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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2011
The observations which I shall put before you require the kind of apology that is always necessary when the historian leaves the ground of facts and turns to the hazy realm of what might have been or ought to be. Still there may be extenuating factors for an undertaking of this kind. I refer here, of course, to the frequently voiced assumption of the value of hindsight prophecies for the prevention of errors in the future, the wishful thinking that may generate appropriate action and, in a more general way, the training of the mind that may derive from speculative thinking.
Text of lecture delivered at the State University of New York College at Cortland on 21 May 1966, at the Spring Banquet of the Phi Alpha Theta Chapter.
2 This sentence is printed here exactly as it appears in Kann's manuscript. It is possible that it should read: “If, on the other hand, I ask about a question of a series of new factors that enter into history, in the first case what I would call a law of historical inertia, the human factor of resistance to sweeping change is on my side, in the other case it works against me.” (S. Winters)
3 The Littoral was part of the Austrian Empire on the Adriatic that included Trieste, Gorizia, Istria, and Gradiska.
4 Marshal Tito was president of Yugoslavia when this was written.