Everything I have to say about the writing of history was summed up by John Keats in ten words in a letter. He said “a fact is not a truth until you love it.”   …You have to become attached to the thing you’re writing about for it to have any real meaning. It is absolutely true that no list of facts ever gave you an account of what happened. The bare bone facts are what you use to shape in describing what happened. There are those historians who, I’m afraid, all too often think that good writing gets in the way of the history. In other words, you hide the facts behind blankets of prose. I believe the exact opposite. I believe that the facts told with some art are true narrative which you then absorb into your being and understanding as well as you do a great novel, whether it’s a short one like Gatsby or a long one like Remembrance of Things Past.