Screen LibraryTelling it like it wasn't : the counterfactual imagination in history and fiction /
Inventing counterfactual histories is a common pastime of modern-day historians, both amateur and professional. We speculate about an America ruled by Jefferson Davis, a Europe that never threw off Hitler, or a second term for JFK. These narratives are often written off as politically inspired fanta...
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| Main Authors: | |
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| Published: |
The University of Chicago Press,
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| Publisher Address: | Chicago : |
| Publication Dates: | 2018. |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Summary: |
Inventing counterfactual histories is a common pastime of modern-day historians, both amateur and professional. We speculate about an America ruled by Jefferson Davis, a Europe that never threw off Hitler, or a second term for JFK. These narratives are often written off as politically inspired fantasy or a pop culture fodder, but in Telling it Like it Wasn't, Catherine Gallagher takes the history of counterfactual history seriously, pinning it down an an object of dispassionate study. She doesn't take a moral or normative stand on the practice but focuses her attention on how it works and to what ends- a quest that takes readers on a fascinating tour of literary and historical criticism. -- Publisher description. |
| Carrier Form: | vii, 359 pages ; 23 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780226512419 (paperback) : 022651241X (paperback) |
| Index Number: | D16 |
| CLC: | I106.4 |
| Call Number: | I106.4/G162 |
| Contents: | Introduction -- The history of counterfactual history from Leibniz to Clausewitz -- Nineteenth-century alternate-history narratives -- How the USA lost the Civil War -- Historical activism and the alternate-America novels -- Nazi Britain: the invasion and occupation that weren't -- The fictions of Nazi Britain. |