An Alternativist Reading of History: Theoretical Justification

Abstract

To start with, while study of history as it could have been or might have been is not entirely ignored by historians, it is not the most popular way of approaching the past. There are several reasons why historians discard, or at least downplay the problem of alternatives in studying the past and consequently pay little attention to those events that had the potential to become reality. And here indeed exists the problem of study of the past versus study of the future. Historians are often different from politicians in the sense that they are not participants in the making of history. Their interest is in the past, and they study events which have already been accomplished. Moreover, even when they are interested in contemporary life, that is, history in its making, they often are detached from the political reality and profess academic non-involvement. Thus, owing to their lack of personal involvement, there is a tendency to view the political and social process as impersonal and rigidly deterministic.