--- Peter Heehs, in "Myth, History, and Theory," History and Theory 33(1), 1–19, https://doi.org/10.2307/2505649, paraphrasing William H. McNeill (I think)
Excerpt
William H. McNeill also is interested in the relationship between historiography and mythology. So-called scientific history, he asserts, is itself the result of a belief system with unquestioned assumptions. All such systems, the scientific included, are mythic. In a world of competing sets of assumptions, each group affirms its own beliefs in order "to live more comfortably, insulated from troublesome dissent." (This is reminiscent of the effort of Hobsbawm's inventors to avoid anxiety in an ever-changing world by linking up with an invariant past.) Every group calls other belief-systems myths, its own the truth; but of course other groups do the same. Formerly historians believed they were in a position to decide which "truth" was true and which was "myth." But this is not possible in the postmodern age. The best historians can do is to try to "attain better historiographical balance between Truth, truths and myth." When historians exert themselves to produce a presentation of "truths" (not Truth) that is credible and intelligible to a given audience, the result is what "might best be called mythistory." (Citation: William H. McNeill, "Mythistory, or Truth, Myth, History and Historians," American Historical Review 91 (1986), 4, 8.
