By Kyra-lin Hom

Historical dramas have always captured our imaginations. Like fantasy and science fiction, stories from our past transport us to another time and (often) place. When done well they are immersive, engaging and educational. Some of my favorite books in elementary school were from the Dear America series, historical fiction novels written like diaries.

Using the embellished narrative as a vehicle for sharing history is no new thing. Homer's Iliad and Rustichello da Pisa's The Travels of Marco Polo are a couple of famous examples that have themselves made it into the history books (there's a little meta for you). The truth of these manuscripts in particular was even taken for granted for many, many years before being brought into question. Their accuracy is now the topic of heated scholarly debate.

Following this tradition, many grade school teachers and even some college professors have brought historical fiction into the classroom. Beyond piquing curiosity and bringing to life nuanced details textbooks skip or drone over, historical fiction encourages students to interact with the material.

Anecdotal evidence shows that students who only learn history from textbooks are less likely to critically engage with the presented material. That is, they are less likely to question the information or the context of the information they are being taught. Good narrative stories automatically encourage speculation and critical thinking because of the many relatable characters and perspectives available.

Of course if we're going to start looking at historical dramas as education tools, we need to put their accuracy to the test. Let's take, for example, The Last Samurai (2003), Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), and 300 (2006). These three films were extremely popular, western-romanticizations of foreign (not-American) cultures. All three were beautiful, well-made films inspired by real historical events. And all three were fairytales.

That, however, doesn't negate their usefulness. Sure they aren't your typical classroom material like Gettysburg (1993), The Crucible (1996), or Amistad (1996), but they can still serve as lesson plan starting points.

When I was in undergrad this happened inadvertently when a classmate asked our Japanese history professor if The Last Samurai was an accurate depiction of Saigo Takamori's 1877 Satsuma Rebellion (upon which the film is based). She threw quite the expressive fit, dissecting everything wrong with the film. We then spent the next several days watching her favorite Japanese historical movies in class. I'd call it a win-win.

Just as a Tom Cruise action movie unintentionally resulted in a week of fascinating black and white history diving for us, shows like Netflix's Marco Polo and History Channel's Vikings are sucking us all into the past regardless of their faults. I buffed up on my Mongol history after finishing Marco Polo season 1 simply because I wanted to know what happened next.

This trend favoring the historical drama is heartening in light of a recent analysis of New York Times archives. The analysis suggests that historians (and other social scientists) may be losing their place at the table to economists. When it comes to government action planning and policy development, we're relying more and more on the questionable predictive powers of economics rather than the wisdom of history. And you know what the philosopher George Santayana says about forgetting history.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”