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Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History
A bullet misses its target in Sarajevo, a would-be Austrian painter gets into the Viennese academy, Lord Halifax becomes British prime minister in 1940: seemingly minor twists of fate on which world-shaking events might have hinged.
Alternative history has long been the stuff of parlour games, war-gaming and science fiction, but over the past few decades it has become a popular stomping ground for serious historians. Richard J. Evans now turns a critical, slightly jaundiced eye on the subject. Altered Pasts examines the intellectual fallout from historical counterfactuals. Most importantly, Evans takes counterfactual history seriously, looking at the insights, pitfalls and intellectual implications of changing one thread in the weave of history.
Alternative history has long been the stuff of parlour games, war-gaming and science fiction, but over the past few decades it has become a popular stomping ground for serious historians. Richard J. Evans now turns a critical, slightly jaundiced eye on the subject. Altered Pasts examines the intellectual fallout from historical counterfactuals. Most importantly, Evans takes counterfactual history seriously, looking at the insights, pitfalls and intellectual implications of changing one thread in the weave of history.
225 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
21 people are currently reading
515 people want to read
About the author
Richard J. Evans
73 books869 followersRichard J. Evans is one of the world's leading historians of modern Germany. He was born in London in 1947. From 2008 to 2014 he was Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University, and from 2020 to 2017 President of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He served as Provost of Gresham College in the City of London from 2014 to 2020. In 1994 he was awarded the Hamburg Medal for Art and Science for cultural services to the city, and in 2015 received the British Academy Leverhulme Medal, awarded every three years for a significant contribution to the Humanities or Social Sciences. In 2000 he was the principal expert witness in the David Irving Holocaust Denial libel trial at the High Court in London, subsequently the subject of the film Denial. His books include Death in Hamburg (winner of the Wolfson History Prize), In Defence of History, The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, and The Third Reich at War. His book The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914, volume 7 of the Penguin History of Europe, was published in 2016. His most recent books are Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History (2019) and The Hitler Conspiracies: The Third Reich and the Paranoid Imagination (2020). In 2012 he was knighted for services to scholarship.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
December 22, 2014
Not quite what I was expecting... the author talks about how historians and novelists have used and abused counterfactuals, and cites many examples of how they usually reveal more about the writer and his political and economic views than about the events he is re-imagining. He dismisses most of the imagined scenarios after the changed events as implausible or impossible (and to be fair, many of them are). I'd hoped after all this that the author would show us how he thought counterfactuals should be done, but instead he simply concludes that they're mostly useless as historical tools, and fit only for entertainment.
One key insight lurking in the text and never quite made explicit is that the people who influence history have more freedom of choice at some times than at others. We ask "what if?" about turning points in history because so much was at stake on both sides that the people who made the crucial decisions often would not or could not have chosen differently. We may ask whether the First World War would have started had Gavrilo Princip failed in his attempt to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand... but surely the reason that this killing could spark a world-wide war was that so many politicians and generals on all sides had spent years building alliances and military might that by 1914, war was all but inevitable. If the Archduke had lived, or if Princip had not had the opportunity to kill him, sooner or later something else would have happened to trigger the conflict. The lesson would seem to be that if someone hands you the keys to a time machine and tells you to change history, you'll have to be subtle about it...
One key insight lurking in the text and never quite made explicit is that the people who influence history have more freedom of choice at some times than at others. We ask "what if?" about turning points in history because so much was at stake on both sides that the people who made the crucial decisions often would not or could not have chosen differently. We may ask whether the First World War would have started had Gavrilo Princip failed in his attempt to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand... but surely the reason that this killing could spark a world-wide war was that so many politicians and generals on all sides had spent years building alliances and military might that by 1914, war was all but inevitable. If the Archduke had lived, or if Princip had not had the opportunity to kill him, sooner or later something else would have happened to trigger the conflict. The lesson would seem to be that if someone hands you the keys to a time machine and tells you to change history, you'll have to be subtle about it...
October 25, 2023
Some of the two and three star reviews seem to have wanted some counterfactuals explored at length, something that the title, strap line, and (cool) cover might seem to promise. Rather, this is a scholarly and entertaining exploration of the different types, histories, uses and abuses of counterfactuals and their role in increasing our understanding of historical events. Or not, as is argued here. It does this with some style and incisive analysis while giving right-wing rent-an-academic Naill Ferguson a good doing over, which for me made it worth the gate money on its own.
Recommended.
Recommended.
August 14, 2020
!! This does not contain ‘spoilers’ as such, but I will be discussing many of the things Evans talks about in his book!!
“Altered Pasts” by Richard Evans is an excellent review of the subject of counterfactual history - it’s pros and cons and overall uses.
The book is separated into four sections.
Part One is entitled “Wishful Thinking” and covers the history of counterfactuals and why they had a revival in Britain and the US in the 1990s and 2000s, Part Two is called “Virtual History” and discusses the arguments for and against the genre, Part Three is “Future Fictions” which looks at the different ways counterfactuals have been used/the forms they can take, whilst Part Four attempts to conclude the arguments and reach a decision about the usefulness of counterfactuals. (The lack of chapters is admittedly quite tedious, especially seeing as the same theme continues throughout each section without breaks, and the sections do also share topics and are slightly confused, but this is being hyper-critical).
