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A good historian can (and should be able to) make "the bare facts" interesting to the reader. I enjoy reading military history, and there are some excellent authors in that field who can write extremely readable books without the need to fictionalise events. Eg, such books as Cornelius Ryan's "A Bridge too Far" about the Allied attempt to capture the bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem (which was subsequently made into a film) is a highly readable example.
Of course I enjoy reading historical fiction, too, but I never make the mistake of thinking that historical fiction is "history".
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