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.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
The best treatment is Jon Elster, Explaining Social Behavior (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
See Jon Elster, Logic and Society (Chichester: Wiley, 1978); David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986).
Philip Tetlock and Aaron Belkin, Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
Robert Fogel, Railroads and American Economic Growth (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964).
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 1558 | 407 | 54 |
Full Text Views | 772 | 357 | 29 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 277 | 117 | 7 |
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.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 1558 | 407 | 54 |
Full Text Views | 772 | 357 | 29 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 277 | 117 | 7 |