Margaret MacMillan’s selection of neglected voices in History’s People reminds us how individual choices and actions come to shape our world.
Counterfactual history – also known as “What if?” history – bores me. Too often, the questions asked are predictable. What if the Spanish Armada had landed successfully in England? Would modern history have been different if Otto von Bismarck had died in infancy? What would have happened if Adolf Hitler had been killed in the trenches during the First World War? I much prefer explaining real historical causes and effects. They are puzzling enough. Asking “What if something …read more
Source: New Statesman
