Dr. Krakauer’s title is just as mystifying as Francis Fukuyama’s. If “The End of History” implied the end of time, then “The End of Narrative” implies the end of homo narrans, the story-telling animal that creates its identities and makes sense of living through narrative.In short, narrative is necessary to the making of meaning, not just nice “artwork”. I don’t think historians like John Lewis Gaddis (The Landscape of History) would agree with your characterization of narrative history. According to him, we are bound to learn from the past, as it is the only database we have. Our object should be to interpret the past for the purposes of the present with a view to coping with the future. The past is a landscape: history is the map, a distillation of accumulated experience. Narratives simulate what has happened in the past – they are reconstructions assembled in the virtual laboratory of our minds. History is no sure guide to predicting the future, but it prepares you for it by expanding on your experience.“The purpose (of historical consciousness) is…to achieve the optimal balance, first with ourselves but then within society, between the polarities of oppression and liberation.” (The Landscape of History, p.147)