Pasting over the past
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1187184,00.html
Far from being a harmless intellectual pursuit, 'what if' history is
pushing a dangerous rightwing agenda
Tristram Hunt
Wednesday April 7, 2004
The Guardian
Citing as their inspiration the Gwyneth Paltrow character in the film
Sliding Doors, a ragged bunch of rightwing historians have clubbed
together to issue a new compendium of "what if" essays. Conrad Black,
a man facing a few counter-factuals of his own, asks: what if the
Japanese had not attacked Pearl Harbor? David Frum, the former Bush
speech-writer, wonders: what if Al Gore had won the 2000 presidential
election (I thought he did). And John Adamson indulges the dream of
Cambridge dons down the centuries: what if Charles I had won the
English civil war?
Tristram Hunt
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0403220205.3f2abc%40posting.google.com
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