What is Alternate History?

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Guest Writer: Sunil Tanna

Alternate histories are stories or scenarios which consider the question of what if the events of the past had turned out differently. For example, what if the Confederacy had won the American Civil War, what if the Germans had won World War II, what if Al Gore had won the 2000 US Presidential Election, or what if Michael Portillo had become the British Prime Minister.

In most (but not all) alternate histories, these history is generally assumed to have gone the same way as our actual history, until some specific point (known as the “Point of Divergence”) when a particular event has a different outcome. Sometimes the event may be important, and seen as such as the time, (for example, a battle going to other way), whereas in other alternative history stories, even subtle changes can result in profound changes to history because of the butterfly effect.

Some alternate histories (usually known as “counterfactuals”) are serious attempts to consider what if leaders of the past had made different decisions, or if chance had resulted in different events - and by considering these scenarios, they often also help explain our history as it actually happened.

On the other hand, there are also many alternate history novels and short-stories, which are principally designed to entertain. Sometimes in these works, the changes to history (and how they came about) are the main subject of the story, but in other cases they simply forms a background (much like warp drives and transporters might in a science fiction story) against which the story is set.

By S. Tanna. First published at www.alternatehistorybooks.com/p1_glossary_alternate_history.php.

For more alternate history books, please visit www.alternatehistorybooks.com/.