History: Is Historical Fiction the Answer?

The old adage is, those who don't know history are condemned to repeat it! We look around, and with even a cursory knowledge, we tend to see events and wonder why they are doing the same thing over and over again, usually with the same results? While I would love to have more people study history just to understand where we come from and why, as a basic causal relationship, as a framework for future decisions, unfortunately, many don't. We may relate it to school, or studying in general, as a requirement, which gives us the opt out argument, if it was important, we'd want to read about it, rather than having it required, thus not relatable, thus boring, thus I don't care, thus eyes glaze over.

But is there another option? Could historical fiction fill that void and even need? Maybe even a combination of the two. When I taught Social Sciences, I would have students choose a historical or political fiction book to supplement the text as a compare and contrast. I did it because of the popularity of historical/political fiction - I even tried it with science fiction, as students would predict future events based on what has already occurred. 

After more years of teaching, I even used popular books in the field over texts (or having the texts available as a secondary resource). One example of this, was using Freakonomics as our main class book, and having our text, Everybody's Economics as a resource, even though it was written by me (the purpose was to help them learn, not for vanity to get students to read my book).

Where did this all come from? When I started college, there are certain required courses (general education courses for incoming students). One of them was a basic history course. We came into the classroom, not knowing what to expect. The instructor came into the class, and the first thing he did was drop the textbook in the trash can. "I will posit to you that history does not have to be boring. I have created a list of historical fiction for themes we'll cover in class. I will cover the basics as fill ins through lecture, but you will make history come alive by reading books you are interested in reading." (My favorite in that class, Killer Angels by Michael Schaara) Well, of course we were all on board, and I can honestly say, it's one of the most enjoyable Social Sciences/History course I've ever taken, and fueled my interest in the field as a life long pursuit.

So I ask you, if you feel that all history is boring, that you won't learn anything, and why do you need to do this anyways, perhaps we are not making all options available? I am not suggesting that we remove all textbooks, I'm just saying that perhaps there are other supplementary or alternative materials. And hopefully we move beyond what is required, and we change our mindset to what is needed, maybe even what is in my best interest, and even beyond that, what is pleasurable? As James Taylor once sang to us, "Don't know much about history..." but he ends the refrain with fulfillment of his ultimate goal, "What a wonderful world it would be?!"