I found the concepts of “wishful thinking”, as described by Evans, fascinating and also incredibly logical. For instance, the conquest of the entire world by Napoleon, as set out by a French admirer of Napoleon Louis Geoffrey, is more an alternative history than a true counterfactual due to it being driven by political motives. In this wishful thinking has clearly played a major part, Evans proves, due to its inclusion of “pseudohistorical inevitability” - one change in the course of history led inexorably to a whole long chain of subsequent events, and becomes a “uchronie” (a utopia of a past time) caused by nostalgia and a regret for a history that had taken the wrong turn. Evans’ discussion of the complete implausibility of such chains is intellectual and helps guide the reader by showing the challenges facing the counterfactual historian: such large historical chains cannot be seen as “true” counterfactuals as the further the historian gets from the “point de scission” the less evidence there is to support the argument and the more alternatives there become (and therefore the more implausible it becomes). These long chains, Evans argues, become inevitabilist, as they completely ignore chance and contingency later on in the altered reality. Extrapolating alternate history beyond the borders of what can be ‘proved’ with evidence is dangerous and seriously undermines the counterfactual argument, but is naturally very difficult to judge: at what point do historians say “we cannot go any further with this counterfactual without chance becoming too great a factor”? As Megill suggests: “contingency cuts two ways” - if we have a chance occurrence at the start then we must naturally have it in the early, middle and late stages as well. But in order to make a counterfactual meaningful we must assume that there were no other random events that shook up the course of history due to someone being in a different place/frame of mind I.e. we must, to a certain extent, ignore the later contingencies.
Wishful thinking is the bane of counterfactual history, especially due to historians trying to rewrite the past ‘in the way they would have done it’: i.e. the historian is naturally going to suggest that “if this individual had done THIS instead of THAT he would have been much better off”. But in this way the historians are placing a personality change on their subjects - “if this person had done this” seemingly ignores the fact that that person DIDN’T do that because their personality made them do one thing rather than another.
Evans ties the study of counterfactuals into a chronological account of historiography in the 20th century, which is incredibly useful in determining the motives behind particular counterfactuals. For instance in the 1920s and 30s there was a rise in the number of counterfactuals being published due to, according to Evans, the uncertainties and anxieties of British politics at this time. Or in 1961 the essay “If Hitler Had Won WWII” by American journalist William L Shirer was intended to reawaken American memories of the Holocaust at a time when Adolf Eichmann was being tried in Jerusalem, and “If I Had Been ... Ten Historical Fantasies” published in 1979 by historian Daniel Snowman fell into a period of uncertainty and ‘self-examination’ that prevailed in the 1970s. Similarly the emergence of post-modernism blurs the boundaries of factual, fiction and counter-factual (although Evans’ notions that people are now learning about medieval Europe from Lord of the Rings seems a bit far-fetched). The Anglo-American dominance of counterfactuals based on had the Nazis won the war was due to them being on the winning side of the war (therefore showing why the war was worth fighting) and because neither country had been under direct Nazi occupation, and therefore could only imagine what occupation by a hostile power would be like, Evans also argues. Evans’ examinations of the many different counterfactuals and alternative realities centred on WWII are well-researched and help show a diverse range of the uses of counterfactuals for various political agendas, and how counterfactuals can have many different guises depending on their uses e.g. conspiracy theories.
One of the biggest issues faced by those attempting to envisage an ‘altered past’ is the focus on “great men”, suggests Evans, as by placing precedence on these individuals’ actions the role of impersonal factors and wider context is downplayed. Therefore these counterfactuals threaten to reduce everything to a matter of chance, as opposed to greater political/social/cultural movements. Evans therefore suggests that counterfactuals have been mainly the realm of the conservative historian who emphasises the role of the contingent as opposed to those on the left who emphasise inevitability and determinism in historical causation. Yet, interestingly, Evans argues that most practising Marxist historians perfectly understand the need for chance and contingency: Marx’s arguments about free will suggest that “People make their own history ... but under circumstances directly found to be already there, given and transmitted from the past” (I.e. the individual may make choices, but these choices are relatively limited due to wider contextual factors, and therefore his views are not polarised at all, as some conservative historians would suggest). Personally I believe there is no reason why counterfactuals should be reduced to only one side of the political spectrum, as surely the whole point of a “What if” question is not to create a wildly imaginative and ‘fun’ alternative reality but to weigh up the different factors that caused something to come to pass and to therefore come to a conclusion about the importance of wider context compared to the choices available to an individual - but this should naturally differ with each particular case. Evans suggests that in order to create a counterfactual we have to say that the condition or cause that we are altering was the decisive one, but this does not necessarily have to be the case. Indeed, surely the POINT of a counterfactual is to to determine whether or not that cause was decisive or not, or where it stands in the hierarchy of causation. Similarly, when Evans suggests that counterfactuals preach a history where politics and warfare are of greatest importance, I must challenge this suggestion: there is NO reason why this must be the case, it simply is the case in the counterfactuals that have already been written.
I would have liked to see Evans discuss some of the positives of counterfactuals (how they have been used effectively to understand more about a particular period for instance), as the majority of what Evans includes are negatives of counterfactuals and how they can be easily undermined.
Be warned that Evans focusses primarily on WWII (in which he is a specialist). This is not a major issue as there is a wealth of counterfactuals about this period, as well as altered histories and fictions. Using this period actually aids the book significantly as it allows Evans to show all the issues surrounding counterfactuals in the discussion of one particular historical period, rather than dotting about all over the place. Be aware, though, that if you’re looking for a wide variety of counterfactuals this isn’t the book for you (apart from a few references to the Armada, the Gunpowder plot and Napoleon the book is sparse in terms of actual examples).
Indeed the book is designed not to explore examples of counterfactuals, but to use such examples to explain why there are inextricable problems with the discipline.
I was, however, rather disappointed with Evans’ conclusion: that counterfactuals are in fact of little use to historians, and should instead be used to discuss the counterfactual side of history as a whole phenomenon. This, in my opinion, is a shame as though, as Evans so eruditely discussed in this book, counterfactual historians are faced with a myriad of problems when constructing their arguments, this does not mean that asking “What if” questions are not important (or indeed vital) to certain historical studies.
