How should agent-based modelling engage with historical processes?

This chapter consists of two main parts. After an introduction, the first part briefly considers the way that historical processes have been represented in ABM to date. This makes it possible to draw more general conclusions about the limitations of ABM in dealing with distinctively historical (as opposed to merely dynamic) processes. The second part of the chapter presents a very simple ABM in which three such distinctively historical processes are analysed. These are the possible significance of unique individuals-the so-called Great Men, the invention and spread of social innovations from specific points in time and the creation of persistent social structures (also from specific points in time). The object of the chapter is to advance the potential applicability of ABM to historical events as understood by historians (rather than anthropologists or practitioners of ABM.).