Criticism
Eckert has sparked controversy with his "hidden dialogue" technique in his historical narratives, using a novelist's technique to enhance dramatic events. After many years of research on a topic, he has felt free to recreate historical conversations and thoughts in what some critics have considered to be "an entertaining blend of fact and fiction" purporting to be a straight biography. His colorful evocations of history have been praised as more accessible than drier, more strictly factual, accounts. However, what he has termed “narrative biography” has been criticized as “an apparent euphemism for poetic license”. A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh in particular has been faulted as “A biography that succeeds better as fiction” which “in its interpretative zeal … strays from … the historical record to the point of being suspect”.
Read more about this topic: Allan W. Eckert
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