Virtual History: Edited by Niall Ferguson
The last few days I’ve been reading this book on ‘alternatives and counterfactuals’ (to use the phrase on the cover) in history. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term they apply to scenarios like ‘what if Hitler had won the war?’ or ‘what if JFK hadn’t gotten himself shot in the head?’ (both of which are actually in the book).
Unsurprisingly enough, given that these sort of questions tend to be asked by comic-book writers/ bad (and occasionally not-so-bad) science-fiction writers and so on these sort of questions have a poor historical pedigree. Yet as Ferguson himself argues quite well these sort of questions do have value. Somewhat limited value perhaps but still important in their own way. His reason that resonates with me to the greatest degree is the fact that if one accepts that there is no ‘guiding hand’ in history (whether that hand takes the form of god, marxist theory or whatever is really unimportant) then things come down to human decision. And while after the fact there is often the temptation to believe that ‘it had to happen that way’, whether its a case of ’sure she was an awful bitch, how could I ever have thought of marrying her’ or ‘I should have taken that job’ - there was always a point where you could have chosen otherwise.
And when the articles in that book stick closest to this they work best. As a result of this the authors try (but usually fail) to not go too far into the trap of ‘if x happened then y would have happened leading to z’. This is because this sort of thinking is actually exactly why this sort of experiments have been so dismissed by historians - Ferguson himself (and I’m still not sure if this was the idea) shows this in his afterword to the book ‘A Virtual History: 1646 - 1996′ where using the ideas contained in the book he imagines a continuing Stuart Monarchy continuing, holding onto Amereica and eventually in the 90’s being defeated by a resurgant Russian Tsarist Empire which had been reformed by Stalin (called Tsar Joseph in this timeline). At this point the book degenerates into gibberish science-fiction.
Yet for the most part the book makes a good show of how things ‘didn’t have to be this way’. The essays in the book are;
‘What if Charles the first had avoided the English Civil War?‘ - based around the idea that one of his generals could have beaten the rebels in Scotland early on in the crisis, but chickened out.
‘What if the American Colonies had not rebelled?’ - less unlikely than it sounds as the article shows by quotes from many of the famous names of the American Revolution writing lettters and making speeches where they loudly proclaim their loyalty.
‘What if Home Rule had been passed in 1912?’ - one of the weaker essays, probably because the author seems convinced that the North was doomed to become the warzone it became anyway regardless but still interesting. Also, they seem convinced that Ireland would have abandoned the Crown links regardless which seems a bit ‘deterministic’ too.
‘The Kaisers European Union’ - Imagine if Britain had either come to an alliance with the Germans (as was a serious consideration) or had simply stood aside and let the Germans take over France. One of the best articles of the lot - especially given that its a bit of a hobby-horse of Ferguson’s and so has some of the best thought-out arguments.
‘Hitlers England‘ and ‘Nazi Europe‘ are both a bit ‘meh’ - mainly becuse they lack the same kind of thought that was put into the ‘Kaisers European Union’ idea and unlike the previous four articles are somewhat lacking in documented evidence to suggest any kind of real apprasial. Though the idea that Hitler could have one the war is such an old one that its very hard to do any sort of article on it without it becoming somewhat of a self-parody.
‘Stalins War or Peace’ is also a bit dodgy, mainly because the author fails to really give a single idea relating to how the cold war could have been avoided. Instead they suggest a few ways that Stalin may have behaved differently. But the ideas are a bit too scattered.
‘Camelot Continued’ is … interesting. While the author clearly has a tremendous hatred for JFK they do a pretty good job showing how the ‘Kennedy Myth’ has been created to suggest that the future would have been better if he had lived, the author (nearly despite themselves) manages to show how Kennedy would probably made things worse, especially regarding Vietnam.
The final article ‘1989 Without Gorbachev’ plays with the formula a bit by showing had Gorbachev been more like other Soviet leaders we could still have the USSR today. While other historians suggest that things that are today considered ‘inevitable’ were not, this article shows how things that we think ‘must happen’ need not - no one, or at least no one serious, seriously believed the USSR could collapse as easily as it did.
Anyway, this book is well worth a look as a serious look at the ideas covered. It manages at the very least to show how the idea that it ‘had to be that way’ is the worst kind of history. And while yes, in an acedemic way the use of counterfactuals is of limited use - it is still important to ask these questions even if its just to give ourselves an idea of how nothing is predetermined.