There have been serious debates between historians, novelists and filmmakers as to how best present historical narratives. When writers and filmmakers talk of using historical research with integrity, what exactly do they mean? Integrity and Historical Research examines this question in detail. The first chapter discusses the concept of integrity. The chapters that follow reflect on this philosophical treatment in the light of fiction and film that deals with history in a number of ways. How should writers and filmmakers use lives? Can, and may, people who are now dead and who may have lived long ago, be defamed?

The authors include academics, historians, social historians, medievalists, oral historians, literary theorists, historical novelists and script writers. They examine the theoretical influences and practical choices that involve and concern writers and filmmakers who rely on historical research. The desire to be accurate may often conflict with the need to produce a work that goes beyond the mere depiction of events in order to excite the interest of readers and to hold that interest. At the same time there is a developing emphasis on historians, to write well in clear, accessible prose, which may involve using the novelists techniques. How much license may be given to writers of fiction and filmmakers in their depiction of historical characters and events? This book begins to answer this question, while inviting further discussion.

Great legends, like great men, are defined by their ability to endure. One of the greatest stories of triumph over adversity in railroading history is that of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. For hers is not a story of wealth and power, carried on the coat tails of society's upper class, but of sweat and blood, of tears in the eyes of the men who saw the west for what it really was: a place to dream. What began as the vision of General William J. Palmer to give life to the narrow gauge rails of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in Colorado, would become an ideal that spanned 100 years of history, culminating in the birth of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad and the return of the little narrow gauge engine numbered 463. It is a story packed with action, adventure and passion that interweaves with the lives of men like Gene Autry, Bat Masterson and Lucien B. Maxwell. But most of all it is an honest tale of the lives of men who dared to dream big and found success even when the deck was stacked against them. They were train buffs, steam fans, senators and family men. They were men who saw a piece of Americana slipping away and were damned if they were going to let it disappear. Like my dad said, "They were the most over enthusiastic, unbusiness-like fools that ever set foot in shoe leather," but they got the job done and 40 years later, the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad is their living monument of hope to future generations.