Table of Contents
Preface: The Dark Energy of History vii
Introduction: On the Edge of History 1
Part 1 Inquiry
1 In Thucydides' Wake: An Ancient and Unknown Genealogy 9
2 From Delhi to Vienna: Counterfactual History across the World 27
3 From Pterodactyls to Piccadilly Circus: Uchronias of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 44
4 The Test of the Social (and Natural) Sciences 59
Part 2 Decoding
5 The Historical Imagination and Counterfactual Approaches 83
6 Causal Inference and Counterfactual Reasoning 105
Interlude: The Dominion of Facts in the Social Sciences 129
7 The Past Futures of Others: Counterfactual Reasoning and Historicity 132
8 Political Uses of Counterfactual History 150
Part 3 Experiments
9 Testing Empire: Revisiting Western Domination through Counterfactualism and Possible Futures 181
10 "Today, Only the Language of Dreams Can Translate History": Futures of Possibility, Fear, and Hope in 1848 213
11 The Console and the Chalkboard: Replaying History, a "Serious Game"? 247
12 Writing History Together: A Reflexive and Participative Historical Essay (II/II/II, Grenoble, France) 270
Conclusion: Becomings in the World 299
Notes 307
Index 365