I once was taking a unit of work on Napoleon in Moscow with my university History Curriculum and Methodology students. What sources could we use? A group of students wanted Tolstoy's War and Peace (1869/2010), an iconic historical novel. What about Adam Zamoyski's 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow (2005), one of the best nonfiction sources on the topic? The class group then debated the relative merits of historical novels versus nonfiction as teaching/learning sources in schools and colleges — a huge and multi-layered topic.

Motivation, however, to write this book came from other sources. First, there was the continued demonstrated concern for the decline in students undertaking History courses in Australian schools. Curiously juxtaposed to this has been the clear evidence of the popularity of history as the subject matter for books, either in their fictional or nonfictional forms, and in feature films, television films and television mini-series as dramas. Then there has been the Commonwealth legislation mandating the teaching of History from the first year of schooling to Year 12, and the demonstrated fact that mandating the teaching of the subject does nothing to increase students' interest in the subject and consequently to pursue its study in university. Last, my motivation to write this book stemmed from my deeply held passion for the historical novel in its various genres, and a well-founded belief that the genre can stimulate students' interests in studying the subject at school.