Saturday, December 12, 2009

Forbidden fruit

Nah, sorry, not that kind...

El Jefe Maximo writes about the significance of Dec. 11, 1941, the day Hitler declared war on the U.S. in the wake of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, asking what might have happened had Germany: (1) not declared war on the U.S. (i.e., stayed officially neutral in the war between the U.S. and Japan) or (2) actually declared war on Japan
(much less plausible a scenario, IMO). His post reminded me that R.N. Lebow's book on counterfactuals is forthcoming from Princeton Univ. Press under the somewhat odd title Forbidden Fruit. (I think the title may be explained in the opening chapter, available online, which I skimmed through at fairly high speed the other day; something about, you know, Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, whatever...oh yeah, and the tree of knowledge, how could I forget that?!? Duh.)

1 comment:

hank_F_M said...

Well it is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

They already had a knowledge of Good - so what did they learn that they didn't know?

I think that counter factual would be a lot of fun, except for History classes.