Other Pasts, Different Presents, Alternative Futures - Softcover

Black, Jeremy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0253017041 ISBN 13: 9780253017048

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2015

Synopsis

What if there had been no World War I or no Russian Revolution? What if Napoleon had won at Waterloo in 1815, or if Martin Luther had not nailed his complaints to the church door at Wittenberg in 1517, or if the South had won the American Civil War? The questioning of apparent certainties or "known knowns" can be fascinating and, indeed, "What if?" books are very popular. However, this speculative approach, known as counterfactualism, has had limited impact in academic histories, historiography, and the teaching of historical methods. In this book, Jeremy Black offers a short guide to the subject, one that is designed to argue its value as a tool for public and academe alike. Black focuses on the role of counterfactualism in demonstrating the part of contingency, and thus human agency, in history, and the salutary critique the approach offers to determinist accounts of past, present, and future.

About this title

Book Description:

Bronze Medal, World History category, 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards

About the Author:

Jeremy Black is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He is author of many books including War and Technology (IUP, 2013), Fighting for America: The Struggle for Mastery in North America, 1519–1871 (IUP, 2011), and War and the Cultural Turn. Black is a recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize of the Society for Military History.

About this edition

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0253017041
• ISBN 13: 9780253017048
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 252