Novels vs. History “History is based on facts; novels are grounded in the author’s imagination. Novels make interesting reading but are not particularly useful in studying history.” After reading this quote, I thought deeply about was this person was trying to say. There are not many novels out there that can give you a full sense history, but in this book it does. I have recently read Out of this Furnace by Thomas Bell …showed first 75 words of 731 total…

…showed last 75 words of 731 total…is why these immigrants didn’t get very far because of the discrimination they experienced here. When I read the quote I present before, I realized that novels do make history a little more interesting, but some are based on facts. This novel I believe to be very informative and very true to the facts of the immigrants in the 1880’s. Thomas Bell was right on with his information about immigrants during this time period.