The author does this by becoming an invisible daily witness, standing at the subject's elbow, listening to the subject's conversations, observing smiles and frowns, then using the advantage of hindsight to judge harshly when disapproving, indulgently when understanding.
Some forward-looking regulators in emerging markets are using the gift of hindsight to be more proactive in their approach.
There's no official list of October surprises, a term that is loosely defined, but I chose six events from past campaigns that would seem to meet the definition, using the benefit of hindsight….
Mr. Smith then uses this same wisdom of hindsight to make an equally credible and hilarious case for Paul McCartney's having died in 1969.
"Mad Men" uses the unfair wisdom of hindsight to mount an anti-masculinist case against the early nineteen-sixties that is also a feminist case: contemporary viewers can all be counted on to root for Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), the secretary at Sterling Cooper, to be given her chance as a copywriter.
There is also a risk, using a retrospective design, of hindsight bias, particularly in reviewers assuming that staff must have known more than they actually did, and should therefore have acted differently.
But instead of using hindsight to idealise, we can use it to illuminate.
With hindsight, use of the term 'convective ionospheric substorm' does not seem to be so far-fetched.
With hindsight, use of the term 'viscoelastic mattresses and pillows' may have caused information bias.
Nevertheless, those who argue that prohibition was doomed from the outset – the victim of some immutable economic law – fall into the classic historical trap of using hindsight to judge a historical phenomenon.
