Counterfactual History Research Articles

Three types of Counterfactual History

O artigo inicia-se com uma descrição da abordagem dos modelos causais em história da ciência, discutindo a postulação de histórias contrafactuais na ciência. A seguir, caracterizam-se três tipos diferentes de análises contrafactuais que podem ser feitas em ciências históricas, todas favorecidas pela avaliação retrospectiva. A história econômica e tecnológica é caracterizada pela sua razoável previsibilidade; a história da ciência e da matemática pela sua objetividade; e a terceira classe, que engloba a “história virtual” e a evolução biológica, pela sua vasta amplidão de possibilidades futuras.

Irish consequences of the Great War

AbstractIt is now widely admitted that the Great War was also Ireland’s war, with profound consequences for every element of Irish life after 1914. Its impact may be discerned in aberrant aspects of Ireland’s demographic, economic and social history, as well as in the more familiar political and military convulsions of the war years. This article surveys recent scholarship, assesses statistical evidence of the war’s social and economic impact (both positive and negative), and explores its far-reaching political repercussions. These include the postponement of expected civil conflict, the unexpected occurrence of an unpopular rebellion in 1916, and public response to the consequent coercion. The speculative final section outlines a number of plausible outcomes for Irish history in the absence of war, concluding that no single counterfactual history of a warless Ireland is defensible.

Histoire Imparfaite: Gilote et Johane and the Counterfactual Lessons of Harley 2253

Counterfactualist approaches to the past (e.g., “What if Germany had won WWII?”) are common, if commonly derided, in various subdisciplines of history, and increasingly prevalent in popular film and narrative fiction. Literary criticism, however, has only begun to consider the phenomenon (and medieval studies not at all), despite counterfactual history’s potential for opening up the textual past in new ways. This essay risks the censure of “responsible” historians by asking what implications the interwoven topics of genre prescription, gender ideology, and historical contingency may have for the practice of counterfactual literary history in a specifically medieval context. My case study, drawn from the trilingual miscellany Harley 2253 (c.1330–40), is a scandalously obscure Anglo-Norman bourde (jest, tale) known as Gilote et Johane: a fast-moving, genre-bending hybrid in which two young women debate sexual mores, take lovers, outwit fathers, shout down clergy, advise passing wives, preach their audacious “lesson” to churchfuls of femmes, and finally burst forth from Winchester to spread their mobile erotic doctrine “across all England and Ireland.” As our narrator frames it, the tale is designed to provoke outrage and redoubled vigilance; however, Gilote et Johane’s imagination of an alternative social future enables other, less deterministically “medieval” species of response. Taking seriously the radical counterfactual vision presented by this rollicking “cautionary tale” allows us to reconsider the place of a forgotten poem within a famous manuscript, and within Anglo-Norman and canonical English literary history.

Historical Explanations Always Involve Counterfactual History

Historical explanations are a form of counterfactual history. To offer an explanation of what happened, historians have to identify causes, and whenever they identify causes, they immediately conjure up a counterfactual history, a parallel world. No one doubts that there is a great deal of distance between science fiction novelists and the world’s great historians, but along an important dimension, they are playing the same game.

Hi Hitler!: how the Nazi past is being normalized in contemporary culture

The Third Reich's legacy is in flux. For much of the post-war period, the Nazi era has been viewed moralistically as an exceptional period of history intrinsically different from all others. Since the turn of the millennium, however, this view has been challenged by a powerful wave of normalization. Gavriel D. Rosenfeld charts this important international trend by examining the shifting representation of the Nazi past in contemporary western intellectual and cultural life. Focusing on works of historical scholarship, popular novels, counterfactual histories, feature films, and Internet websites, he identifies notable changes in the depiction of the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the figure of Adolf Hitler himself. By exploring the origins of these works and assessing the controversies they have sparked in the United States and Europe, Hi Hitler! offers a fascinating and timely analysis of the shifting status of the Nazi past in western memory.

