History and the danger of stories

I saw this TED talk by economist Tyler Cowen posted to my friend's Facebook page the other day and got to thinking about our conversation on the first night of class about whether we think of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions as the "spring of hope" (as Dickens and many nationalist historiographies have painted independence movements) or as a "season of irony" (Egerton's take on the counter-productive social goals of Simon Bolivar and Denmark Vesey).  The jist of Cowen's talk is that we should be suspicious of these types of heroic/tragic narrative tropes, for any familiar story--the struggle to survive, the fight against tyranny, the tragedy of broken promises--just flattens out the messiness of reality.  What do you think?