historical fiction — Bunk History

National Book Award seal.

How Historical Fiction Redefined the Literary Canon

In contemporary publishing, novels fixated on the past rather than the present have garnered the most attention and prestige.

by Alexander Manshel via The Nation on September 11, 2024

Past Tense

The historical novel isn’t cool. Popular? Yes. Enduring? Yes. A bit, well — for nerds? Also yes. Coolness lies in being at the right place at the right time.

by David Schurman Wallace via The Drift on March 12, 2024

A pink, fluffy cloud raining colorful cubes, reminiscent of pieces of data.

What Do We Owe? Generosity, Attribution, and the Perilous Invisibility of Research Infrastructure

Attribution can make visible the vast infrastructure of research and display how much hard-won knowledge, including creative endeavor, it has faciliated.

by Karin Wulf via The Scholarly Kitchen on January 18, 2024

Map of the Mason-Dixon line.

Mason-Dixon Lines

The boundary lines preceding Mason and Dixon, everybody knows, were a sham. What’s to follow will be no better.

by Edward G. Gray via Commonplace on January 16, 2024

Person holding a blonde American Girl doll and American Girl bag

All Dolled Up

How American Girl transformed the doll world—and why millennials love it so.

by Jayne Ross via The American Scholar on November 30, 2023

A photograph of Dennis Lehane next to the cover of his book, Small Mercies.

The Other South

Coming to terms with Boston’s racist legacy in “Small Mercies."

by Steve Nathans-Kelly, Dennis Lehane via Chicago Review Of Books on May 11, 2023

A Tale of Two Toms

The uses and abuses of history through the "diary" of Thomas Fallon.

by Jenny Hale Pulsipher via Commonplace on July 12, 2022

"Dear America" books with Black girls on the covers.

How the Dear America Series Taught Young Girls They Had a Place In History

History classes made it seem like young girls wouldn't ever change the course of the world. These books taught them that they could.

by Angela Lashbrook via Refinery29 on July 19, 2021

Bacon's Rebellion, 1676-1677

Bacon's Rebellion: My Pitch

A drama about an interracial uprising in colonial Virginia.

by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on June 15, 2021

A Very Lost Cause Love Affair

Is it possible to write a good Civil War romance?

by Sarah Handley-Cousins via Nursing Clio on December 5, 2019

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Narratives of Freedom

In Coates's debut novel, he sets out to recover the struggles for emancipation that have been lost to the past.

by Elias Rodriques via The Nation on October 29, 2019

The title card for Little House of a Prairie on a green hill.

50 Years Ago: America Loved a Little House

The beloved family show left a lasting legacy.

by Troy Brownfield via The Saturday Evening Post on September 11, 2024

A screenshot from "Red Dead Redemption 2" of cowboy protagonist Arthur Morgan riding a horse in a western landscape.

What Red Dead Redemption II Reveals About Our Myths of the American West

On the making of a centuries-old obsession at the heart of American national identity.

by Tore C. Olsson via Literary Hub on August 28, 2024

A Nice, Provocative Silence

The author of "Cahokia Jazz" reflects on the similarities between historical fiction and science fiction, and the imaginative space opened by archival silences.

by Francis Spufford, Devin Thomas O’Shea via HNN on August 13, 2024

Rednecks by Taylor Brown.

The Battle of Blair Mountain and Stories Untold

An interview with Taylor Brown, author of the novel "Rednecks."

by Steve Nathans-Kelly, Taylor Brown via Chicago Review Of Books on May 21, 2024

A drawing of a television screen between the fingers of someone framing an image of barbed wire.

The Problem With TV's New Holocaust Obsession

From 'The Tattooist of Auschwitz' to 'We Were the Lucky Ones,' a new wave of Holocaust dramas feel surprisingly shallow.

by Judy Berman via TIME on May 8, 2024

A photograph of the SS Eastland.

Checking out Historical Chicago: Cynthia Pelayo's "Forgotten Sisters"

The SS Eastland disaster and Chicago's ghosts.

by Elizabeth McNeill via Chicago Review Of Books on March 20, 2024

Civil War soldiers on horseback with pistols.

The Hunt for John Wilkes Booth Goes On

A new television miniseries depicts the pursuit of Lincoln’s killer. But the public appetite for tales about the chase began even as it was happening.

by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on March 11, 2024

The cover of "The Deadline" by Jill Lepore.

The Hold of the Dead Over the Living

A conversation with Jill Lepore about the past decade — “a time that felt like a time, felt like history.”

by Jill Lepore, Julien Crockett via Los Angeles Review of Books on January 2, 2024

Israel Joshua Singer.

The Forgotten Giant of Yiddish Fiction

Though his younger brother Isaac Bashevis Singer eventually eclipsed him, Israel Joshua Singer excelled at showing characters buffeted by the tides of history.

by Adam Kirsch via The New Yorker on November 27, 2023

Painting of waves crashing in the ocean by Winslow Homer

After Melville

In every generation, writers and readers find new ways to plumb the depths of Herman Melville and his work.

by Andrew Schenker via The Baffler on November 22, 2023

Martial arts fighting scene from Warrior.

Bruce Lee’s “Warrior,” and the Politics of Kung Fu

The Max series makes a radical argument for what constitutes American history.

by Jasper Lo via The New Yorker on September 12, 2023

Oppenheimer movie poster.

Fact, Fiction, and the Father of the Bomb

On Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.”

by Alex Wellerstein via Los Angeles Review of Books on August 30, 2023

Drawing from two perspectives of an African American man and a Jewish woman between a grocery store and a theater.

Lost Histories of Coexistence

James McBride’s new novel tells a story of solidarity between Black and Jewish communities.

by Ayana Mathis via The Atlantic on August 8, 2023

Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina.

"If America Doesn't Become America": Outlander and the American Revolution

"Outlander" challenges the myth of American exceptionalism at the root of much U.S. popular culture.

by Michelle Orihel via Age of Revolutions on July 3, 2023

Cormac McCarthy.

Cormac McCarthy’s Unforgiving Parables of American Empire

He demonstrated how the frontier wasn’t an incubator of democratic equality but a place of unrelenting pain, cruelty, and suffering.

by Greg Grandin via The Nation on June 21, 2023

Cover of "Gravity's Rainbow," depicting a orange-red sky over a small city.

History Is Hard to Decode

On 50 years of Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow.”

by M. Keith Booker via Los Angeles Review of Books on February 28, 2023

Map of John Proctor's 15 acres of property in Ipswich, MA

"The Crucible" and John and Elizabeth Proctor of Salem

It is worth digging a bit deeper into the family matters between John and Elizabeth.

by Benjamin Ray via Commonplace on February 7, 2023

Octavia E. Butler.

The Spectacular Life of Octavia E. Butler

The story of the girl who grew up in Pasadena, took the bus, loved her mom and grandmother, and wrote herself into the world.

by E. Alex Jung via Vulture on November 21, 2022

Black and white photo of children holding signs about remembrance, at a depot in New York City to greet their parents after a mass strike parade in 1911.

The Building Blocks of History

A lively defense of narrative history and the lived experience that informs historical writing.

by Walker Mimms, Richard Cohen via The Nation on August 17, 2022

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