Dan Brown doesn't know history

Apparently I'm a glutton for punishment, because I just spent the last hour poking through Dan Brown's website. Don't ask me why. Perhaps I'm still just so astonished by The Da Vinci Code's popularity that I'm trying to figure out the man, myth, and legend that is Dan Brown.

The more I read of Brown, the less I think of him. Beyond the countless and inexcusable factual errors, Brown has an incredibly naive conception of how history is produced and how historians think. Take this quote from his FAQ page:

Since the beginning of recorded time, history has been written by the "winners" (those societies and belief systems that conquered and survived). Despite an obvious bias in this accounting method, we still measure the "historical accuracy" of a given concept by examining how well it concurs with our existing historical record. Many historians now believe (as do I) that in gauging the historical accuracy of a given concept, we should first ask ourselves a far deeper question: How historically accurate is history itself?

First, the well-rehearsed notion of history being written by the winners. Once upon a time, perhaps. But not anymore. Historians (at least the good ones) aren't concerned with presenting a past that reinforces the status quo. Historians try to understand what happened, not telling the story of the winners. History from below, anyone?

This isn't exactly a revolutionary idea. I learned that "history is written by the winners" back in elementary school. It's not a very profound insight. Yet Brown seems to think that he's revealing an important truth to his readers. Bland, obvious, uncontested fact is more like it.

Second, Brown expresses concern about measuring "the 'historical accuracy' of a given concept by examining how well it concurs with our existing historical record." I'm curious. What's the alternative? As I've written about before, historians are bound by the evidence available. Does that mean historians are incapable of capturing the totality of the past? Well, yes. But that doesn't mean that historians can make stuff up. If Brown wants to present an alternative history, fine. But if you're going to treat it as history, provide some evidence. Please.

It might be possible to just ignore these problems. Dan Brown, after all, is a novelist, not an academic. But Brown presents himself as someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about history. He casts himself in the company of historians by pointing out that he, like many historians, think it's important to consider the accuracy of history itself. The implication, of course, is that there are historians who don't share this belief. If you listened to Brown, you'd think that there are plenty of historians out there who accept, without question, the findings of all previous historians.

This could not be further from the truth. Historians are trained to examine sources with a critical eye. That goes for scholarly history books just as much as primary sources like diaries and letters. Historians are willing and eager to reformulate previous conceptions of the past. For Brown to suggest otherwise is either ignorant or self-promoting.