Personally I believe that counterfactuals are a fascinating way of viewing history that can provide crucial answers to questions historians pose about their periods of time, enabling them to understand an era/topic more. For instance, asking the question “What if Henry VIII had not fallen in love with Anne Boleyn?” is a vital question historians of the Reformation must ask in order to comprehend whether the Reformation was caused by top-down or bottom-up historical change (or a combination of both). Obviously this question poses challenges that Evans has discussed: what is to say that Henry falling in love with Anne Boleyn was a “random” event and not a sincerely natural occurrence, why is Henry’s divorce being separated from wider contextual factors when a major factor in the need for the divorce was Henry’s deep piety and aggravation over the political power of the church (both factors in the Reformation), and how far can we extrapolate before we fall into wishful-thinking - surely Henry would have simply fallen in love with someone else as he consistently did throughout his reign?
Evans’ scepticism is naturally appropriate when dealing with this area of history (it is, after all, prone to be corrupted by the individual political motives of the historian involved), however I feel that his ending is notably very conclusive, leaving little room for any other conclusion: he ends with a quote by Walther Rathenau that states that “History ... speaks of what is and what was, not what would be and what would have been”. But (as Evans himself noted earlier in his book) to the contemporaries the future was uncertain: to ignore this would be to suggest that the factor of indecision is irrelevant. In fact it is incredibly important to remember that those in positions of power who had to make crucial decisions, or who (may) have had the power to change the course of global history, may not have taken the paths they did, and this is vital to understanding those periods of time.
This being said I would recommend this book to anyone considering the study of counterfactuals, or merely an interest in the subject.
“Altered Pasts” by Richard Evans is an excellent review of the subject of counterfactual history - it’s pros and cons and overall uses.
The book is separated into four sections.
Part One is entitled “Wishful Thinking” and covers the history of counterfactuals and why they had a revival in Britain and the US in the 1990s and 2000s, Part Two is called “Virtual History” and discusses the arguments for and against the genre, Part Three is “Future Fictions” which looks at the different ways counterfactuals have been used/the forms they can take, whilst Part Four attempts to conclude the arguments and reach a decision about the usefulness of counterfactuals. (The lack of chapters is admittedly quite tedious, especially seeing as the same theme continues throughout each section without breaks, and the sections do also share topics and are slightly confused, but this is being hyper-critical).
I found the concepts of “wishful thinking”, as described by Evans, fascinating and also incredibly logical. For instance, the conquest of the entire world by Napoleon, as set out by a French admirer of Napoleon Louis Geoffrey, is more an alternative history than a true counterfactual due to it being driven by political motives. In this wishful thinking has clearly played a major part, Evans proves, due to its inclusion of “pseudohistorical inevitability” - one change in the course of history led inexorably to a whole long chain of subsequent events, and becomes a “uchronie” (a utopia of a past time) caused by nostalgia and a regret for a history that had taken the wrong turn. Evans’ discussion of the complete implausibility of such chains is intellectual and helps guide the reader by showing the challenges facing the counterfactual historian: such large historical chains cannot be seen as “true” counterfactuals as the further the historian gets from the “point de scission” the less evidence there is to support the argument and the more alternatives there become (and therefore the more implausible it becomes). These long chains, Evans argues, become inevitabilist, as they completely ignore chance and contingency later on in the altered reality. Extrapolating alternate history beyond the borders of what can be ‘proved’ with evidence is dangerous and seriously undermines the counterfactual argument, but is naturally very difficult to judge: at what point do historians say “we cannot go any further with this counterfactual without chance becoming too great a factor”? As Megill suggests: “contingency cuts two ways” - if we have a chance occurrence at the start then we must naturally have it in the early, middle and late stages as well. But in order to make a counterfactual meaningful we must assume that there were no other random events that shook up the course of history due to someone being in a different place/frame of mind I.e. we must, to a certain extent, ignore the later contingencies.
Wishful thinking is the bane of counterfactual history, especially due to historians trying to rewrite the past ‘in the way they would have done it’: i.e. the historian is naturally going to suggest that “if this individual had done THIS instead of THAT he would have been much better off”. But in this way the historians are placing a personality change on their subjects - “if this person had done this” seemingly ignores the fact that that person DIDN’T do that because their personality made them do one thing rather than another.
Evans ties the study of counterfactuals into a chronological account of historiography in the 20th century, which is incredibly useful in determining the motives behind particular counterfactuals. For instance in the 1920s and 30s there was a rise in the number of counterfactuals being published due to, according to Evans, the uncertainties and anxieties of British politics at this time. Or in 1961 the essay “If Hitler Had Won WWII” by American journalist William L Shirer was intended to reawaken American memories of the Holocaust at a time when Adolf Eichmann was being tried in Jerusalem, and “If I Had Been ... Ten Historical Fantasies” published in 1979 by historian Daniel Snowman fell into a period of uncertainty and ‘self-examination’ that prevailed in the 1970s. Similarly the emergence of post-modernism blurs the boundaries of factual, fiction and counter-factual (although Evans’ notions that people are now learning about medieval Europe from Lord of the Rings seems a bit far-fetched). The Anglo-American dominance of counterfactuals based on had the Nazis won the war was due to them being on the winning side of the war (therefore showing why the war was worth fighting) and because neither country had been under direct Nazi occupation, and therefore could only imagine what occupation by a hostile power would be like, Evans also argues. Evans’ examinations of the many different counterfactuals and alternative realities centred on WWII are well-researched and help show a diverse range of the uses of counterfactuals for various political agendas, and how counterfactuals can have many different guises depending on their uses e.g. conspiracy theories.
