Imagining what might have been can be a useful part of the historian's discipline, provided one uses realistic parameters, and it reminds us that nothing is inevitable
I've a huge fondness for counterfactual history, the only field in which I have been published. But I take the point that it's the soft porn of history. It's historical masturbation, fun but essentially unproductive.
I don’t think it is necessarily unproductive. It can be “just a bit of fun”, and you can end up in Harry Turtledove territory, but if you are careful about parameters and clear-sighted about what is and isn’t plausible, it can be a very useful way of understanding better how historical actors were thinking and why they made the decisions they did.
I've a huge fondness for counterfactual history, the only field in which I have been published. But I take the point that it's the soft porn of history. It's historical masturbation, fun but essentially unproductive.
I don’t think it is necessarily unproductive. It can be “just a bit of fun”, and you can end up in Harry Turtledove territory, but if you are careful about parameters and clear-sighted about what is and isn’t plausible, it can be a very useful way of understanding better how historical actors were thinking and why they made the decisions they did.