WHITHER 'WHAT IF' HISTORY?
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-2014
Abstract
Richard Evans’s new book, Altered Pasts, offers a perceptive but flawed critique of the field of counterfactual history. The author provides a useful historical survey of the field’s recent rise to prominence and intelligently analyzes its respective strengths and weaknesses. His overall assessment of the field is quite skeptical, however. Evans cites many reasons for his skepticism, but his overall critique can be summarized in three words: plausibility, politicization, and popularity. Evans faults works of counterfactual history for their frequently implausible narratives, their promotion of political agendas, and their distressing degree of popularity. In advancing his critique, Evans makes many valid observations that call attention to important deficiencies in the field. But his view is a partial one that neglects countervailing evidence and never penetrates to the heart of why the field has left the margins for the mainstream. Evans’s study provides a useful introduction to an understudied topic, but further research—ideally of a less partisan nature—is required for us to better understand counterfactual history’s increasing appeal.
Publication Title
History & Theory
Repository Citation
Rosenfeld, Gavriel D., "WHITHER 'WHAT IF' HISTORY?" (2014). History Faculty Publications. 104.
https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/history-facultypubs/104
Published Citation
Rosenfeld, Gavriel D. "WHITHER 'WHAT IF' HISTORY?" History & Theory 53, no. 3 (October 2014): 451-467.
DOI
10.1111/hith.10724
Peer Reviewed
Comments
Copyright 2014 Wiley
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