One of the biggest issues faced by those attempting to envisage an ‘altered past’ is the focus on “great men”, suggests Evans, as by placing precedence on these individuals’ actions the role of impersonal factors and wider context is downplayed. Therefore these counterfactuals threaten to reduce everything to a matter of chance, as opposed to greater political/social/cultural movements. Evans therefore suggests that counterfactuals have been mainly the realm of the conservative historian who emphasises the role of the contingent as opposed to those on the left who emphasise inevitability and determinism in historical causation. Yet, interestingly, Evans argues that most practising Marxist historians perfectly understand the need for chance and contingency: Marx’s arguments about free will suggest that “People make their own history ... but under circumstances directly found to be already there, given and transmitted from the past” (I.e. the individual may make choices, but these choices are relatively limited due to wider contextual factors, and therefore his views are not polarised at all, as some conservative historians would suggest). Personally I believe there is no reason why counterfactuals should be reduced to only one side of the political spectrum, as surely the whole point of a “What if” question is not to create a wildly imaginative and ‘fun’ alternative reality but to weigh up the different factors that caused something to come to pass and to therefore come to a conclusion about the importance of wider context compared to the choices available to an individual - but this should naturally differ with each particular case. Evans suggests that in order to create a counterfactual we have to say that the condition or cause that we are altering was the decisive one, but this does not necessarily have to be the case. Indeed, surely the POINT of a counterfactual is to to determine whether or not that cause was decisive or not, or where it stands in the hierarchy of causation. Similarly, when Evans suggests that counterfactuals preach a history where politics and warfare are of greatest importance, I must challenge this suggestion: there is NO reason why this must be the case, it simply is the case in the counterfactuals that have already been written.
I would have liked to see Evans discuss some of the positives of counterfactuals (how they have been used effectively to understand more about a particular period for instance), as the majority of what Evans includes are negatives of counterfactuals and how they can be easily undermined.
Be warned that Evans focusses primarily on WWII (in which he is a specialist). This is not a major issue as there is a wealth of counterfactuals about this period, as well as altered histories and fictions. Using this period actually aids the book significantly as it allows Evans to show all the issues surrounding counterfactuals in the discussion of one particular historical period, rather than dotting about all over the place. Be aware, though, that if you’re looking for a wide variety of counterfactuals this isn’t the book for you (apart from a few references to the Armada, the Gunpowder plot and Napoleon the book is sparse in terms of actual examples).
Indeed the book is designed not to explore examples of counterfactuals, but to use such examples to explain why there are inextricable problems with the discipline.
I was, however, rather disappointed with Evans’ conclusion: that counterfactuals are in fact of little use to historians, and should instead be used to discuss the counterfactual side of history as a whole phenomenon. This, in my opinion, is a shame as though, as Evans so eruditely discussed in this book, counterfactual historians are faced with a myriad of problems when constructing their arguments, this does not mean that asking “What if” questions are not important (or indeed vital) to certain historical studies.
Personally I believe that counterfactuals are a fascinating way of viewing history that can provide crucial answers to questions historians pose about their periods of time, enabling them to understand an era/topic more. For instance, asking the question “What if Henry VIII had not fallen in love with Anne Boleyn?” is a vital question historians of the Reformation must ask in order to comprehend whether the Reformation was caused by top-down or bottom-up historical change (or a combination of both). Obviously this question poses challenges that Evans has discussed: what is to say that Henry falling in love with Anne Boleyn was a “random” event and not a sincerely natural occurrence, why is Henry’s divorce being separated from wider contextual factors when a major factor in the need for the divorce was Henry’s deep piety and aggravation over the political power of the church (both factors in the Reformation), and how far can we extrapolate before we fall into wishful-thinking - surely Henry would have simply fallen in love with someone else as he consistently did throughout his reign?
Evans’ scepticism is naturally appropriate when dealing with this area of history (it is, after all, prone to be corrupted by the individual political motives of the historian involved), however I feel that his ending is notably very conclusive, leaving little room for any other conclusion: he ends with a quote by Walther Rathenau that states that “History ... speaks of what is and what was, not what would be and what would have been”. But (as Evans himself noted earlier in his book) to the contemporaries the future was uncertain: to ignore this would be to suggest that the factor of indecision is irrelevant. In fact it is incredibly important to remember that those in positions of power who had to make crucial decisions, or who (may) have had the power to change the course of global history, may not have taken the paths they did, and this is vital to understanding those periods of time.
This being said I would recommend this book to anyone considering the study of counterfactuals, or merely an interest in the subject.
February 10, 2024
"Was wäre gewesen, wenn...?" ist eine in historischen Zusammenhängen reizvolle Frage, die insbesondere die fiktionale Literatur immer wieder auf mehr oder weniger unterhaltsame Art befeuert hat. Kontrafaktische Geschichtsschreibung befasst sich damit, was geschehen wäre, wären bestimmte, weichenstellende Ereignisse nicht eingetreten oder anders verlaufen. Auf wissenschaftlicher Ebene sind der Seriosität solcher Überlegungen sehr enge Grenzen gesetzt, wenn sie überhaupt irgendeinen Nutzen hervorbringen. Evans zufolge entsprechen sie meist einem konservativen Geschichtsbild, das die Historie als Resultat des Wirkens "großer Männer" wie Napoleon oder Bismarck betrachtet, deren Handlungen als derart wirkmächtig eingeschätzt werden, dass die Veränderung einer einzelnen Stellschraube eine von den Historikern konstruierte alternative "Timeline" entstehen lässt, die sich von der unseren fundamental unterscheidet. Diese Sichtweise ignoriert, dass historische Entwicklungen nie monokausal erklärbar, sondern Resultat von Strukturen, Ideologien, Mentalitäten, Interessen sind, so dass die Dinge wahrscheinlich auch ohne die entsprechende Veränderung gekommen wären wie sie gekommen sind: Auch ohne den Mord an Franz Ferdinand wäre es zum Ersten Weltkrieg gekommen, auch ohne Hitler wäre die Weimarer Republik gescheitert. Evans zeigt auf, dass hinter derlei Überlegungen eine politisch konservative Agenda steht. So speisen sich z.B. die vielen Spekulationen über einen Sieg der Nazis im Zweiten Weltkrieg, die sich in England um 1990 häufen, aus der Angst vor einem "Vierten Reich" nach der deutschen Wiedervereinigung bzw. vor einer deutschen Dominanz im vereinigten Europa, die Neutralität Großbritanniens im Ersten Weltkrieg hätte den Zerfall des Empires verhindert usw. Evans stellt die Überlegungen der "Kontrafaktualisten" aufs Ausfühlrichste dar, manche sind wohl auch nur halb ernst gemeint (die Umstellung auf Rechtsverkehr bewirkt in GB ein Blutbad), manche schlichtweg gaga (Verschwörungstheorien um das Überleben Hitlers). Hier hätte Evans allerdings schärfer differenzieren können zwischen reiner Unterhaltung, Wissenschaft mit seriösem Anspruch und Verschwörungsfantasie. Letztlich läuft kontrafaktische Geschichtsschreibung jedoch immer auf die Fantasie, das Wunschdenken der Urheber heraus.
