Unmaking the West

by Tetlock, Philip E.

• ISBN13: 9780472031436
• ISBN10: 0472031430
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-01-30
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr

Summary

What if the Persians had won at Salamis? What if Christ had not been crucified? What if the Chinese had harnessed steam power before the West? Disparaged by some as a mere parlor game, counterfactual history is seen by others as an indispensable historical tool. Taking as their point of inquiry the debate over the inevitability of the rise of the West, the eminent scholars inUnmaking the Westargue that there is no escaping counterfactual history. Whenever we make claims of cause and effect, we commit ourselves to the assumption that if key links in the causal chain were broken, history would have unfolded otherwise. Likewise, without counterfactual history we all too easily slip into the habit of hindsight bias, forgetting, as soon as we learn what happened, how unpredictable the world looked beforehand, and closing our minds to all the ways the course might have changed. This collection is thus both an exploration of alternative scenarios to world history and an exercise in testing the strengths and weaknesses of counterfactual experiments. "If ever there was an argument for the usefulness of counterfactual history, this admirable, and admirably focused, collection has convincingly made it." Robert Cowley, editor of the What If?TM series "With chapters ranging from politics to war to religion to economics and to science and technology, this is the most thematically wide-ranging collection on counterfactuality. An intelligent, cutting-edge study with important things to say." Jonathan C. D. Clark, Department of History, University of Kansas "This volume is likely to become a standard reference in the literature on historical methodology, and could have a dramatic impact on the way future generations of historians approach disciplinary inquiry. . . . By allowing readers to share in the doubts and epiphanies that lead up to the authors' epistemological revelations, the volume allows readers to grasp the rich potential of approaching their own research from a counterfactual perspective." Aaron Belkin, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara Philip E. Tetlockis Mitchell Professor, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, and author ofExpert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? Richard Ned Lebowis James O. Freedman Presidential Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and author ofThe Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders, winner of the Alexander L. George Award for the best book in political psychology. Geoffrey Parkeris Andreas Dorpalen Professor of History at Ohio State University, a Fellow of the British Academy, and author ofThe Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800, winner of two book prizes.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Preface UNMAKING THE MIDDLE KINGDOM	1	(13)
The Editors
Chapter 1. Counterfactual Thought Experiments
WHY WE CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEM & HOW WE MUST LEARN TO LIVE WITH THEM	14	(33)
Philip E. Tetlock and Geoffrey Parker
PART 1. Creating the West
Chapter 2. A Stillborn West?
THEMISTOCLES AT SALAMIS, 480 BC	47	(43)
Victor Davis Hanson
Chapter 3. The Resilient West
SALAMIS WITHOUT THEMISTOCLES, CLASSICAL GREECE WITHOUT SALAMIS, & THE WEST WITHOUT CLASSICAL GREECE	90	(29)
Barry Strauss
Chapter 4. The Quest for a Counterfactual Jesus
IMAGINING THE WEST WITHOUT THE CROSS	119	(26)
Carlos M.N. Eire
PART 2. The Rise of the West
Chapter 5. Religious Kitsch or Industrial Revolution
WHAT DIFFERENCE WOULD A CATHOLIC ENGLAND MAKE?	145	(23)
Carlos M.N. Eire
Chapter 6. Europe's Peculiar Path
WOULD THE WORLD BE "MODERN" IF WILLIAM III'S INVASION OF ENGLAND IN 1688 HAD FAILED?	168	(29)
Jack A. Goldstone
Chapter 7. Nineteenth-Century British Imperialism Undone with a Single Shell Fragment
A RESPONSE TO JACK GOLDSTONE'S "EUROPE'S PECULIAR PATH"	197	(8)
Carla Gardina Pestana
PART 3 The West Undone?
Chapter 8. The Song Empire
THE WORLD'S FIRST SUPERPOWER?	205	(36)
Robin D.S. Yates
Chapter 9. Without Coal? Colonies? Calculus?
COUNTERFACTUALS & INDUSTRIALIZATION IN EUROPE & CHINA	241	(36)
Kenneth Pomeranz
Chapter 10. King Kong and Cold Fusion
COUNTERFACTUAL ANALYSIS & THE HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY	277	(46)
Joel Mokyr
Chapter 11. Hitler Wins in the East but Germany Still Loses World War II	323	(40)
Holger H. Herwig
PART 4. Conclusions
Chapter 12. Counterfactual History
ITS ADVOCATES, ITS CRITICS, & ITS USES	363	(30)
Geoffrey Parker and Philip E. Tetlock
Contributors	393	(8)
Index	401