Zachary was a historian who wanted to become a better writer, teaching students who had been drawn to history by a love of exciting stories and who often wished for the chance to write their own. Scott was a writer who wanted to become a better historian but who also wanted to encounter students with a curiosity for genres of creative writing outside of fiction, poetry, and memoir. We worked in the same building at George Mason University—Zach in the history department on the third floor, Scott in the English department one flight up—and over the years we had many conversations about our shared love of narrative history, of books written by the popular historians Adam Hochschild, Richard Holmes, Dava Sobel, and Barbara Tuchman. These were books that sold well, that entertained, that taught, but that rarely appeared in either history courses or English courses. We agreed about some, we—ahem—disagreed about others. When Scott held up his copy of Homer Hoyt's One Hundred Years of Land Values in Chicago (a source for his upcoming narrative history about the aftermath of the great Chicago fire of 1871) and said, “I mean, some kinds of history just can't be written through narrative,” Zach answered, “Oh, but they can! They all can!” As proof, Zach pointed to our shared admiration for William Cronon, who had majored in both English and history, and who, in Nature's Metropolis somehow told a gripping story about the evolution of midwestern lumber wholesaling, hog butchering, and grain storage.¹¹

中文翻译：

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它需要两个时间：将英语和历史相结合来进行团队合作的叙事写作教学

扎卡里（Zachary）是一位历史学家，他想成为一名更好的作家，向那些因热衷于激动人心的故事而吸引了历史并经常希望自己写作的学生们提供教学。斯科特（Scott）是一位作家，他想成为一名更好的历史学家，但也希望与好奇，缺乏小说，诗歌和回忆录的创造性写作类型的学生相遇。我们曾在乔治·梅森大学（George Mason University）的同一栋大楼中工作-扎克（Zach）位于三楼的历史系，斯科特（Scott）位于一楼的英语系-多年来，我们就对叙事历史的共同热爱，著名的历史学家亚当·霍希希尔（Adam Hochschild），理查德·霍姆斯（Richard Holmes），达瓦·索贝尔（Dava Sobel）和芭芭拉·图赫曼（Barbara Tuchman）。这些书卖得很好，很有趣，很有教益，但这很少出现在历史课程或英语课程中。我们同意了一些意见，我们-讨厌-反对其他意见。当斯科特举起他的荷马·霍伊特（Homer Hoyt）的副本时扎克回答说：“芝加哥一百年地价”（他即将发表的有关1871年芝加哥大火的后果的叙事历史的来源），他说：“我的意思是，某些历史不能通过叙事来书写。” ，“哦，但是他们可以！他们都可以！” 为了证明这一点，扎克（Zach）指出了我们对威廉·克朗（William Cronon）的钦佩，他既学习英语又学习历史，并且在《自然》的《大都会》中讲述了一个令人难忘的故事，讲述了中西部木材批发，生猪屠宰和粮食储存的演变。¹¹