A Past of Possibilities: A History of What Could Have Been

Length: 400 pages
Edition: 1
Language: English
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication Date: 2021-10-12
ISBN-10: 030022754X
ISBN-13: 9780300227543
Sales Rank: #2460074 (See Top 100 Books)

An exploration of hypothetical turning points in history from Ancient Greece to September 11

What if history, as we know it, had run another course? Touching on alternate histories of the future and the past, or uchronias, A Past of Possibilities encourages deeper consideration of watershed moments in the course of history. Wide-ranging in scope, it examines the Boxer Rebellion in China, the 1848 revolution in France, and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, and integrates science fiction, history, historiography, sociology, anthropology, and film. In probing the genre of literature and history that is fascinated with hypotheticals surrounding key points in history, Quentin Deluermoz and Pierre Singaravélou reach beyond a mere reimagining of history, exploring the limits and potentials of the futures past. From the most bizarre fiction to serious scientific hypothesis, they provide a survey of the uses of counterfactual histories, methodological issues on the possible in social sciences, and practical proposals for using alternate histories in research and the wider public.

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Preface: The Dark Energy of History
Introduction: On the Edge of History
Part One: Inquiry
    1   In Thucydides’ Wake: An Ancient and Unknown Genealogy
    2   From Delhi to Vienna: Counterfactual History across the World
    3   From Pterodactyls to Piccadilly Circus: Uchronias of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
    4   The Test of the Social (and Natural) Sciences
Part Two: Decoding
    5   The Historical Imagination and Counterfactual Approaches
    6   Causal Inference and Counterfactual Reasoning
    Interlude: The Dominion of Facts in the Social Sciences
    7   The Past Futures of Others: Counterfactual Reasoning and Historicity
    8   Political Uses of Counterfactual History
Part Three: Experiments
    9   Testing Empire:  Revisiting Western Domination through Counterfactualism and Possible Futures
    10   “Today, Only the Language of Dreams Can Translate History”: Futures of Possibility, Fear, and Hope in 1848
    11   The Console and the Chalkboard: Replaying History, a “Serious Game”?
    12   Writing History Together: A Reflexive and Participative Historical Essay (11/11/11, Grenoble, France)
    Conclusion: Becomings in the World
Notes
Index