March 10, 2021
If you're interested in alternative history as a way of studying history rather than a genre of fiction, this book is essential because it argues and arguably proves that counterfactuals don't really have a lot of scientific or technical value in terms of historiography.
It's a beautiful study on conservative counterfactuals with a hint of historical methodology. I probably underlined the whole book despite disagreeing with Richard J. Evans on some aspects.
Fun read anyway, definitely recommended.
It's a beautiful study on conservative counterfactuals with a hint of historical methodology. I probably underlined the whole book despite disagreeing with Richard J. Evans on some aspects.
Fun read anyway, definitely recommended.
December 30, 2017
Chapter 1 entitled "Wishful Thinking" is a brief history of counterfactual history. While there were earlier attempts, the discipline grew up in the 19th century after the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire. This first chapter leads up to the appearance of Ferguson's Virtual History in 1997.
The second chapter digs into Ferguson's Virtual History and the ties it has (and doesn't have) to other histographic volumes. This chapter is more of an extended review of the volume and some of its contributors (and other counterfactual historians). Evans notes and makes a strong case for counterfactual history being: 1) written by political conservatives (no matter their nationality); 2) a response to deterministic and Marxist histories; and 3) the arbitrainess of counterfactualism. As a practical exercise, Evans tackles Ferguson's counterfactual of the British being neutral in WW I.
Chapter 3, "Future Fictions", takes a look at some of the fictional counterfactuals that appeared over the past few years. The focus seems to be on "what if the Nazis won WW II?"
Sadly, Dick's Man in the High Castle gets only brief mention, while there is a fair amount of attention devoted to Sansom's Dominion. Evans points out what makes a lot of the books reviewed in this chapter fiction, is that unlike true counterfactual history they do not look for causes or casual relationships.
Evans saves the bulk of the criticism of Ferguson and other counterfactualists for the final chapter. Given his strength in German historiography, Evans focuses on the faulty logic of the counterfactualists on the rise of Germany, WW1 and WW2. While knocking away at some of the fallacies posed by the counterfactual, Evans also takes many counterfactual historians to task
for: 1) mixing academic arguments with entertainment; 2) buying into determinism once the counterfactual event occurs (something they criticize other historians for); 3) evoking a very value laden historiography (often with a conservative bent); and 4) restoring history to being the result of "great men". Evans also makes a very salient point on counterfactuals: "...the choice is the outcome of the historian's intention, political oreintation, factual knowledge and contemporary context."
In conclusion Evans notes (p. 176): "Far from demonstrating 'how central counterfactual framing should be to serious historical research,' as Parker and Tetlock have claimed, I hope I have shown that it is not central at all, but marginal. It can be useful under certain strictly limited conditions
and with strictly limited purposes, [...], but of little real use in the study of the past."
No disagreement from me!
The second chapter digs into Ferguson's Virtual History and the ties it has (and doesn't have) to other histographic volumes. This chapter is more of an extended review of the volume and some of its contributors (and other counterfactual historians). Evans notes and makes a strong case for counterfactual history being: 1) written by political conservatives (no matter their nationality); 2) a response to deterministic and Marxist histories; and 3) the arbitrainess of counterfactualism. As a practical exercise, Evans tackles Ferguson's counterfactual of the British being neutral in WW I.
Chapter 3, "Future Fictions", takes a look at some of the fictional counterfactuals that appeared over the past few years. The focus seems to be on "what if the Nazis won WW II?"
Sadly, Dick's Man in the High Castle gets only brief mention, while there is a fair amount of attention devoted to Sansom's Dominion. Evans points out what makes a lot of the books reviewed in this chapter fiction, is that unlike true counterfactual history they do not look for causes or casual relationships.
Evans saves the bulk of the criticism of Ferguson and other counterfactualists for the final chapter. Given his strength in German historiography, Evans focuses on the faulty logic of the counterfactualists on the rise of Germany, WW1 and WW2. While knocking away at some of the fallacies posed by the counterfactual, Evans also takes many counterfactual historians to task
for: 1) mixing academic arguments with entertainment; 2) buying into determinism once the counterfactual event occurs (something they criticize other historians for); 3) evoking a very value laden historiography (often with a conservative bent); and 4) restoring history to being the result of "great men". Evans also makes a very salient point on counterfactuals: "...the choice is the outcome of the historian's intention, political oreintation, factual knowledge and contemporary context."
In conclusion Evans notes (p. 176): "Far from demonstrating 'how central counterfactual framing should be to serious historical research,' as Parker and Tetlock have claimed, I hope I have shown that it is not central at all, but marginal. It can be useful under certain strictly limited conditions
and with strictly limited purposes, [...], but of little real use in the study of the past."
