Carl's Prospectus

My topic is on the study of how writing history through narrative affects the interpretation of that history. I am trying to find out exactly how narrative writing distorts reality, to what degree, and how to discern truth from fiction. Possibly to narrow down the topic I will use what I learn in an example and analyze parts of a narrative on Genghis Khan. The idea is to help my reader understand the complexity of history and how history cannot be taken at face value, especially the narrative, even when it is written as “fact” like Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. Although I focus on narrative writing in history, I want the paper to show how much there is in regards to how history is written so that the reader goes away thinking more critically of historic sources and so that they know in the end, they are the ones that must decide which historic interpretation they wish to accept. Other ways to narrow down the topic might be to take a specific event that is told in multiple narratives and analyze that, or to look at one part of the historic narrative that is especially significant in the telling of history.