Narrative history

Narrative history is the practice of writing history in a story-based form. It can be divided into two subgenres: the traditional narrative and the modern narrative.

Traditional narrative focuses on the chronological order of history, it is event driven and tends to center upon individuals, action, and intention. For example, in regard to the French Revolution, a historian who works with the traditional narrative might be more interested in the revolution as a single entity (one revolution), centre it in Paris, and rely heavily upon large figures such as Maximilien Robespierre.

Conversely, modern narrative typically focuses on structures and general trends. A modern narrative would break from rigid chronology if the historian felt it explained the concept better. In terms of the French Revolution, a historian working with the modern narrative might show general traits that were shared by revolutionaries across France but would also illustrate regional variations from those general trends (many confluent revolutions). Also this type of historian might use different sociological factors to show why different types of people supported the general revolution.

Historians who use the modern narrative might say that the traditional narrative focuses too much on what happened and not enough on why and causation. Also, that this form of narrative reduces history into neat boxes and thereby does an injustice to history. J H Hexter characterized such historians as "lumpers". In an essay on Christopher Hill, he remarked that "lumpers do not like accidents: they would prefer them vanish...The lumping historian wants to put all of the past into boxes..and then to tie all the boxes together into one nice shapely bundle."

Historians who use traditional narrative might say that the modern narrative overburdens the reader with trivial data that had no significant effect on the progression of history; that it is the historian's duty to take out what is inconsequential from history because to do otherwise might commit an injustice to the reader, who might end up believing that minor trivial events were actually important.