The History of Contingency and Future-Oriented Thought

Name: The History of Contingency and Future-Oriented Thought
Price: 145.57 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9781009571616

Thomas Moynihan (Cambridge University)

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Hardback

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English

Cambridge University Press
12 March 2026

History: theory & methods; Emergency services; Self-help & personal development

Series: Elements in Historical Theory and Practice

The future is contingent. It can unfold differently, hinging on chance or choice within the present. This Element 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 – at scales leading beyond the biographical, up to the planetary, and beyond. It pinpoints this realisation as an ongoing and unfinished intellectual revolution. Just as the telescope revealed Deep Space in the 1600s, and the geologists' hammer revealed Deep Time in the 1800s, contemporary developments in science are revealing what I call Deep Possibility. This is the realisation that there is far more possible than will ever be actual. It is this that makes history matter, and gives contingency its bite, insofar as it forces acknowledgement that not all outcomes will come to pass regardless.

By: Thomas Moynihan (Cambridge University)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
ISBN: 9781009571616
ISBN 10: 1009571613
Series: Elements in Historical Theory and Practice
Pages: 74
Publication Date: 12 March 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction: the death of destiny; 1. Contingency's gestation; 2. Future's dawn; 3. Contingency unbound; 4. Conclusion: deep possibility in the non-ergodic universe'; Glossary; Bibliography.