Other Pasts Different Presents Alternative Futures

<p>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.</p>