Talk:Counterfactual history
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Relationship to the science fiction genre?
Is there a reasonable parallel to the alternate history genre? --Howard C. Berkowitz 21:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
- No. Heinlein was writing fiction; Historians who practice counterfactual history are writing history but (as I wrote in the article) are arguing from analogy. Russell D. Jones 21:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
- As a guy who has actually written a couple of parallel-history novels, I would say that the counterfactual historians are, by definition, writing "fictional history". What else could it be qualified as? As opposed to "historical history," as written by, say, A.J.P. Taylor or Sam Morison. Hayford Peirce 21:48, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah, well, I have problems with the genre and I was trying to be generous when I started the article. How can one make a historical argument about life in the United States after the Confederate victory in the Civil War? It's not possible. It's not historical. How can one write a history about the industrial development of the United States after the Civil War without railroads? Again, there is no evidence to support any historical argument about what the post Civil War U.S. industrial economy was like without railroads. However, Fogel's book is a landmark study in this genre and Fogel is no slouch as a historian. His book is still assigned in Ph.D. reading lists forty years after its publication. So, is it fiction? Is it fictional? Well, yes, in the sense that everything is fictional (meaning "fabricated" or "constructed"). Is it "factual?" Well, no: it's counterfactual; just because it's not factual doesn't make it fictional (in the sense that it's all or mostly made up as a novel is; this isn't Willa Cather). On the other hand, are you prepared to argue that Ernest Hemingway was writing history? Russell D. Jones 22:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
- About as much as I'd argue that William Faulkner was a geographer.... Hayford Peirce 00:02, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah, well, I have problems with the genre and I was trying to be generous when I started the article. How can one make a historical argument about life in the United States after the Confederate victory in the Civil War? It's not possible. It's not historical. How can one write a history about the industrial development of the United States after the Civil War without railroads? Again, there is no evidence to support any historical argument about what the post Civil War U.S. industrial economy was like without railroads. However, Fogel's book is a landmark study in this genre and Fogel is no slouch as a historian. His book is still assigned in Ph.D. reading lists forty years after its publication. So, is it fiction? Is it fictional? Well, yes, in the sense that everything is fictional (meaning "fabricated" or "constructed"). Is it "factual?" Well, no: it's counterfactual; just because it's not factual doesn't make it fictional (in the sense that it's all or mostly made up as a novel is; this isn't Willa Cather). On the other hand, are you prepared to argue that Ernest Hemingway was writing history? Russell D. Jones 22:33, 27 February 2010 (UTC)