"historical imagination" Topic

It is reasonable for a historian or biographer to ask, e.g., was Truman justified in using the A-bombs? But of course that entails asking "what might have happened had he NOT used them?" Invasion, obviously. But what about Russia and the far east? What might have been the consequences of a Stalin able to intervene aggressively in Manchuria and other places if the US war against Japan had dragged on? There can be no definite answer to what did not happen but might have, but it is surely an appropriate question to ask AND TO ATTEMPT TO ANSWER by a historian.

THAT is historical imagination -- dealing with might-have-beens.

There are other aspects, too, including trying to "put oneself back then" and into the minds of people whose basic assumptions were in some ways unlike ours. (Human nature is constant, but culture is not.)

And of course any time we play a game, as a board game or as a historical scenario on the tabletop, and allow players to change the historical outcome, we are likewise exercising historical imagination. Ditto when writing rules for historical games.

It is reasonable. Of course, as one attempts to say what might have been, one has to make assumptions about conditions, actions by key players, etc. And every assumption is arguable as to how likely it was to happen, and we begin to circle the drain. It's fun, though, and leads to great games, fiction, and so on.

One thing I've never seen considered in the Truman discussion is when Stalin might have acquired them, and what he would have done with them absent the evidence that the US had bombs that worked and were devastating.

So while I think it's fair to ask such questions, I've always thought that "what would have happened" is impossible to know, or really even guess, because we don't know how every contemporary situation would have reacted. If history does have linchpins and you pull out a linchpin, then the entire future after that history collapses, and what comes next is anybody's guess.

It's different, of course, when the linchpins are less certain— Stonewall Jackson not dying after Chancellorsville is an example— did Lee lose future battles because of the loss of the brilliant general? Or were those outcomes inevitable anyway? And even if not, would that have been sufficient to produce a military victory for the Confederacy? I'm inclined to think not, because I don't think Jackson's death is a linchpin.

In any case, of course such questions are great fodder for novels, tv shows, and of course gaming scenarios!

I was asked a few times to contribute to books on 'alternate history.' It was a lot of fun, but I also found that I had to do more actual research to complete one chapter than usual so that the scenarios sounded plausible.

Still, it has to be remembered that it wasn't factual, in fact it was fantasy, and only obliquely related to actual history.

Imagine, say, the bellicose Hughes winning the US 1916 Presidential, and getting us involved in WWI. Or consider a Republican win in the 1964 election. That maniac Goldwater might easily have bombed North Vietnam, or gotten us involved in a land war in Asia. At the other extreme, what possible difference could it make to the long-term history of North America had former Captain Sam Grant not died in an accident at his father's tannery?

We can take guesses, but we can't ever know the consequences of decisions not made. Great fun for the novelist and wargamer, but the historian had best hedge his bets, and not look too far ahead. Things "no one could have foreseen" happen on a fairly regular basis.

The U.S. wasn't the only country to see the potential use of nuclear weapons. It was just the first to successfully produce one. I don't see the Soviets being able to turn out a nuclear weapon faster than they did. OTOH with the information they had been able to steal from the Manhattan Project I suspect they would have developed one within a decade of when they did. I have no idea how to test that theory though.

To me the more interesting nuclear what if is who would have developed the first successful nuclear weapon if WW2 had not broken out. More interesting still would be who would have developed it first if the Nazis had not come to power in Germany.

Kevin, yes, because dealing with might-have-beens is more paths and interlocking relationships even than what DID happen. Have you read Flint's RIVERS OF WAR pair of novels? 1812 and 1824. If not, treat yourself. Excellent alt history and an impressive knowledge of key figures, to play around with them so.

Maybe it is analogous to being able to make puns and double entendre etc in a foreign language; you have to REALLY know it to fiddle around with it.

So, if a person games Waterloo are the French gamers forced to launch massive cavalry assaults so as to maintain the history of the battle?
Must Grouchy lag behind the Prussians and not "ride to the sound of the guns" so as to not alter what happened,?

Regards
Russ Dunaway

One important motive for Truman using the A-bombs was to show Stalin, who might well have been hoping to gobble up Western Europe as soon as the Americans and British went home:

A. We have them, and they work, right now!

B. And I'm not afraid to use them if I have to.

Of course, thanks to his spies, he already knew A, but there was only one way he could know B.

Goldwater might easily have bombed North Vietnam, or gotten us involved in a land war in Asia.

Now that's a whole 'nother can of worms! LBJ did bomb North Vietnam and did get us involved in a land war in Asia (Vietnam is in Asia, consult a map!) But he made us fight the war with both hands tied behind our backs!

So, if a person games Waterloo are the French gamers forced to launch massive cavalry assaults so as to maintain the history of the battle?
Must Grouchy lag behind the Prussians and not "ride to the sound of the guns" so as to not alter what happened,?

Regards
Russ Dunaway

Not at all, but the person who plays Gettysburg over and over and then dreams that slavery never ended.Is a different animal. Like some Doctors we know.

Once more, I highlight the text and press CRTL + I, but the text fails to show up as ironic.

