ABSTRACT
P. C. Jersild plays with history and the narrative conventions used both by history and historical fiction. Jersild's self-designated chronicle skips across the globe, spanning human development from the early hominids to a post-apocalyptic world in which the religious right has taken over. In Jersild's novel, history has its roots in the invention of writing and language itself. In brief, the romantic emplotment of history is based on a quest or a pilgrimage to a City of God or a classless society. In Narrative Form in History and Fiction, Leo Braudy points to three traditional theories of the guiding force of history: the providential view, the great man theory, and the view that historical events are guided by chance. Nicolaos's history will be made to serve Herod's political ends more than any kind of "historical truth". Many of the thinkers who have pondered human history have sought its origin in a state of nature.
