novel explores questions of good and evil and as Jessica Treadway states in The Chicago Tribune, it "is intriguing for its thorough examination of what constitutes evil and why it exists". For example, Dracula at one point asks Rossi: As Kostova explains, "Dracula is a metaphor for the evil that is so hard to undo in history." For example, he is shown influencing Eastern European tyrants and supporting national socialism in Transylvania. He is "vainglorious, vindictive, [and] vicious". As Michael Dirda explains in The Washington Post, the novel conveys the idea that "Most of history's worst nightmares result from an unthinking obedience to authority, high-minded zealotry seductively overriding our mere humanity." It is in the figure of the vampire that Kostova reveals this, since "our fear of Dracula lies in the fear of losing ourselves, of relinquishing our very identities as human beings". In fact, the narrator is never named in the novel, suggesting, as one critic explains, "that the quest for the dark side of human nature is more universal than specific to a concrete character". Religion is also a dominant theme of The Historian. Dracula is Christian and, as Bebergal explains, "Much of what is frightening in the novel is the suggestion of heretical Christian practices and conspiratorial monks." Kostova herself notes that the world is still "wracked by religious conflict", therefore historical fiction about the topic is relevant. The portions of the novel set in Istanbul, for example, highlight the extent to which the real Vlad detested the Ottomans, waging holy war upon them. More specifically, Amir Taheri in Asharq Alawsat argues that the novel highlights the relationship between the West and Turkey. The West, which is laden with the "dead" weight of this past (represented by the vampires) needs the help of Turkey (and perhaps the entire Muslim world) to recover. As Taheri points out, one of the most appealing characters in the novel is Professor Bora, a Turkish professor who is part of an ancient Ottoman society dedicated to defeating Dracula. Taheri emphasizes that the novel highlights that "Western civilisation and Islam have common enemies represented by 'vampires' such as postmodernism in Europe and obscurantism in the Muslim world". Reception Little, Brown and Company spent $500,000 heavily promoting The Historian. In what Publishers Weekly called a "carefully calibrated advertising campaign", 7,000 advance copies were sent to booksellers, and in January 2005 Kostova began her book