Yes, donlowry, I can find Vietnam on a map. What I can't tell you is what decisions a different President would have made, or how they would have played out.

But the point was that what seemed at the time like critical events--the elections of 1916 and 1964--did not have the results contemporaries expected them to have. There's no particular reason to believe that a historian decades or centuries after an event and usually from a very different culture can speak with any authority about what the consequences of a different decision--ANY different decision--would have been. Most of them are no good about foreseeing the consequences of decisions made here and now.

robert, yes, our control is mostly illusory.

I wouldn't say that, doc. Often--not always, of course--we have real choices: it's the outcomes we can't pick. We don't have the foresight to go with the power. FDR and company had the power to embargo Japan. They didn't have the foresight to anticipate Pearl Harbor and the fall of the Philippines. Hyperinflation is almost never a policy decision: people exercise their control over other things--the money supply, usually--and hyperinflation is a result.

I'm saying our brains are too small for our power, and historians are not exempt from this.

I'm saying our brains are too small for our power, and historians are not exempt from this.

All too true, and yet we keep falling for the facile promises of politicians, who always claim to have easy answers to complex problems.

Of course, donlowry. But sometimes there are simple solutions and "it's complicated" is a way of saying "yes, that might fix the problem, but *I* don't get anything out of solving it that way."

I think the real political problem is the innate human tendency is to believe that what we WANT to be true IS true. It leads us to trust people we shouldn't trust and to believe in solutions that don't hold up if they're looked at too closely. Giving examples would only add to TMP's politics problem, but we're coming up on primaries, so watch your TV and your editorial pages. My own rule of thumb is that whenever someone tells me "this is a win-win" or "that is a false choice" he's lying--but rules of thumb are not always right.

We humans are idiots, yes. A consequence of the Fall.

Ah, so it's all Eve's fault.

No, Adams'.

Is that Samuel Adams or John Quincy Adams?

Adam's fault? The best-looking woman in the world (in fact, the only woman in the world) says, take a bite of this, it's great, and he's gonna say, "is it kosher"? I don't think so.

There can be no definite answer to what did not happen but might have, but it is surely an appropriate question to ask AND TO ATTEMPT TO ANSWER by a historian.

THAT is historical imagination -- dealing with might-have-beens.

There are other aspects, too, including trying to "put oneself back then" and into the minds of people whose basic assumptions were in some ways unlike ours. (Human nature is constant, but culture is not.)

And of course any time we play a game, as a board game or as a historical scenario on the tabletop, and allow players to change the historical outcome, we are likewise exercising historical imagination. Ditto when writing rules for historical games.

doc mcb:

Allowing players to change the historical outcome, still requires a lot of history restraining that imagination. That is one reason why Brechtel198 found he did more historical research to write what he calls 'fantasy.'

I can imagine that the Pink SS Panzer Corps conquered the British Isles in 1940 floating across the English Channel at night, [Does that say something about my imagination?] but that isn't historical at all.

First, imagining a different outcome requires knowing the situation at that decision-point and the options. It also requires knowing the history of similar situations in the past, particularly those the contemporaries would be thinking of.

To have your imagined 'alternative' history be historical, it has to be fairly restrained. And then there are:
1. The chances of success is a major issue, often judged at the time. The Germans had very little chance of succeeding with their Ardennes Offensive. Most all the German generals knew that from experience. I can imagine a variety of things going differently for the Germans,, none of which really changes those odds or the final outcome.

2. That historical imagination has to provide alternatives that lead to historically plausible results. History does have a way of starting with likely outcomes, only to spin wider and wider, being harder and harder to predict or give odds as you reach out farther with your imagination in the timeline.

3. Imagining alternate futures is what humans do naturally, all the time, so it isn't surprising that historians and gamers would do the same with the past.
And many do it well. It all depends on the premises they start with… in the case of alternate histories, those premises is the past, the evidence including contemporaries' views on their future. So, imagination goes from the likely to fantasy depending on how far into the future one goes from the historical starting point.

4. Wargame designers all have something that current prognosticators don't have: The actual event and contemporaries' views on it before, during and after. Those can't be ignored unless you are going for all fantasy, forgetting the history.

All too true, and yet we keep falling for the facile promises of politicians, who always claim to have easy answers to complex problems.

There is a real similarity with that situation and historical imagination. That's because politicians are promising a predicted future based on a claimed present. Unlike a historian contemplating alternative history, Few of the unwashed masses bother to look up the facts of the matter, which is, more often than expected, fairly easy to do.

It is why politicians today can proclaim the exact opposite of easily discoverable reality, and folks believe or not based on the politician or party, not the facts. Even the recent past is simply ignored or forgotten in that process.

McL, yes, I agree with almost all of that.

Of course playing a "historical" scenario is the least historical of all, as players have vastly more information than the real ones did.

The flip side of this is an old thread in Game Design I started, about cosmology in fantasy worlds. Fantasy requires some assumptions about reality!

Historians have to do this all the time. When looking at key decisions such as the first use a A-Bombs they have to ask why did this happen? That requires asking questions about the contemporary view of alternatives that made bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem the preferable (note I'm not saying best) course of action. Plus alternative history is fun to read about.