No disagreement from me!
June 30, 2020
"It can be useful under certain strictly limited conditions and with strictly limited purposes, but surveying what is by now a very voluminous literature with hundreds of cases in print, the conclusion surely has to be that it is most useful, and most interesting, as a phenomenon in itself, as part of a modern and contemporary intellectual and political history, worthy of study in its own right, but of little real use in the serious study of the past."
Thus does this book end. Basically, "Why did you waste your time and money on this book?" Gee, thanks. I'm so glad I spent the past two weeks trying understand why a pre-eminent British expert on Nazi Germany can kick around the pompous "counterfactuals" (where a writer would always use "alternate history") in order to slam his political-historian opponents (whom he derides as having written "parallel history" and not true "counterfactual." (At least he mentioned, Philip K Dick -- finally! -- about a page from the end. Smh.)
A much less useful book that I was led to imagine by its description. Fortunately, an easy read, but far too much about Nazi Germany (obviously, since that is the author's speciality) and 1970s/1980s England (obviously, since he is British). How about the rest of the world, huh?
My overall rating: Unless you are a Nazi Germany historian, pass on this.
Thus does this book end. Basically, "Why did you waste your time and money on this book?" Gee, thanks. I'm so glad I spent the past two weeks trying understand why a pre-eminent British expert on Nazi Germany can kick around the pompous "counterfactuals" (where a writer would always use "alternate history") in order to slam his political-historian opponents (whom he derides as having written "parallel history" and not true "counterfactual." (At least he mentioned, Philip K Dick -- finally! -- about a page from the end. Smh.)
A much less useful book that I was led to imagine by its description. Fortunately, an easy read, but far too much about Nazi Germany (obviously, since that is the author's speciality) and 1970s/1980s England (obviously, since he is British). How about the rest of the world, huh?
My overall rating: Unless you are a Nazi Germany historian, pass on this.
June 8, 2024
This is the second time I have read this book, and I had a much better appreciation of the book compared to the first time.
This is a unique book, in that it’s about in some sense a history of a movement within history, and who its practitioners are. Evans essentially writes about why it is difficult to take counterfactuals as a serious and legitimate tool for doing history, and his argument was pretty convincing.
I personally always considered counterfactuals to be the purview of fiction writers so to know that there are professional historians (usually of the right wing variety) who treats this very seriously was rather strange to me.
Evans amassed a lot of material to put forward his point as to why counterfactuals are unnecessary and counterproductive to the business of doing history. In fact the final two pages of the book sums up succinctly why this is so, and one quote he used pretty much conveys the problem with counterfactuals as serious historical business - “[counterfactuals] serves as an excellent guide to the prejudices and interests of the historian asking them.
This book is not for everyone but for those interested in looking into a particular aspect of the writing of history, this book by a master historian will be worth your while.
This is a unique book, in that it’s about in some sense a history of a movement within history, and who its practitioners are. Evans essentially writes about why it is difficult to take counterfactuals as a serious and legitimate tool for doing history, and his argument was pretty convincing.
I personally always considered counterfactuals to be the purview of fiction writers so to know that there are professional historians (usually of the right wing variety) who treats this very seriously was rather strange to me.
Evans amassed a lot of material to put forward his point as to why counterfactuals are unnecessary and counterproductive to the business of doing history. In fact the final two pages of the book sums up succinctly why this is so, and one quote he used pretty much conveys the problem with counterfactuals as serious historical business - “[counterfactuals] serves as an excellent guide to the prejudices and interests of the historian asking them.
This book is not for everyone but for those interested in looking into a particular aspect of the writing of history, this book by a master historian will be worth your while.
September 14, 2018
The Might Have Beens
In this brief but delightfully readable book, WWII historian Richard Evans takes us on a tour of speculative alternate histories of the Western world yielding interesting perspectives as to the nature of historical explanations. Some focus on pivotal figures or decisions where the hinge of history depends on single individual. What if Lord Edward Grey had held back on having Britain enter WW I in defense of Belgium - would Germany have won quickly and established an early version of the common market. What if Napoleon had won at Waterloo or Lenin had survived perhaps preventing the regime of Stalin. Or more trivially, if Cleopatra's nose was a bit shorter - assuming power itself was not an aphrodisiac, would Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony dealt differently with Egypt. What if Fidel Castro had accepted (the very real) offer to play baseball for the New York Giants or the Archduke Ferdinand had not taken a wrong turn in Sarajevo. Such cases follow the Great Man (rarely Woman) notion affirming that it is the significant actions or placement of individuals that makes a difference.
In other cases the pivot rests less on individual decisions rather the outcome of specific events. Common themes are having the South win the civil war, good weather allowing the Spanish Armada to conquer England, usually restoring it to Catholicism or if the Franks had lost to the Ummayads leading to an Islamified Europe. These alternities have a tendency towards historical healing, the present, though slightly changed, is, for the most part recognizable versions of our own. The message is that there is an underlying historical current, usually towards progressivism, that cannot be changed.
However Evans is not a fan of the genre. He sees the former as an indulgence and an entertainment rather than an explanation in that the historian uses the historical figure as an avatar for his own political views as to what decisions should have been made or outcomes would have been most desirable. The latter expresses a longing for the comfort for historic determinism over randomness, an absolutism where God or Allah who knows the outcome in advance gets replaced by a History that does the same.
Not surprisingly a large number of these fantasies centre around Nazism and Hitler. But why not portray a successful Marxism instead? Evans notes that such explorations are usually British or American and emphasize an anxiety over how narrow the Allied victory actually was. Usually it's Hollywood that generates these fictions. For Germans the temptation to visualize a Nazi victory is morally suspect and Europeans in general (thus far) need no fictional reminder of the horrors of Nazi occupation.
