The story depends on who tells it - and how

THE term "narrative" - once used mainly by literary theorists in reference to the storyline in a novel, play or film - is now commonly employed by journalists who once upon a time were mostly interested in the facts that combine to produce a political reality which reporters and experts were asked to examine and explain.

We need now to go beyond the plain facts, insist contemporary pundits who propose that what really matters are the ways you connect the details to create a certain story line - in many cases, that could reflect the biases of those who are authoring the narrative.

This means that everyone could agree, for example, that the Berlin Wall fell on Nov 9, 1989, and that the Soviet Union ceased to exist in January 1992. But then when it comes to studying and making sense of the end of the Cold War, we are presented with different (and sometimes incompatible) narratives, ranging from a storyline, the End of History (under which the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the universal victory of liberal democracy) to the narrative embraced by Russian President Vladimir Putin - which depicts the collapse of the Soviet Union as a national humiliation and a global disaster.