History in Popular Fiction: Twentieth-Century Writings

In recent years, Populism has attracted considerable interest from social scientists and political commentators even though the mercurial nature of populism has often exasperated those attempting to take it seriously. Indeed, the term “populism” is both widely used and widely contested. It has been defined based on political, economic, social, and discursive features and analyzed from myriad theoretical perspectives – including structuralism, post-structuralism, modernization theory, social movement theory, party politics, political psychology, political economy, and democratic theory – and a variety of methodological approaches, such as archival research, discourse analysis, and formal modelling. In this regard, one of the trending themes of Populism is its impact on populist fiction of historical genre. This interest has led to a growth of a plethora of historical fictions especially in the twenty-first century, like the works of Khaled Husseini (The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns), which provides us a window of the lives of the Afghan people during the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, an issue which is becoming very pertinent today given the recent developments in the Afghan nation. In this regard, Populism has played an integral role in the growth and development of historical fictions in the twenty-first century. Historical fictions or narrative histories are not forthcoming in the academia as a legitimate form of history. More than any other contemporary literary form, historical fictions have always struggled to find acceptance within professional academic frameworks designated as either history or fiction. To accept historical fiction/narrative as a precise, learned method of historical representation, one needs to first overcome the belief that historical works must present clear, documented evidence which can be taken as true representations of historical past and challenge the assumption that all fictions are merely stories conjured in an author’s mind. In this line of thought, works of such genre are often excluded from being seen as History or as having something to offer to the audience who is interested in the past being represented in a manner that works both within and outside of what is designated as “History.” But in this sense, all distinctions are then problematic, as drawing a distinction between what is historically factual and what is literarily possible ignores the role of possibility in historical analysis and the role of actuality in the writing of literature, i.e., what could happen, what typically happens, what might have happened, and what actually happened. This entry examines how much “truth” a historical fiction may command and indulges in the view that a historical fiction should not be seen to be compromising the historical truth but instead in terms of its ability offers readers access to a past unavailable to traditional or “proper” modes of historical research. This entry will also explore the development of the genre of historical novel alongside the development of contemporary historiographical theory. The entry will trace the development of the historical novel from its popular form in the nineteenth-century Romantic period, a time when the historical novels were rarely subject to critical appraisal to the contemporary twenty-first century where historical narrative is often scrutinized for its representation of historical “truth.” This entry will explore the idea that historical fiction given the impetus of Populism allows an experience, an opportunity and that it is often the encounters we have and the stories we tell that make history accessible, memorable, and applicable to our present.