Evans briefly considers science fiction. There's an intriguing reference to Murray Leinster's 1934 short story Sideways in Time, and Philip K. Dick's seminal The Man in the High Castle, but no mention of the prolific Harry Turtledove (who admittedly inserts aliens into the mix), or Asimov's quasi-deterministic idea of psychohistory. He also considers conspiracy theories as examples where some people believe that they are actually living in the alternate timeline.
It's a good read with lots of interesting tidbits of historical information to go along with the speculation.
Recommended.
In this brief but delightfully readable book, WWII historian Richard Evans takes us on a tour of speculative alternate histories of the Western world yielding interesting perspectives as to the nature of historical explanations. Some focus on pivotal figures or decisions where the hinge of history depends on single individual. What if Lord Edward Grey had held back on having Britain enter WW I in defense of Belgium - would Germany have won quickly and established an early version of the common market. What if Napoleon had won at Waterloo or Lenin had survived perhaps preventing the regime of Stalin. Or more trivially, if Cleopatra's nose was a bit shorter - assuming power itself was not an aphrodisiac, would Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony dealt differently with Egypt. What if Fidel Castro had accepted (the very real) offer to play baseball for the New York Giants or the Archduke Ferdinand had not taken a wrong turn in Sarajevo. Such cases follow the Great Man (rarely Woman) notion affirming that it is the significant actions or placement of individuals that makes a difference.
In other cases the pivot rests less on individual decisions rather the outcome of specific events. Common themes are having the South win the civil war, good weather allowing the Spanish Armada to conquer England, usually restoring it to Catholicism or if the Franks had lost to the Ummayads leading to an Islamified Europe. These alternities have a tendency towards historical healing, the present, though slightly changed, is, for the most part recognizable versions of our own. The message is that there is an underlying historical current, usually towards progressivism, that cannot be changed.
However Evans is not a fan of the genre. He sees the former as an indulgence and an entertainment rather than an explanation in that the historian uses the historical figure as an avatar for his own political views as to what decisions should have been made or outcomes would have been most desirable. The latter expresses a longing for the comfort for historic determinism over randomness, an absolutism where God or Allah who knows the outcome in advance gets replaced by a History that does the same.
Not surprisingly a large number of these fantasies centre around Nazism and Hitler. But why not portray a successful Marxism instead? Evans notes that such explorations are usually British or American and emphasize an anxiety over how narrow the Allied victory actually was. Usually it's Hollywood that generates these fictions. For Germans the temptation to visualize a Nazi victory is morally suspect and Europeans in general (thus far) need no fictional reminder of the horrors of Nazi occupation.
Evans briefly considers science fiction. There's an intriguing reference to Murray Leinster's 1934 short story Sideways in Time, and Philip K. Dick's seminal The Man in the High Castle, but no mention of the prolific Harry Turtledove (who admittedly inserts aliens into the mix), or Asimov's quasi-deterministic idea of psychohistory. He also considers conspiracy theories as examples where some people believe that they are actually living in the alternate timeline.
It's a good read with lots of interesting tidbits of historical information to go along with the speculation.
Recommended.
May 2, 2019
Richard Evans is an excellent historian with a broad-based background and strong command of his discipline. His book, "Altered Pasts," is an engaging look into the development and growth of what he calls, "The counterfactuals in history." In laymen's language, we would describe this as the "What if?" question, as we examine and discuss historical events and their outcomes, repercussions and unintended consequences.
In many ways, this is a very timely book. Today, we are seeing on a global basis the re-writing of history with the purpose and goal being to create mythologies, perceptions and new historical understandings that oftentimes really belong in the counterfactuals' box. Richard Evans, in his excellent survey, touches on and delves into the use and abuses that can be intentionally put into play for the benefit and gain of political parties and their leaders.
The "what-ifs" of history make for enjoyable story-telling and enlivened discussions. Richard Evans' book brings with its examination of counterfactuals in history, the important reality that one must always be grounded in facts, and alert to the traps of mythology.
In many ways, this is a very timely book. Today, we are seeing on a global basis the re-writing of history with the purpose and goal being to create mythologies, perceptions and new historical understandings that oftentimes really belong in the counterfactuals' box. Richard Evans, in his excellent survey, touches on and delves into the use and abuses that can be intentionally put into play for the benefit and gain of political parties and their leaders.
The "what-ifs" of history make for enjoyable story-telling and enlivened discussions. Richard Evans' book brings with its examination of counterfactuals in history, the important reality that one must always be grounded in facts, and alert to the traps of mythology.
May 18, 2023
Contrafactuales es un libro de ensayo que repasa todos aquellos trabajos de especulación histórica, es decir, cuando los historiadores se ponen a imaginar qué hubiera pasado si un evento fuera diferente a como se dio o si un personaje actuara de otra forma.
Pensé que iba a mostrar todos esos ejemplos, pero la verdad solo hace un análisis de obras que tienen un peso basado en el análisis de contextos sociales y económicos. Aún así, Evans critica que la mayoría de las veces pensamos en la historia con explicaciones monocausales. Y no, si quitamos un factor o una persona, posiblemente no cambiaría mucho el resultado de un hecho histórico.
Entonces, imaginar qué pasaría si Hitler hubiera ganado la II Guerra Mundial es riquísimo para la ficción, pero para la historia es un tema ocioso. Pero sin duda, es relevante que existan estos trabajos de imaginación porque dicen algo sobre nuestra manía de querer cambiar la historia y de entender que pudo ser otra nuestra realidad.
Pensé que iba a mostrar todos esos ejemplos, pero la verdad solo hace un análisis de obras que tienen un peso basado en el análisis de contextos sociales y económicos. Aún así, Evans critica que la mayoría de las veces pensamos en la historia con explicaciones monocausales. Y no, si quitamos un factor o una persona, posiblemente no cambiaría mucho el resultado de un hecho histórico.
