Is Military Technology Deterministic?

In their papers prepared for this volume, Kelly DeVries and David Zimmerman explore the differing viewpoints on technological determinism that military historians bring to bear on premodern and modern warfare. This paper analyzes their respective arguments, including DeVries’s introduction of the concepts of effectiveness, invincibility, and decisiveness; it focuses primarily on technological determinism. It explores some concepts of historical causation and concludes that nothing in human behavior is deterministic. It recommends language that can help historians avoid this rhetorical battleground and speak more clearly and judiciously about the factors that shape warfare and affect its outcome.

History, Causation, and the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

The Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) is a theory in physics which proposes that, rather than quantum-level events being resolved randomly as according to the Copenhagen Interpretation, the universe constantly divides into different versions or worlds. All physically possible worlds occur, though some outcomes are more likely than others, and therefore all possible histories exist. This paper explores some implications of this for history, especially concerning causation. Unlike counterfactuals, which concern different starting conditions, MWI concerns different outcomes of the same starting conditions. It is argued that analysis of causation needs to take into account the divergence of outcomes and the possibility that we inhabit a less probable world. Another implication of MWI is convergent history: for any given world there will be similar worlds which are the result of different pasts which are, however, more or less probable. MWI can assist in thinking about historical causation and indicates the importance of probabilistic causation.

William of Newburgh

This chapter looks at the work of William of Newburgh, one of the most highly acclaimed of medieval English historians. William’s work has been praised for its critical approach to historical evidence, and noted for its reflective nature, so that it has often been seen as a commentary on recent events. Here the character of his interpretive approach is examined, focusing on his ideas of historical causation. Also addressed here is the question of the edificatory nature of William’s work, and of contemporary historiography in general. It is argued that, while William was certainly aware of the moral lessons that history taught, his first task was to use the moral lessons taught by earlier historians, theologians, and other writers, as a means by which recent events could be interpreted.

Polybius and Sallust

This chapter examines Thucydides’ influence on Polybius and Sallust. It demonstrates the various ways in which these two authors drew on and adapted the concepts, methods and ideas, style, and narrative technique of their famous predecessor as part of the creation of their own original interpretations of the past. In respect to Polybius, the chapter argues that the Thucydidean paradigm had a marked effect both on Polybius’ conceptions of historical causation and on his style. In the case of Sallust, the paper argues that Thucydides provided a writing style and ethical concepts with which to describe the crisis of the late Roman Republic. However, neither author simply “imitates” Thucydides. Both engage creatively and often critically with the various aspects of his work. They rewrite, elaborate on, and “correct” Thucydides as much as they are inspired by him.

Turing, Lovelace, and Babbage

The principles on which all modern computing machines are based were enunciated more than a hundred years ago by a Cambridge mathematician named Charles Babbage.’ So declared Vivian Bowden—in charge of sales of the Ferranti Mark I computer— in 1953.1 This chapter is about historical origins. It identifies core ideas in Turing’s work on computing, embodied in the realisation of the modern computer. These ideas are traced back to their emergence in the 19th century where they are explicit in the work of Babbage and Ada Lovelace. Mechanical process, algorithms, computation as systematic method, and the relationship between halting and solvability are part of an unexpected congruence between the pre-history of electronic computing and the modern age. The chapter concludes with a consideration of whether Turing was aware of these origins and, if so, the extent—if any—to which he may have been influenced by them. Computing is widely seen as a gift of the modern age. The huge growth in computing coincided with, and was fuelled by, developments in electronics, a phenomenon decidedly of our own times. Alan Turing’s earliest work on automatic computation coincided with the dawn of the electronic age, the late 1930s, and his name is an inseparable part of the narrative of the pioneering era of automatic computing that unfolded. Identifying computing with the electronic age has had the effect of eradicating pre-history. It is as though the modern era with its rampant achievements stands alone and separate from the computational devices and aids that pre-date it. In the 18th century lex continui in natura proclaimed that nature had no discontinuities, and we tend to view historical causation in the same way. Discontinuities in history are uncomfortable: they offend against gradualism, or at least against the idea of the irreducible interconnectedness of events. The central assertion of this chapter is that core ideas evidenced in modern computing, ideas with which Turing is closely associated, emerged explicitly in the 19th century, a hundred years earlier than is commonly credited.