The last fifteen years have seen a revival of interest in the topic of narrative across many
disciplines in both the social sciences and the humanities. While in many ways this interest
has the appearance of a unified movement, in fact the different fields have had rather varied
attitudes toward narrative. While some historians (eg, Simon Schama) have taken to
defending narrative as the most appropriate form of writing for their studies, other literary and
political theorists (eg, Hayden White and Jean-Franc, ois Lyotard) have taken to criticizing …