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Lumifer comments on Crossing the History-Lessons Threshold - Less Wrong
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Generally a good thing to be wary of, but I don't think it applies in this case.
In this case, I don't think so. Since the Charlemagne, Germans divided estates between their children (instead of primogeniture, eldest child inheriting) which is why Germany would keep fragmenting even when they had good rulers. [1] [2]
Napoleon showed the need for greater security in confederation and sparked modern nationalism. That's all largely uncontroversial. [3]
I think the best explanation of World War I's causes -- more than the alliance structure -- is Great Power Rivalty; [4] see the Realist scholars in general [5] for what I think is the most convincing description of how international relations usually plays out (specifically, defensive realism). [6]
There's also possible explanations, though in terms of looking at causality, the other major cause that's most often advanced is the alliance structure; but that, too, was developed by Prince Metternich in response to Napoleon. [7] [8]
Then of course the Treaty of Versailles, I think everyone agrees about that being a major cause of World War II.
In any event, it took me longer to get links together than I expected, so I'll leave on this note: you're right be wary of just-so stories, but I'd recommend equal vigilance against whimsically throwing out a line like "just telling yourself a story" -- certainly, popular media has lots of examples of that and it's a good thing to generally be wary of, but there's a night-and-day difference between detailed free-ranging non-biased analysis and coming up with a just-so story. Any analysis might be wrong, of course, but if so, it deserves critique rather than just a caution that it might be incorrect, no?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francia#Dividedempire.2Cafter840 [2] http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/206280?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104947106503 [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GermanEmpire#Background [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Germannavalarmsrace [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism(internationalrelations) [6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensiverealism [7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KlemensvonMetternich [8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConcertofEurope
The thing is, the analysis you're speaking of is not testable. There is no way to establish whether it's true or not (and the meaning of the word "true" in this context is a complicated debate of its own).
Besides, you're at the mercy of the authors of your sources. If an author was biased, or wanted to push a particular agenda, or was mistaken, or just deliberately lied -- and you cannot reliably cross-check him -- your conclusions will be bunk and you won't know it.
But are there testable hypotheses in history? I just really want to know, because I have seen this argumentation pattern that I'd love to call 'instant historicising' whereas an argumenter says ' Oh this was a totally different situation and has so nothing to do with this other situation so we shouldn't even ever compare' whereas my mind goes bing - .
I don't think there are testable hypotheses in history, though there are certainly falsifiable ones in the sense that they could be shown wrong (which does NOT mean they could be proven right).
A simple example is the hypothesis that Columbus was the first European to discover the New World. It was successfully falsified by finding a Viking settlement in Newfoundland.
However if you say that, for example, the main cause of WW1 was the Great Power rivalry, well, I don't know how that could (realistically) be falsified.
It would be easy to construct situations where historians could have opportunities to make and test hypotheses. Just find a section of history they don't know anything about, and give them a summary of 99 years, and ask them to predict what happens in the 100th. Or give them a summary of a couple years and ask them to fill in more complex details. Or give them descriptions of what happened on either side of a year, and ask them to figure out what happens during that year. Then see if they predict accurate things.
I can't see how could that possibly work in practice. At best you'll be constructing exams for individual historians, but not tests for theories.
I see, um, some tension between the bolded parts... X-)