Stories that focus on the history of great events or great people are put in the category of heroic historical fiction. Social historical stories focus on the history of everyday people living everyday lives within a certain time period. These kinds of stories seem to be more popular currently. This may be because it is easier for the reader to identify with the everyday characters such as those in Sarah, Plain and Tall than with Alexander the Great, or Napoleon.
Heroic stories make for an exciting tale.
Social history can also be exciting, but also adds an element of ordinariness that the reader also has in her own life and thus connects with. It was this ordinariness that I was able to connect with while reading The Eagle of the Ninth . The main character, Marcus, went through a crisis of not knowing what his purpose was, similar to what I have gone through in these important university years. As I finished the book, I wondered if there were any other books like this one, dealing with the Roman period. That is how this paper came about.