Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Inventing counterfactual histories is a common pastime of modern day historians, both amateur and professional. We speculate about an America ruled by Jefferson Davis, a Europe that never threw off Hitler, or a second term for JFK. These narratives are often written off as politically inspired fantasy or as pop culture fodder, but in Telling It Like It Wasn't, Catherine Gallagher takes the history of counterfactual history seriously, pinning it down as an object of dispassionate study. She doesn't take a moral or normative stand on the practice, but focuses her attention on how it works and to what ends-a quest that takes readers on a fascinating tour of literary and historical criticism. Gallagher locates the origins of contemporary counterfactual history in eighteenth-century Europe, where the idea of other possible historical worlds first took hold in philosophical disputes about Providence before being repurposed by military theorists as a tool for improving the art of war. In the next century, counterfactualism became a legal device for deciding liability, and lengthy alternate-history fictions appeared, illustrating struggles for historical justice. These early motivations-for philosophical understanding, military improvement, and historical justice-are still evident today in our fondness for counterfactual tales. Alternate histories of the Civil War and WWII abound, but here, Gallagher shows how the counterfactual habit of replaying the recent past often shapes our understanding of the actual events themselves. The counterfactual mode lets us continue to envision our future by reconsidering the range of previous alternatives. Throughout this engaging and eye-opening book, Gallagher encourages readers to ask important questions about our obsession with counterfactual history and the roots of our tendency to ask "What if...?"

Imaginary histories. --- Alternative histories (Fiction) --- Counterfactuals (Logic) --- History and criticism. --- alternate history. --- alternate-history fiction. --- counterfactual history. --- counterfactuality. --- fictionality. --- history and literature. --- national character.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Inventing counterfactual histories is a common pastime of modern day historians, both amateur and professional. We speculate about an America ruled by Jefferson Davis, a Europe that never threw off Hitler, or a second term for JFK. These narratives are often written off as politically inspired fantasy or as pop culture fodder, but in Telling It Like It Wasn't, Catherine Gallagher takes the history of counterfactual history seriously, pinning it down as an object of dispassionate study. She doesn't take a moral or normative stand on the practice, but focuses her attention on how it works and to what ends-a quest that takes readers on a fascinating tour of literary and historical criticism. Gallagher locates the origins of contemporary counterfactual history in eighteenth-century Europe, where the idea of other possible historical worlds first took hold in philosophical disputes about Providence before being repurposed by military theorists as a tool for improving the art of war. In the next century, counterfactualism became a legal device for deciding liability, and lengthy alternate-history fictions appeared, illustrating struggles for historical justice. These early motivations-for philosophical understanding, military improvement, and historical justice-are still evident today in our fondness for counterfactual tales. Alternate histories of the Civil War and WWII abound, but here, Gallagher shows how the counterfactual habit of replaying the recent past often shapes our understanding of the actual events themselves. The counterfactual mode lets us continue to envision our future by reconsidering the range of previous alternatives. Throughout this engaging and eye-opening book, Gallagher encourages readers to ask important questions about our obsession with counterfactual history and the roots of our tendency to ask "What if...?"

Alternative histories (Fiction) --- Alternative histories (Fiction). --- Counterfactuals (Logic). --- Imaginary histories --- Imaginary histories. --- History and criticism. --- History. --- Fiction --- History as a science --- Psychological study of literature --- Counterfactuals (Logic) --- alternate history. --- alternate-history fiction. --- counterfactual history. --- counterfactuality. --- fictionality. --- history and literature. --- national character.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

The increasingly popular genre of "alternative histories" has captivated audiences by asking questions like "what if the South had won the Civil War?" Such speculation can be instructive, heighten our interest in a topic, and shed light on accepted history. In The Holocaust Averted, Jeffrey Gurock imagines what might have happened to the Jewish community in the United States if the Holocaust had never occurred and forces readers to contemplate how the road to acceptance and empowerment for today's American Jews could have been harder than it actually was. Based on reasonable alternatives grounded in what is known of the time, places, and participants, Gurock presents a concise narrative of his imagined war-time saga and the events that followed Hitler's military failures. While German Jews did suffer under Nazism, the millions of Jews in Eastern Europe survived and were able to maintain their communities. Since few people were concerned with the safety of European Jews, Zionism never became popular in the United States and social antisemitism kept Jews on the margins of society. By the late 1960s, American Jewish communities were far from vibrant. This alternate history-where, among many scenarios, Hitler is assassinated, Japan does not bomb Pearl Harbor, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt is succeeded after two terms by Robert A. Taft-does cause us to review and better appreciate history. As Gurock tells his tale, he concludes every chapter with a short section that describes what actually happened and, thus, further educates the reader.

Jews --- Zionism --- Israel and the diaspora. --- Arab-Israeli conflict --- Zionist movement --- Jewish nationalism --- Israel-Arab conflicts --- Israel-Palestine conflict --- Israeli-Arab conflict --- Israeli-Palestinian conflict --- Jewish-Arab relations --- Palestine-Israel conflict --- Palestine problem (1948- ) --- Palestinian-Israeli conflict --- Palestinian Arabs --- Jewish diaspora --- Politics and government --- History --- Attitudes toward Israel. --- Identity. --- Influence. --- Restoration --- Attitudes toward Israel --- United States --- holocaust, american jew, jewish studies, jewry, new york jews, hitler, world war 2, ww2, WWII, jewish history, alternate history, extermination, germany.