10/30/2007

"History as Narrative" (cont.)

It looks like an author has brought the structure and dynamic of Percy Foote's novel Shiloh to nonfiction: "Robert E. Bonner has movingly reconstructed the experiences of sixteen Civil War soldiers, using their own accounts to knit together a ground-level view of the entire conflict."

Another departure from single-viewpoint, timelined narratives, theatrical ruses, and archtypes beloved of authors. Another departure from the stock ACW narrative. Good.