Historical Complexity And Interpretation

We, editorially speaking, are reading a newly published book written to mark the ninetieth anniversary of the Spanish Civil War. Real history is much more detailed than fiction although some fictions plausibly simulate reality. I understand that Tolkien's Middle Earth is convincingly and consistently detailed. Poul Anderson conveys the sense of clashing factions in a civil war in "Tiger by the Tail" and an entire political spectrum on an occupied planet in Mirkheim.

Historians interpret events in:

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series (See Reality And Interpretation);

the Interludes of Anderson's Tales Of The Flying Mountains;

reality (was Franco's campaign a crusade against left terror or, alternatively, was the entire Civil War just a regretful fratricide caused by democratic immaturity?)

When we return to recent themes, we will reread two further stories about human beings colonizing - or maybe, in the second case, just visiting? - an already inhabited planet:

"Terminal Quest," in Alight In The Void

"Strangers," in All One Universe

We have a lot to (re)read both blog-wise and otherwise.