For example, a recent answer on this sub states that "central European nobles will interpret the story of the curse to tarnish their own serfs and justify their lack of freedom." Why "will" instead of "would," when this happened hundreds of years ago and is not ongoing? What's the purpose this writing style and where did it originate? Shouldn't historians be more careful about conflating past and present in their work?
I've written a little bit on this topic in the past, if you're interested!
Latin!
Classical rhetoric, which forms one of the bases of modern academic work, recognizes a variety of verb tense known as the historic present or historical present. You see it all over the place--in discussing the events of a book or movie, talking about past events, or reading news headlines.
Its enduring popularity seems to stem from two roots. One, it keeps the reader or listener more engaged--the headline news example is particularly telling here. BREAKING NEWS is happening NOW and affects YOU. Versus something that happened and is over. Even though, well, the event probably did happen and may well be over, and might not actually affect your life at all. It's a rhetorical strategy (hence its roots in classical rhetoric).
Second, and most evident from the literature example, it reflects the ongoing process of experiencing a story--or a set of historical sources. The book was written, but we are reading it and can keep reading it. The past is past, but history is an evaluation of that past that we are constantly reevaluating.