The Challenge of Distinguishing History from Fiction

Writers of historical fiction do not necessarily depict events that actually happened. Even though their narratives are constructed around events that did happen, they are free to take liberties with the historical facts. They invent parts of the plot, create dialogue from their imaginations, omit historical characters who existed, invent new characters, merge several characters into one, and the like. They do whatever the creators deem necessary to help the plot along, although they often stick reasonably closely to the historical timeline so that the events are broadly recognizable. One can certainly learn a fair amount of history by watching or reading fiction, and no harm is done if it is remembered that it is entertainment, aiming to tell a story that may inspire us, a story from which—if it is well told—we may even learn important lessons about history, about human nature, and about reality.

However, problems arise when historians veer into presenting fictitious narratives as history. The treatment of Lincoln by historians is a striking example of this problem. As Tom Woods commented,

Thomas DiLorenzo’s The Real Lincoln (2002) was as much an event as it was a book. Here was a brutally frank treatment of a political figure we are all expected to treat with a quiet awe, and certainly not with the kind of serious and sustained scrutiny reserved for mere mortals. With every major aspect of the standard narrative that students are taught about Lincoln laughably and grotesquely false, this book was a shocking reminder of suppressed truths.

One reason why the boundaries of history and fiction easily become blurred is because good historical fiction must remain plausibly close to the truth—to be good art it must be persuasive, compelling, and convincing. The story must seem real, as if it really did happen just that way. A writer who creates fiction that does not seem real will find that nobody wants to read or watch it. Nobody wants to hear stories that seem fake and implausible. In his discussion of history and fiction, Ludwig von Mises explained that what makes good fiction is precisely the fact that its creators endeavor to match our understanding of reality, to depict in their fiction what we know to be true about how human beings act.

Fiction is free to depict events that never occurred. The writer creates, as people say, an imaginary story. He is free to deviate from reality. The tests of truth that apply to the work of the historian do not apply to his work. Yet his freedom is limited. He is not free to defy the teachings of thymological experience.

By “thymological experience” Mises was referring to “the way people react,” what motivates them, why people behave as they do, and how we would expect them to react in certain situations based on our understanding of human nature. For fiction to be plausible, “all the characters of a novel or play must act in a thymologically intelligible way,” they must be “thymologically plausible.” Otherwise the story itself would be unintelligible:

Epic and dramatic fiction depict what is to be considered true from the point of view of thymological insight, no matter whether the story told really happened or not.

To give a simple example, when presented with a fictional story of a father who loves his child, we know that this is how fathers generally feel, and the behavior and motivations of a loving father depict what we would expect to see in that role. That makes the story plausible. Indeed, this is the only way that fiction can create heroes and villains. Even when they make the plot more interesting and thymologically challenging by depicting an apparent contradiction—the loveable rogue—they still draw upon what we are certain to recognize as examples of well-known human character traits. Says Captain Rhett Butler, the “varmint” hero in Gone With The Wind,

“I think you like me because I am a varmint. You’ve known so few dyed-in-the-wool varmints in your sheltered life that my very difference holds a quaint charm for you.”

This was not what she had anticipated and she tried again without success to pull her hand free.

“That’s not true! I like nice men – men you can depend on to always be gentlemanly.”

It is precisely because fictional narratives match what people know and recognize about human nature, and reflect how they would hope and expect they might behave in the same situation, that people sometimes have difficulty distinguishing historical fiction from historical truth.

In the case of Lincoln, the narrative that depicts him as an abolitionist relies heavily on the fact that today slavery is universally regarded as wrong. Lincoln launched a war which precipitated the end of slavery in the United States, so he is a textbook “good” and “heroic” character. Slavery had already been abolished across the British Empire, by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, and so we would hope that by 1860 all “good” Americans were also abolitionists. This would put them on the famous—but largely fictitious—“right side of history.” The narrative of “Lincoln the abolitionist” meets our expectations, and the historical facts are, therefore, quite irrelevant. They say truth is stranger than fiction, and it seems implausible to many people that in 1862 Lincoln would write that his goal in launching the war was to save the Union by thwarting the secession of the Southern States. He stated that his “paramount object was not either to save or to destroy slavery”:

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation only purported to “free” slaves who were under Confederate control, and, therefore, it did not apply to slave states that were fighting on the Union side, for example Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and New Jersey, nor did it apply to slaves in territory that was under federal control in the South, for example in Louisiana. Lincoln did not free the slaves whom it was actually within his power to free, and he only made a gesture of “freeing” those whom he had no power to set free. This is difficult to reconcile with the dominant historical narrative, which Woods describes as “laughably and grotesquely false,” that the purpose of Lincoln’s war was to free the slaves. The narrative works not because it is based on facts but because it matches what people believe about their own good selves. As the historian Clyde Wilson observes,

Many Americans tend to think of themselves as very nice people dedicated to doing good in the world, a sentimental self-serving delusion that has led to major catastrophes such as failed foreign wars to spread “global democracy.” This niceness was certainly not on display in their invasion and conquest of fellow Americans of the South.

In distinguishing history from fiction, Mises reminded us that “history tries to describe past events as they really happened. It aims at faithful representation. Its concept of truth is correspondence with what was once reality.” History is not about constructing narratives that appeal to us, that make us feel much better about ourselves. That is the purview of fiction.