Robin Blaser, Jack Spicer, and Arthur Brodeur: avant-garde poetics, the pedagogy of Old English at mid-century, and a counterfactual critical history, or, the importance of a broadly conceived English studies department

This essay explores the encounter of mid-twentieth-century Berkeley Renaissance poets Jack Spicer and Robin Blaser with the criticism and pedagogy of philologist Arthur Brodeur in order to (re)activate a trajectory not yet taken in the study of the aesthetics of Old English poetry.

What lf Brazil Hadn't Floated the Real in 1999?

We estimate a dynamic, stochastic general equilibrium model for the Brazilian economy taking into account the transition from a currency peg to inflation targeting that took place in 1999. The estimated model exhibits quite different dynamic under the two monetary regimes. We use it to the produce counterfactual histories of the transition from one regime to another, given estimated history of structural shocks. Our results suggest that the maintaining the currency peg would have been too costly, as interest rates would have had to remain at extremely high levels for several quarters, and GDP would have collapsed. Accelerating e the pace of nominal exchange rate devaluations after de Asian Crisis would have lead to higher inflation and interest rates, and slightly lower GDP. Finally, the first half of 1998 arguably provided a window of opportunity for a smooth transition between the two monetary regimes.

Possible Worlds of Fiction and History: The Postmodern Stage

Possible Worlds of Fiction and History: The Postmodern Stage

The Other Siege of Vienna and the Ottoman Threat: An Essay in Counter-Factual History

By proposing a counter-factual history in which the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1529 succeeded, this essay attempts to illuminate both the parameters of Ottoman power at that time and the complexity of European politics at the dawn of the Protestant Reformation. As with many attempts at counter-factual history, this exercise seeks to offer a warning against teleological approaches to history in which major events and their outcomes are described as being inevitable.

The Prestige of Violence: American Fiction, 1962–2007 by Sally Bachner, Roth and Trauma: The Problem of History in the Later Works (1995–2010) by Aimee Pozorski

<i>The Prestige of Violence: American Fiction, 1962–2007</i> by Sally Bachner, <i>Roth and Trauma: The Problem of History in the Later Works (1995–2010)</i> by Aimee Pozorski

What If Brazil Hadn't Floated the Real in 1999?

A versao em portugues deste artigo pode ser encontrada em: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2746242We estimate a dynamic, stochastic, general equilibrium model of the Brazilian economy taking into account the transition from a currency peg to inflation targeting that took place in 1999. The estimated model exhibits quite different dynamics under the two monetary regimes. We use it to produce counterfactual histories of the transition from one regime to another, given the estimated history of structural shocks. Our results suggest that maintaining the currency peg would have been too costly, as interest rates would have had to remain at extremely high levels for several quarters, and GDP would have collapsed. Accelerating the pace of nominal exchange rate devaluations after the Asian Crisis would have lead to higher inflation and interest rates, and slightly lower GDP. Finally, the first half of 1998 arguably provided a window of opportunity for a smooth transition between monetary regimes.

What-if history of science

An athlete engages in calisthenics as part of basic training and as a preliminary to more advanced or intense activity. Whether it is stretching, lunges, crunches, or push-ups, routine calisthenics provide a baseline of strength and flexibility that prevent a variety of injuries that might otherwise be incurred. Peter Bowler has spent 40 years doing Darwinian calisthenics, researching and writing on the development of evolutionary ideas with special attention to Darwin and subsequent filiations among scientists exploring evolution (e.g., Bowler 1976, 1983, 1988, 1989, 1996, 2007). Therefore, we would expect that when Bowler engages in a counterfactual history—imagining a world without Darwin—he is able to avoid historical injury and generate novel insights. My assessment is that the results are mixed. Before we can see why, it is necessary to walk briskly through the main contours of his argument.

WHITHER “WHAT IF” HISTORY?

ABSTRACTRichard 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.

Second-Guessing Scientists and Engineers: Post Hoc Criticism and the Reform of Practice in Green Chemistry and Engineering.

