a more fictitious or relatable story. The Bedford Glossary describes a historical fiction or novel as a “use of historical events or figures in a fictitious narrative... often vehicles for…insight…into the causes and consequences of historical events” (). Though many novels use historical references, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine

Babylon. In Bacon's NEW ATLANTIS, the need for man to be driven does not exist.

A Wizard of Earthsea is based on a world filled with dragons, wizards, and pure evil. A book of fantasy and science-fiction written by Ursula K. Le Guin, which won the Boston Globe Horn Book Award (Cit). Earthsea is presented as a hierarchical time with medieval technology, but made into an adventure with magic. Ged explains the world in a long phrase, like spoken by the stars that shine bright above, which are the syllables of true names of all in the universe. The novel beings with a young village boy that will go through a journey filled with magic and life, as he is the protagonist name originally was Dunny and later his true name Ged, and his new mentor, Ogion whose journey is to overcome obstacles and defeats an evil shadow. In the novel,

In literature, history is crucial. History is society’s choice of which truth to present to the public as a way of hiding shameful pasts and controlling civilization. The use of history in literature represents how deception of society becomes a cycle of ignorance. Often times in literature, the author alters history to present a new version of the story, regardless of the fact that altering history could change an entire society’s beliefs. Ignorance of personal history provides society the opportunity to live daily lives without the burden of past transgressions weighing them down, but the ignorance comes at a cost of moral destruction. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Natasha Tretheway’s Native Guard feature main characters who experience affects of the alteration of history, and in turn these adverse affects destroy their morals. Throughout history, soiled memories hide behind a more polished version of truth, which in turn creates a civilization bound to repeat the errors in ignorance. With the manipulation of history, distorted memories stem from warped versions of the past, which in turn creates a civilization bound to repeat the errors in ignorance.

The genre of historical fiction novels can be subdivided into many categories and often crosses genres, such as historical mysteries and romances. The traditional definition of the historical fiction genre is “fiction set in the past” where the author is writing from research rather than personal experience. This definition leaves a lot of room for interpretation, controversy, and contradiction. Critics in the media, even when they praise individual historical novels in their reviews, somehow manage to turn this praise into criticism of the genre as a whole. In 1950, author Howard Fast, a historical novelist himself, wrote: “This is an era of many historical novels, few of them good and very few indeed which have more than a nodding

In "Historical Text as Literary Artifact," Hayden White compares historiography with literature. Historians must rely on a "historical imagination," such as filling in the blanks or making assumptions about events. History is a "constructive" enterprise, and historians are trained to perceive patterns that may or may not have actually existed. If historians rely on the "historical imagination," as they must to complete their task, then historiography and historical literature are qualitatively similar. White admits that the "conflation of mythic and historical consciousness will offend some historians and disturb"¦literary theorists," (1713). Yet these two seemingly distinct disciplines have more points of convergence than is often assumed. The sensitivity surrounding White's claim stems from a common presumption that historiography equals absolute fact, whereas literature equals absolute fiction.