Philosophical analysis of the historical task is complex. One aspect which requires investigation is the structuring of historical data into a coherent whole. This essay is an enquiry into one category of historical synthesis, that in which a complex transformation is diachronically related, which in this essay is termed narrative history. It is argued that narrative history is a cognitive tool by which the complex relatedness and interaction of disparate past individuals and changes can be made apparent. An analysis of historical narrative is undertaken which attempts to show that each narrative whole is composed of separate narrative strings, each with a philosophic individual as its continuing subject, and combined in a range of ways which express particular relations between each series. The strategies of discourse adopted by the historian are examined to determine the ways in which they express the historians conception of the object of his narrative. Different kinds of historical narrative are identified and the claims of narrative to be explanatory, and objective, are examined.