History books do not actually say that. The article is about historical fiction.
Historical fiction on the other hand often embrace the myths since since they tend to make for bettet stories.
WW2 history based on WW2 Generals' memoir's, as opposed to unit diaries, is a prime example of that trap.
And today, we still understand the present this way, and it takes time to gather critical sources and discover truth, and hopefully record it.
Unfortunately, most "source criticism" is absolutely atrocious and developed primarily as part of the publish-or-perish paradigm, of such low quality that "X was motivated to believe Y, therefore Y was probably not true" without additional evidence is a common theme. Perhaps worse, much of our modern "source criticism" simply consists of applying whatever moralizing ideological lens is currently in vogue. Even historiography is largely fad-driven. You can absolutely learn more about historical events by reading the primary sources yourself. Historians are not blessed with some rare critical talent that can only be developed via a history degree.
It's obviously true that reading only WW2 general memoirs is going to get you a very specific and limited view, but they aren't the only people who were writing at the time, and either way, within the limited parameters of military history, it's better to read what someone actually thought rather than reading what someone else thought they thought. Of course you will sometimes be misled, but at least you'll be misled in similar ways to people of the time, rather than being misled by 21st-century ideas. That's not to say there are no good modern histories, but the best are ones that quote very, very liberally and give you lists of the best primary sources, which you should still read.
And yes, historians aren't above criticism, but by virtue of education they are better qualified then the average layman and / or history buff. Education matters, something we tend to forget way to often in fields outside of our own expertise.
Better educated than the average layman? Certainly. Than the average history buff? Maybe. Depends on the historian and the history buff. Going through a degreed program doesn’t guarantee that you get some esoteric knowledge unavailable to the general public - it just usually gives you a really good survey of existing knowledge. It’s very easy for amateurs to get to the same approximate level of knowledge in many times and places. If they focus on primary sources rather than secondary sources, they’re often better off.
> It sounds like you have a beef against academic historians?
Somewhat, in that the average[1] modern academic output in the humanities is not worth writing home about (often absolute garbage) and the expertise relative to a sufficiently dedicated amateur (not a layman) is highly overrated. While many (but not all!) scientific fields have evolved to a level of complexity and depth requiring education and equipment not accessible to random amateurs, history is generally speaking in the same position it was a hundred years ago: anyone can read enough on their own to acquire expertise in some particular niche and possibly even make new connections, if the ground hasn't already been over-tilled.
[1] Average is an important word here. Obviously at the high end this becomes less and less likely to be true.
They also made it clear that it was the Soviet Union that ground down the Nazi war machine.
Meanwhile, historical fiction is explicitly fiction. As in it is supposed to be made up and readers are aware of that.
Good historical fiction goes deeper than good, sourced, "factual" history. Proper history depends on written records; but those records were made exclusively by people who are literate (obviously), which for most of history was a tiny minority.
A lot of historical fiction is indeed made-up stuff, based on a conventional version of history, telling tales we all (think we) know. The good stuff is made-up too, of course; but it's heavily researched, and informative. I'm thinking of stuff like Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth.
History =|= historical story telling
Ken Follet wrote a novel about building a cathedral, he didn'r write a book about medival cathedral building. Very important difference.
All of it is made up. That is why it is called fiction. Authors are pretty open about that fact. It can not possibly "go deeper" then sourced factual history - because it uses sourced history as its only source of information about past.
Historical fiction writers read a lot of sourced history and then combine, modify, remove and add to make compeling story that would satisfy the audience.
Honestly, I think that's wrong. "Proper" historians make up a lot of stuff; they tell stories, because otherwise their work would simply be lists of citations. What they do is called history, because they are professional acaemic historians. But professional story-tellers can make up stories based on the same citations.
> It can not possibly "go deeper" then sourced factual history.
OK, well I think "factual history" is a dodgy concept. "Facts" about the past change every decade or so. The past becomes foggy immediately, then it turns into legend, then into myth.
Nor is it true that historical fiction would be limited to what was true about history. They literally intentionally make stuff up. That is what they are even expected to do.
Made up doesn't have to mean false.
The facts are fake-able too.
Subtle mis-interpretations can be all that's needed to lead a perfectly true narrative, astray. The line between myth and fact, can be very finely sliced indeed.
There is not a single academic field free from fictionalizing Key aspects of the narrative to put someone in a more favourable light. Unfortunately.