Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

Princeton University Press

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
book: Forbidden Fruit
Book
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Forbidden Fruit

Counterfactuals and International Relations
  • and
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2010

About this book

Could World War I have been averted if Franz Ferdinand and his wife hadn't been murdered by Serbian nationalists in 1914? What if Ronald Reagan had been killed by Hinckley's bullet? Would the Cold War have ended as it did? In Forbidden Fruit, Richard Ned Lebow develops protocols for conducting robust counterfactual thought experiments and uses them to probe the causes and contingency of transformative international developments like World War I and the end of the Cold War. He uses experiments, surveys, and a short story to explore why policymakers, historians, and international relations scholars are so resistant to the contingency and indeterminism inherent in open-ended, nonlinear systems. Most controversially, Lebow argues that the difference between counterfactual and so-called factual arguments is misleading, as both can be evidence-rich and logically persuasive. A must-read for social scientists, Forbidden Fruit also examines the binary between fact and fiction and the use of counterfactuals in fictional works like Philip Roth's The Plot Against America to understand complex causation and its implications for who we are and what we think makes the social world work.

Author / Editor information

Richard Ned Lebow is the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and the Centennial Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His many books include A Cultural Theory of International Relations and We All Lost the Cold War (Princeton).

Reviews

"I have benefited enormously from Ned Lebow's learning, imagination and intellectual effort, and am sure that many readers will feel the same way towards this judicious, yet daring, scholarly contribution to the study of history and international relations."---Hidemi Suganami, International Affairs --- "If nothing else, Forbidden Fruit shows how, through counterfactual, alternative thinking, a resounding acknowledgement of the arts can be achieved."---David Marx, David Marx Reviews

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Contents

    vii
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Acknowledgments

    ix
    Download PDF
  • PART ONE
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    CHAPTER ONE. Making Sense of the World

    3
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    CHAPTER TWO. Counterfactual Thought Experiments

    29
    Download PDF
  • PART TWO
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter Three. Franz Ferdinand Found Alive: World War I Unnecessary

    69
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Chapter Four. Leadership and the End of the Cold War: Did It Have to End This Way?

    103
    Download PDF
  • PART THREE
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    CHAPTER FIVE. Scholars and Causation 1

    137
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    CHAPTER SIX. Scholars and Causation 2

    166
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    CHAPTER EIGHT. Heil to the Chief: Sinclair Lewis, Philip Roth, and Fascism

    222
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Conclusions

    259
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Notes

    287
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Index

    329
    Download PDF

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
January 18, 2010
eBook ISBN:
9781400835126
Edition:
Course Book
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
View content
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400835126
eBook ISBN: 9781400835126
Keywords for this book
International relations; Mikhail Gorbachev; Soviet Union; Probability; World War I; Social science; The Plot Against America; Contingency (philosophy); Assassination; Thought experiment; Cold War; Foreign policy; Result; Austria-Hungary; Great power; Romanticism; World War II; Richard Ned Lebow; Security dilemma; John Mueller; Political science; Superiority (short story); Jews; Counterfactual history; Participant; Literature; Conspiracy theory; Imperialism; Thomas Kuhn; E. H. Carr; Stab-in-the-back myth; Deterrence theory; Narrative; Nuclear warfare; Democratic peace theory; Cold War (1985–91); Prediction; A World Transformed; Explanation; War; Evil empire; Philip E. Tetlock; Nuclear peace; Germany's Aims in the First World War; International crisis; Demagogue; Theory of International Politics; Cuban Missile Crisis; July Crisis; Decolonization; It Can't Happen Here; Retrospective determinism; State of nature; Archduke; Superpower; Holocaust denial; Gresham's law; Fritz Fischer; Brinkmanship; Hindsight bias; Theory; Anschluss; Aftermath of the September 11 attacks; Anti-Americanism; Military history; Francis Fukuyama; Inference; Post-structuralism; Crisis management; Plausible deniability
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
Downloaded on 11.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400835126/html
Scroll to top button