THE COUNTERFACTUAL HISTORY REVIEW

To mark the US semiquincentennial, I wrote this new piece discussing how Americans have wondered "what if" about the American Revolution.

For those of you wondering where I’ve been hiding (and I admit it’s been a while), I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my massive new book on the origins and evolution of counterfactual history.

In working on my current book, I have been struck by the global appeal of wondering “what if?”

I was happy to contribute some thoughts to Shira Li Bartov's new article in The Forward, "Could Social Media Really Have Stopped the Holocaust?"

The famous Polish-Jewish-American artist Arthur Szyk is experiencing something of a renaissance these days.

Now that my new co-edited volume, Fascism in America, is out, you can finally read my essay on recent alternate history shows that imagine the United States succumbing to Nazism.

Like reuniting with a long-lost friend, I was pleasantly [sic] surprised to see that the new film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, revives the familiar counterfactual premise of the Nazis winning World War II.

I've been AWOL from my blog for a few months now, but I have a good excuse.

I’m grateful to Larry Yudelson at Ben Yehuda Press for sending me a copy of Andrea D.

Alternate history continues to have a bit of a PR problem.

The Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol is full of counterfactual claims that nicely illustrate the utility of counterfactual history.

So I, too, have surrendered to curiosity and played around a bit with Open AI's new ChatGPT application that's been getting so much publicity this past week.

Like so many other Americans, I've been glued to the television since last night.

In recent years, counterfactual history has found expression in historical monographs, journalistic op-eds, novels, short stories, films, television shows, radio programs, theatrical plays, graphic novels, works of art, and internet memes.

Here is my long review of Quentin Deluermoz's and Pierre Singaravélou's new book, A Past of Possibilities: A History of What Could Have Been, which recently appeared with Yale University Press.

I don’t usually take the time on my blog to merely re-post news stories relating to counterfactual history, but when such stories threaten to discredit the field, I perk up.

Just a quick shout-out to my friend, Thomas Weber, whose edited volume, Als die Demokratie starb: Die Machtergreifung der Nationalsozialisten – Geschichte und Gegenwart (The Nazi Seizure of Power – Past and Present) will be appearing later this year in ad…

Here you go everyone: My essay on how Vladimir Putin has used counterfactuals to make sense of the Russian/Soviet past is now officially out, courtesy of the History News Network.

Attention all Nazis still hiding out in Brazil: your time is up!

Ok – the Nazi comparisons are really getting gratuitous.

I’ve been re-reading Lawrence Sutin’s edited volume, The Shifting Realities of Philip K.

From the department of "better late than never": Today, I'm happy to offer a correction to a mistaken claim I made in my 2005 book, The World Hitler Never Made, about the pioneering postwar alternate history by Randolph Robban, Si l'Allemagne avait vaincu…

Seeing how Vladimir Putin has cynically exploited the concept of “genocide” to justify his invasion of Ukraine made me wonder whether earlier tyrants like Hitler might have done the same.

I'm cross-posting my latest op-ed, entitled "What If": The Uses and Abuses of Counterfactuals about Ukraine," which appeared today on the website of the History News Network website.

I was struck by something missing from Zeynep Tufekci’s otherwise excellent essay, “How Millions of Lives Might Have Been Saved From Covid-19,” in today’s New York Times opinion section – the word “counterfactual.”