Panama is a historical novel with many literary precedents, not the least of which is Sir Walter Scott's Waverly (1814), which is considered to be the first historical novel.

Two important American writers, Norman Mailer and William Styron, have written contemporary novels about American history. In his 1948 novel, The Naked and the Dead, Mailer writes about the United States at the time of the Second World War, casting fictional characters against a background of real events. Styron's Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) tells the story of slave Nat Turner, who led the 1831 slave rebellion in Southampton, Virginia.

Critic David Cowart defines historical fiction as "fiction in which the past figures with some prominence." Depending on the author's preference, historical novels may place fictional characters in situations based on historical facts (as does Mailer), or they may include historical persons in fictionalized situations (as does Styron). Zencey melds the...