Francis Parkman, Historian as Hero: The Formative YearsA historian who lived the kind of history he wrote, Francis Parkman is a major and controversial figure in American historiography. His narrative style, while popular with readers wanting a "good story," has raised many questions with professional historians. Was Parkman writing history or historical fiction? Did he color historical figures with his own heroic self image? Was his objectivity compromised by his "unbending, conservative, Brahmin"