The Elements Of A Good History Book - podcast

Richard Zacks thinks history books should be written like novels and paced for excitement. The author of "Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York" does just that, gathering facts chronologically, but he looks for the best way to structure and tell the story, often drawing from fiction technique to develop a compelling plot and characters. The trick: don't fudge a detail or insert dialogue or plot changes. You don't want to change history, just tell it in an exciting way.