The "Gibson Les Paul" Guitar—Conception, Prototype and Production: A Study Through Counterfactuals.

The use of counterfactuals ("what-ifs") has been a recognized approach in some fields within the humanities, in particular military history, where alternate scenarios can be readily proposed. As an approach it has also been used in fields such as the study of economics, and—much less so—in art history. This article will consider the violin and the piano, and then concentrate on a more modern—and, as such, better documented—example of the Gibson "Les Paul" model electric guitar to assess whether various decisions have had a major bearing on the business success of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]