A past of possibilities : a history of what could have been / Quentin Deluermoz and Pierre Singaravélou ; translation by Stephen W. Sawyer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Deluermoz, Quentin, author.

Singaravélou, Pierre, author.

Contributor:

Sawyer, Stephen W., 1974- translator.

Series:

Yale scholarship online.

Yale scholarship online

Standardized Title:

Pour une histoire des possibles. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Imaginary histories.

History--Philosophy.

History.

History--Errors, inventions, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (393 pages)

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2021]

Summary:

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 Singaravelou reach beyond a mere reimagining of history, exploring the limits and potentials of the futures past.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Title

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.

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2021.

Translated from the French.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-300-26285-X

OCLC:

1267766512