Telling it Like it Wasn't

March 2004 · Historically Speaking CouNTERFACTUAL History: A Forum COUNTERFACTUAL HISTORY has become increasingly popular in recentyears. Witness the success ofthe What If?™ series, edited by Robert Cowley. Contributors to these books tend to engage in alternative historical thought experiments such as what might have been the outcome ofa Napoleonic victory at Waterloo, a Chinese discovery ofthe New World in the 15th century, or a Theodore Roosevelt win in the election of1912. Counterfactual history like this ispopular and entertaining, to be sure, but does it contribute to a better understanding ofthepast? One ofthe most thoughtful critics ofcounterfactual history is Cambridge University historian RichardJ. Evans. In his 2002 Butterfield Lecture at The Queen's University in Belfast, he cautioned historians about the dangers of "what if history. Historically Speaking has securedpermission to reprint the abridgedversion ofEvans's ButterfieldLecture that ran in the December 2002 issue ofthe BBC History Magazine. We then assembleda distinguishedpanel to comment on Evans's assessment ofcounterfactual history. Professor Evans concludes theforum with a substantive reply. Telling it Like it WasnV Richard J. Evans WhatifWilliam the Conqueror had lostthe battle ofHastings? Whatif Martin Luther had been burned at the stake in 1 52 1 ? What if the British had managed to hold on to theAmerican colonies in 1776? WhatifNapoleonhad won the battle ofWaterloo? What ifLenin had not died prematurely in 1924 but had lived on for another twentyyears? WhatifGermanyhad succeeded in conquering Britain in 1940? Imagining what might have happened is always fun. A very diverse range of serious and distinguished historians has indulged in this pastime, including GJVl. Trevelyan, Conrad Russell, John Vincent, Hugh TrevorRoper , Geoffrey Parker, Alistair Home, Theodore Rabb, Andrew Roberts, Robert Katz, William H. McNeill, and manyothers. In recent years, it has become increasingly fashionable to engage in such speculation, and collections ofessays have appeared with titles such as IfI Had Been . . . Ten Historical Fantasies, edited byDaniel Snowmanin 1979; Virtual History, edited by Niall Ferguson in 1997; and What If?—The Worlds Foremost Military HistoriansImagine WhatMightHave Been, edited by Robert Cowley in 1998, and so successful that a second volume appeared under the same editor in 2001 with the title More WhatIß Historians have generallythoughtofsuch mind games as entertainments rather than serious intellectual endeavors. The subtitle ofJohn Merriman's collection is Chance and Humour in History, while Robert Cowley opens his latest volume ofspeculations with the complaint that: "One ofthe troubles with history as it is studied today is that people take ittoo seriously." The earliestsuch collection , J.C. Squire's IfIt Happened Otherwise: Lapses into Imaginary History, treated the whole thing as a kind of whimsical parlor game (asNiall Fergusonhas remarked, somewhat disapprovingly). Later collections, notablyJohn Merriman's, do not seem to have escaped very far from such frivolity. Not All Good Clean Fun Yet it's not just all good, clean, or in some cases not so clean fun. "History involving great people or pivotal events," complains Cowley, "is out of fashion. Broad trends, those waves that swell, break, and recede, are everything these days. We are left with the impression that history is inevitable, that whathappened could nothave happened any other way, and that drama and contingency have no place in the general scheme of human existence." The "what if approach, he says, can help restore drama and contingency to the place which they ought rightfully to occupy. Cowley's complaint is, I think, unjustified: historical biography is as alive and flourishing as ever; microhistory has brought a new dimension ofthe personal and the particularinto historical writing; and broad trends and ideas of historical inevitability are more out offashion than in. Yet, in my admittedly rather old-fashioned 1TlUs essay is an abridged version ofProfessor Evans's Butterfield Lecture given at The Queens University, Belfast in October 2002. It was published in the December 2002 issue of the BBC History Magazine and appears in these pages with the permission ofthe editors and author. 1 2 Historically Speaking March 2004 view, there are broad general reasons for the proliferation of"what if histories in recent years; the appearance ofso manybooks advocating the return ofchance and contingency to history is not just a matter ofchance and contingency itself. In the first place it's...