Entonces, imaginar qué pasaría si Hitler hubiera ganado la II Guerra Mundial es riquísimo para la ficción, pero para la historia es un tema ocioso. Pero sin duda, es relevante que existan estos trabajos de imaginación porque dicen algo sobre nuestra manía de querer cambiar la historia y de entender que pudo ser otra nuestra realidad.
September 24, 2020
This is a book about the genre of Alternate History, or as the author calls it, Counterfactuals in History. While he makes some excellent points, he misses the most important. Alternate Histories, one of my favorite genres, are written to entertain. The author criticizes the reality of the changes, yet fails to envoke the suspension of reality that is the heart of literature. If you are an alternate history fan, mildly interesting. All others stay away.
February 2, 2025
Me ha decepcionado aunque tiene unas reflexiones generales interesantes y que comparto en su mayoría. Hay un sorpresa que, aunque el tema está escrito por un académico de Historia y habla en muchos partes sobre iguales, no haya introducido en ningún punto las reflexiones de Tolstoi y su visión de la historia.
Hay un punto en este libro que me reafirma en de la propaganda hegemónica post WW2 inyectada por los británicos en las clases populares de los países europeos, cuando la realidad es muy distinta y su cacareado punta de lanza contra el fascismo, nunca existió y es desdeñado y repudiado por parte de su clase alta.
Hay un punto en este libro que me reafirma en de la propaganda hegemónica post WW2 inyectada por los británicos en las clases populares de los países europeos, cuando la realidad es muy distinta y su cacareado punta de lanza contra el fascismo, nunca existió y es desdeñado y repudiado por parte de su clase alta.
October 27, 2018
I bought this book thinking that it's a collection of alternate histories (one of my favourite types of books) but it's actually *about* alternate histories. The author's main contention is that 'alternate history' is not 'serious history' but belongs in the realm of wishful thinking. As a fan of alternate histories, I was initially resistant to his argument but he did convince me in the end. Nevertheless, I'm still not satisfied with the book.
First of all, the book is much too long. It could be cut by at least half and still retain its thesis. Secondly, it seems that he defines 'alternate history' quite narrowly and according to this definition, I can't see any way for his argument to fail. His use of examples also appears to be lopsided as he seems to be choosing historical examples which he has a vast knowledge of (WWII, Nazi Germany) and using his expertise to showcase his arguments. Yes, his examples are convincing, but what about other alternate histories? In addition, I'm not sure if any historian would really think that alternate histories is worthy of serious consideration. The prefaces of collections of alternate history *may* state that they are meant to be taken seriously but surely the authors do know deep-down that they are writing for mainly entertainment purposes?
Ultimately, only read this if you are a fan of alternate history, have no actual alternate histories to read, and are open to your ideas being challenged. I think historians will give it a pass and non-fans will skip it entirely. And if only fans of alternate history will read this book, then it stands a serious chance of offending the readers, or at the very least boring them, since the book is saying that alternate history is not meant to be taken seriously.
First of all, the book is much too long. It could be cut by at least half and still retain its thesis. Secondly, it seems that he defines 'alternate history' quite narrowly and according to this definition, I can't see any way for his argument to fail. His use of examples also appears to be lopsided as he seems to be choosing historical examples which he has a vast knowledge of (WWII, Nazi Germany) and using his expertise to showcase his arguments. Yes, his examples are convincing, but what about other alternate histories? In addition, I'm not sure if any historian would really think that alternate histories is worthy of serious consideration. The prefaces of collections of alternate history *may* state that they are meant to be taken seriously but surely the authors do know deep-down that they are writing for mainly entertainment purposes?
Ultimately, only read this if you are a fan of alternate history, have no actual alternate histories to read, and are open to your ideas being challenged. I think historians will give it a pass and non-fans will skip it entirely. And if only fans of alternate history will read this book, then it stands a serious chance of offending the readers, or at the very least boring them, since the book is saying that alternate history is not meant to be taken seriously.
December 9, 2014
This book is an academic discussion of the uses of alternative history as a method of epistemology. It largely concludes that while the approach is occasionally useful when used under tight 'what if' controls, in practice it tends to reflect more on the times and pretensions of the people writing alternative history than the actual history, alternative or otherwise, being considered.
Read
March 8, 2017This book could not be any more dry and boring. I got through about 75% and hung it up.
Here's what I considered the take-away. One person alone will not / can not drastically change history. Considering everything else that is happening during any given time period, what will happen is going to happen. Just maybe not in the same time frame or to the same degree.
Here's what I considered the take-away. One person alone will not / can not drastically change history. Considering everything else that is happening during any given time period, what will happen is going to happen. Just maybe not in the same time frame or to the same degree.
November 21, 2014
i love the idea of counter factuals , i studied history and like sci fi so whats not to like.
its a good guide to the idea and has some interesting examples however it seems very staid and lacks anything that feels exciting.
May 1, 2014
Made an interesting subject rather boring. And it was pretty obvious that his views is the only right view on the subject. Pretentious, wordy and bitchy. I was basically falling asleep after a page.
June 29, 2014
A quick survey of the varieties of alternate history giving way to a more serious problem: what is their use to history's disciples?
Want to read
July 7, 2019Haven't read it yet but interested readers would do well to consult this excellent review by Cass Sunstein:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/11...
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/11...
July 29, 2016
Very dull, and not the book I thought I was going to get to read. Dry and academic as opposed to imaginative and explorative.
April 14, 2018
Wenig Unterhaltungswert, aber viel Information.
Ausführliche Rezension auf meinem Blog: https://nouw.com/cwidmann/richard-j-e...
Ausführliche Rezension auf meinem Blog: https://nouw.com/cwidmann/richard-j-e...
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