> I think we need to define history - you seem to be operating from the definition as a narrative anchored to a list of facts, but I consider history to be the

> I think we need to define history - you seem to be operating from the definition as a narrative anchored to a list of facts, but I consider history to be the collection of facts of themselves, from which narratives can be derived. But historians don't write down lists of facts. I think you'll find, as the author does, that if you try to extract from a work of history a list of facts, you're going to end up with things that are highly debatable. Some of these things will be moral judgements, some will be assertions about human psychology and motivations, some will be implicit metaphysical beliefs. It might be worthwhile to write all this down but historians won't do it voluntarily because many of these things are embarrassing to admit. I would say that sophisticated readers of history already have a somewhat Bayesian perspective. They implicitly attach probabilities to historical narratives and update those probabilities as new information arises. It's not rigorous but it seems crazy to me to expect that it could be made rigorous. I don't agree with your dismissal of old Egyptology. I think you're buying into an Edward Said/postcolonialism narrative that is terribly flawed. I also don't think you can easily label historical narratives as "anti-bayesian" or obviously wrong. I think Holocause denial is obviously wrong but it's not on the same level as flat-earth.