New Book Explains Why Historians Might Have a Hard Time Reaching Wide Audiences, Getting a Date

Jonathan Gottschall’s new headline-grabbing book, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, didn’t set out to comment on contemporary historical practice. Gottschall barely mentions history in his short, cogently argued volume. But, if he is right about the reasons for the centrality of story in human life, and the type of stories preferred, he has added another pillar to Sam Wineburg’s argument that historical thinking is an “unnatural act.”

Gottschall, while admitting that science isn’t 100 percent certain on the point, clearly believes that we became a storytelling species because of its evolutionary advantage. Stories can help the storyteller find a mate through “gaudy, peacock like displays.” Stories are social simulators, he writes, “honing the neural pathways that regulate our responses to real-life experiences.” He cites studies that suggest “heavy fiction readers [have] better social skills and empathic ability—than those who mainly read non-fiction.” Even after taking into account potentially damaging and pernicious fictions, stories are, he argues, “on the whole, good for us.” And even if they are not, it makes little difference: “We are, as a species, addicted to story.”

Historians can write stories. Sometimes they choose not to, because they’re writing for a particular audience. (Gottschall understands this, having made an effort to ‘unlearn’ his own academic writing habits.) But most historians also believe, to quote William Cronon’s recent article, that “Getting facts right generally trumps good storytelling.” For those historians, The Storytelling Animal could be a depressing book....