Series: Elements in Historical Theory and Practice

This Element, about historical practice and genetics, seeks to understand what is at stake in presenting, preserving, and articulating the past in the present. Historical practice is both conceptual and material, a consonance of approach which is reflected in the innovative and non-traditional format of the Element itself – not simply in its length, but its constitution. Race, Genetics, History...

The future is contingent. It can unfold differently, hinging on chance or choice within the present. The History of Contingency and Future-Oriented Thought tells the story of how these twin concepts have developed across human history. Arcing from our earliest ancestors, through al-Ghazālī, to S. J. Gould, the Element demonstrates how humans realised the future is an undecided, contingent place...

The future is contingent. It can unfold differently, hinging on chance or choice within the present. The History of Contingency and Future-Oriented Thought tells the story of how these twin concepts have developed across human history. Arcing from our earliest ancestors, through al-Ghazālī, to S. J. Gould, the Element demonstrates how humans realised the future is an undecided, contingent place...