Fictions of History offers a new definition of the term                  "fictions." A fiction is not merely the imaginative literature we treasure                  in works of novelists, dramatists, and poets. It is a powerful, driving idea that                  enters the life of an individual, the course a whole society travels, and the                  stories historians tell about the human past. In many dimensions, fictions affect                  every person on planet Earth. We all live lives based on                  fictions.Frances Richardson Keller chooses fascinating examples                  to demonstrate how dominant fictions of a given time emerge and are entrenched, and                  how historical figures have come to accept or reject these fictions. She begins with                  "the grandest fiction," the patriarchal system, and reflects on its                  origins, effects, and future. Then she addresses the fictions that dominated stories                  historians told about the Reconstruction of America after the Civil War. Keller next                  considers the emergence and demise of Mormon polygamy as a fiction in the 19th                  century. Her fourth and last illustration is the life of Eleanor Roosevelt and the                  fictions that empowered her.

Fictions of U.S. History: A Theory and Four Illustrations PDF

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