Why history?

I often ask myself: why is history my venue of choice for stories rather than, say, the future, or Manhattan, or even my hometown suburb of Wheatridge, Colorado? I know about those places (well, maybe not Manhattan so much ... maybe ...)

Writing about history, if one wants to be accurate, requires a great deal of research, almost enough to get a degree! History ain't easy!

Also, History ain't pretty.

People lived in absolute squalor compared to us, surrounded by their garbage and using the outdoors for bodily functions. They had very limited diets, succumbed easily to infection, started families at the age of 12, shared beds with multiple family members or strangers -- if they even had beds, and rarely washed themselves or their clothes. Our past is filled with filth, massacre, rape, disease, extortion, manipulation, and thievery. And that's just the small town stuff!

It is indeed, as my Dad would say, the story of man's inhumanity to man. And more precisely, man's inhumanity to women, children, slaves, and everyone who is "different".

Viorel Culiciuc, a Romanian philosophy professor, said, "There should be one more fundamental right: the right to be different."

Most folks today would agree with Mr. Culiciuc, yet all folks today share the same messy, icky, inhumane history. Most people in the past have wanted to erase differences and make everyone the same -- or else wipe them off the planet.

So why write fiction that takes place in that dreadful back story, that smelly garbage heap of invading armies and mass executions for religious beliefs?

Because I am fascinated that any good at all has occurred.

Other people study evil: what it looks like, why it exists. When I look at the horrors of history, I want to study good: what it looks like, why it exists.

For me, this is the most intriguing mystery of all.

How about you -- what intrigues you about history? If anything?!?