The article examines and extends work bringing together engineering ethics and Science and Technology Studies, which had built upon Diane Vaughan's analysis of the Challenger shuttle accident as a test case. Reconsidering the use of her term "normalization of deviance," the article argues for a middle path between moralizing against and excusing away engineering practices contributing to engineering disaster. To explore an illustrative pedagogical case and to suggest avenues for constructive research developing this middle path, it examines the emergence of green chemistry and green engineering. Green chemistry began when Paul Anastas and John Warner developed a set of new rules for chemical synthesis that sought to learn from missed opportunities to avoid environmental damage in the twentieth century, an approach that was soon extended to engineering as well. Examination of tacit assumptions about historical counterfactuals in recent, interdisciplinary discussions of green chemistry illuminate competing views about the field's prospects. An integrated perspective is sought, addressing how both technical practice within chemistry and engineering and the influence of a wider "social movement" can play a role in remedying environmental problems.

Counterfactual History and the History of Technology

Counterfactual History and the History of Technology

In a Future Tense: Immigration Law, Counterfactual Histories, and Chinese Invasion Fiction

In a Future Tense: Immigration Law, Counterfactual Histories, and Chinese Invasion Fiction

Not the Eads Bridge: An Exploration of Counterfactual History of Technology

General readers enjoy counterfactual histories, “what if” scenarios that rewrite history. Academic historians seldom write explicit counterfactuals, despite their value in isolating the causes and contingencies that shaped events. Surprisingly, historians of technology have ignored this analytic tool, even though firms and engineers commonly considered alternative designs and actions while developing a product or technology. This article provides a “constrained counterfactual,” comparing two designs for bridges across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, both proposed in 1867: the Eads Bridge, and the Boomer/Post bridge. It covers three topics: exploring the conventional narratives on the Eads Bridge (completed in 1874); comparing the Eads design to that of the Boomer/Post alternative; and offering a counterfactual service life for that proposed crossing. The article seeks to isolate why James Eads’s design and his company succeeded, and to show the analytic value of counterfactuals for historians of technology.

Possible uses of counterfactual thought experiments in history

Counterfactual thought experiments in history have become increasingly popular in the last two decades, and a new and controversial branch of history has originated from their use: counterfactual history, also known as virtual history. Despite its popularity amongst the general public, most academic historians consider historical counterfactuals as having little epistemic value. This paper investigates three alleged uses of counterfactual thinking in historical explanations: (1) the claim that counterfactual thinking gives historians useful insights; (2) that it is a useful tool to evaluate an event’s causal significance; (3) that it shows much of history to be essentially ‘chaotic’. I argue that only (2) convincingly justifies the use of counterfactual thought experiments in history, as it allows historians to illustrate how they perceive events’ degrees of sensitivity to changes to their causal history, being an important part of providing a causal explanation.

DARWINIAN WE ARE NOT: COUNTERFACTUALISM AS THE NATURAL COURSE OF HISTORY

ABSTRACTThis article considers Peter Bowler's recent contribution to the genre of counterfactual history as exemplifying a “restrained” counterfactual framework, one that must downplay the role of contingency in the historical process in order to present what Bowler calls a more “natural course” of historical development. This restrained counterfactual methodology is discussed with reference to analogous debates within evolutionary science about the competing roles of contingency and convergence in the history of life, along with recent work done within the humanities about the more subtle nuances of counterfactual reasoning. Although there is little doubt that Bowler's study will help legitimize the genre of counterfactual history, it is argued that the role of contingency—once thought to be integral to the counterfactual—has been necessarily minimized in order to construct a narrative that is a plausible counterfactual history of science. It is in this way that Bowler's world without Darwin sheds light on our historiographical preconceptions about what makes for a plausible historical narrative.

State Revenue Forecasts and Political Acceptance: The Value of Consensus Forecasting in the Budget Process

Concerns about political biases in state revenue forecasts, as well as insufficient evidence that complex forecasts outperform naive algorithms, have resulted in a nearly universal call for depoliticization of forecasting. This article discusses revenue forecasting in the broader context of the political budget process and highlights the importance of a forecast that is politically accepted—forecast accuracy is irrelevant if the budget process does not respect the forecast as a resource constraint. The authors provide a case illustration in Indiana by showing how the politicized process contributed to forecast acceptance in the state budget over several decades. They also present a counterfactual history of forecast errors that would have been produced by naive algorithms. In addition to showing that the Indiana process would have outperformed the naive approaches, the authors demonstrate that the path of naive forecast errors during recessions would be easily ignored by political actors.