One of the assigned textbooks during my history degree was David Lowenthal’s The Past is a Foreign Country. The title references a quote:
The past is a foriegn country: they do things differently there.— The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley:
And that’s the approach I’ve taken to my historical fiction. It’s like travelling to a foreign country, which demands taking the locals seriously, whether you agree with them or not. It’s their country, after all. No one says you have to agree, but as a guest...