What is Historicism?

Well my issue with speculation is obviously that there are times when speculation is all we have where the historical record has gaps, however, your speculations should be based on very–and I mean very–plausible hypotheses.  By plausible I mean based on known cultural, socio-economic, and political variables which logically infer what otherwise is unknown or cannot be known.  The professional historian must make it utterly clear when he is speculating, not to move his thesis along, but to demonstrate that he knows the limits of certainty, and that it is necessary to get past the historical gaps to the parts of the story that can be told and analysed.  There is no academic value to analytical speculation unless it is absolutely all that can be presented otherwise.  I am aware of only one historian (John Murrin) who effectively used counterfactual speculation to postulate a thesis.  Here is the first page of the article I'm talking about  http://www.jstor.org/pss/2702135I have a copy of this article in .pdf somewhere if you want to read the rest.  This debate is also taken up here:  http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/109.3/bunzl.htmlI assure you scout, this is a very hot debate in the historical world.  Remember this, even if you don't subscribe to what I advocate, you may be forced to anyway if you want to be published in many historical journals.  Unless you are as creative and intuitive as John Murrin, you won't get away with it often....and Murrin only does because he is a giant in the field. 🙂