MatthewM, I'm with you. That said, all things in moderation/balance.
Regarding history, your point is well made. I think that to many, the past might as well have been written by a bunch of fiction writers with little else to do. Many of my fellow citizens remember even little of their own personal histories, let alone read about/learn about their community's/nation's etc histories. For most people, time begins sometimes after they are born, and like rear view mirrors, history sometimes has its uses but when you're blazing down the highway on your cell phone, you really don't have much need for it.
More important issues fill the day, like the latest celebrity birth/death/faux pas. History is just one of those things that you
have to do to break out of the public school monopoly. And don't even get me started on people's discernment abilities (the lack thereof
)...
Anyway, the difference between Tolkien's and those other fiction writers'
histories is that the fiction writers have more to work with. You can find artifacts to use in your creative writings, and sometimes others will participate in your fantasy, claiming to be eye-witnesses to the events. You can even find good forgeries of documents that also help with the fiction.
To date we've not found one artifact or manuscript that independently validates the Middle Earth world, and until the time that we do, we have to go along with the other fictional history.
