Crossing Paths between East and West. The Use of Counterfactual Thinking for the Concept of “Entangled Histories”

?Was w?re gewesen, wenn die Mongolen nicht gekommen w?ren? Vom Nutzen des Kontrafaktischen f?r das Konzept der ? Verflechtungsge schichten "?. This paper claims that historians need to address the contingency factor in history, and that counterfactual thinking can be a useful method of cross-checks allowing for a deeper understanding of causal and non-causal connections. However, counterfactual thinking needs to become incorporated into existing methodological approaches of modern historiography in order to be of any use. The paper therefore suggests integrating counterfactual thinking into the concept of "entangled histories" by Shalini Randeria, which is illus trated in a case study on the late Middle Ages. The complex interactions and interdependencies between the Mongolian Empire and the Latin West, and more specifically between the Mongolian leaders and the Dominican monks in the thirteenth century are described as a history of entanglement. But to what extent and in which ways are the historical phenomena, we are looking at, en tangled? Here, three counterfactual scenarios may help to cross-check the po tential and the limits of the entanglement.