Quote Originally Posted by Monaco_Totty View Post
Should a theory be dismissed ?

The issue of dismissing a theory is a more complex issue than just making a judgment about one specific statement. One aspect of the theory, for example one assumption, could lack support, but that would not necessarily make the theory as a whole uninteresting if it provides explanations on other aspects.

What I will say further is that noting certain aspects through my eyes & ears living in the UK balanced with residing in France & able to visit most of Europe freely, then one does have a greater depth of understanding, particularly seeing, hearing, reading & visiting battle sites of historic events going back to even medieval days.

I often ask myself can one living in a country that was under foreign occupation & one who has actually not even share a common theory ?
Identifying & mitigating bias in historical analysis as objectivity in selecting methodologies that are tailored to historical data sets, some would argue to.

Is historical theory a subject that is open to debate & challenge ?

The debate about the role of theory in history has been a part of the academic discipline since its inception & some say that the discipline of history has become too dominated by empiricist approaches & that the role of theory has been neglected.
As I said, the suggestion that there were alternative realities had different paths been taken/decisions made in the run up to the outbreak of and during WWII isn't a theory, which suggests and outcome given certain conditions, a statement of an opinion or an explanation of an idea that is believed to be true, but might be wrong, it's postulation about what may have happened had events been differently dictated.

Obviously Hitler could have decided not to invade the USSR, re-inforce Rommel (more than he actually did), or it might have been that the House of Commons rejected Churchills exhortation to resist and abandon any thought of appeasement. None of that happened and the rest, as they say, is HISTORY, not theory.