Contetxt from the op-ed
Historians' assaults on myth are themselves based on a myth: the faith that facts speak for themselves, that infinite detail somehow organizes itself into meaningful patterns without the intervention of human intelligence, and that historical truth resides in faithful transcription of recorded words and deeds.
...
The trouble with this approach to truth is that it makes the world unintelligible. ...
Truth, in short, does not reside in exact recording of every detail. It never has. Instead, it resides in myth - generalizing myths that direct attention to what is common amid diversity by neglecting trivial differences of detail. Such myths make subsequent experience intelligible and can be acted on. When results conform to expectations, truth has been tested and the mythical formulation gains or retains plausibility. When experience contradicts expectation, it is time to mend the myth, if one can, to look for limiting conditions or overriding patterns that somehow distort its applicability.
