Alternative Histories - An Answer to the Question "What If?"

Alternative histories are essentially stories that develop when historians ask “what if?” They are fictional works created on the premise of a change in the events of our past. Although some of these works can take a rather imaginative approach, most are based on a strong framework of historical fact. Thus, alternative histories offer a unique glimpse of what could have happened if humankind had taken a slightly different course.

Alternate histories have been fascinating people for centuries. In fact, the first known account of a variation on the past was written approximately two thousand years ago by Titus Livy, a Roman historian. In his work History of Rome from its Foundation, Livy speculates on what would have happened if Alexander the Great had lived longer and moved his armies westward to attack Rome. In this brief speculative account, which composes a mere section of one out of 142 books, Livy argues that the Romans would have been able to defeat Alexander the Great.

Perhaps the first modern alternate history was composed in France in the early 19th century by Louis Geoffroy. Geoffroy wrote a compelling tale of what could have happened if Napoleon had succeeded in his Russian campaign and continued his global conquests. In this version, titled History of the Universal Monarchy: Napoleon and the Conquest of the World, Napoleon Bonaparte eventually unifies the world and rules as an enlightened despot. Ultimately, Geoffroy tells of a utopian society under Napoleon. Other writers of this period also created utopian alternate histories. For example, in 1895 Englishman Castello Holford composed a variation on the settlement of Virginia. In his version, a reef of gold is found and the settlers use the wealth to build a perfect society in the New World.

By the twentieth century, the genre of alternate history had undergone a notable change. Rather than taking a utopian spin, many authors began composing “dystopian” stories. These works depict a world that is completely under the authority of an authoritarian regime. Many focus on what would have happened if the Allies had not been victorious during World War II. Thus, in The Man in the High Castle, Philip K Dick shows what the United States might have been like had they surrendered to Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. Similarly, George Orwell’s classic text 1984 depicts a society completely overtaken by totalitarian regimes after World War II. In this version, the Second World War gave birth to three authoritarian super-states controlled by Britain, Russia, and China / Japan.

For the last several decades, there has been a growing trend to merge alternate history with science fiction. In many of these works, time-travel is an underlying theme. Historical figures and events are dragged across space and time to show interesting historical possibilities. One early example of this style was composed in 1923 by H.G. Wells. In his work, Men Like Gods, Wells sends his characters to an alternative timeline showing an oddly utopian Britain. In another variation on this theme, Murray Leinster sends his protagonists through several alternate timelines in his short work Sidewise in Time. More recently, Arthur C. Clark and Stephen Baxter co-authored Time’s Eye, a novel where the world is torn apart and reassembled with pieces from different eras. This ultimately results in one of the most interesting military matchups in alternative history; Alexander the Great versus Genghis Khan.

Alternate histories shine an interesting light on the past. They tell the story of how our world could have been if even the smallest change had been made to the historical record. When properly researched and accurately written, these works can be startlingly realistic. While it is impossible to know how accurate an alternative history account truly is, they ultimately provide an interesting commentary on the world we know.