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Alternate history or alternative history^[1] is a subgenre of speculative fiction (or some would say science fiction) and historical fiction that is set in a world in which history has diverged from history as it is generally known. A genre (ˈʒɑːnrə also /ˈdʒɑːnrə/ from French "kind" or "sort" from Latin: genus (stem gener-) is a loose set Speculative fiction is a term used as an inclusive descriptor covering a group of Fiction Genres that speculate about worlds that are unlike the real world in Historical fiction is a sub-genre of Fiction that often portrays alternate accounts or dramatization of historical figures or events History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology Alternate history literature asks the question, "What if history had developed differently?" Most works in this genre are based in real historical events, yet feature social, geopolitical, or industrial circumstances that developed differently than our own. Literature is the Art of written works Literally translated the word means "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter While to some extent all fiction can be described as "alternate history," the subgenre proper comprises fiction in which a change or point of divergence occurs in the past that causes human society to develop in a way that is distinct from our own. Fiction is the telling of stories which are not real More specifically fiction is an imaginative form of Narrative, one of the four basic Rhetorical modes. In discussion of Counterfactual history, a divergence point (DP also referred to as a departure point or point of divergence ( POD) is a historical

Since the 1950s, this type of fiction has to a large extent merged with science fictional tropes involving (a) cross-time, or paratime, travel between alternate histories/universes (or psychic awareness of the existence of "our" universe by the people in another, as in Vladimir Nabokov and Philip K. Dick; see below); or (b) ordinary voyaging uptime or downtime that results in history splitting into two or more timelines. A literary trope (from Greek τρόπος - tropos "turn" related to the root of τρέπω - trepō "to turn to direct This page is about the novelist For his father the politician see Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov. Philip Kindred Dick (December 16 – March 2) was an American Science fiction Novelist and Short story Writer. Cross-time, time-splitting and alternate history themes have become so closely interwoven that it is impossible to discuss them fully apart from one another. Thus, cross-time and time-splitting stories will be an important part of this article insofar as they portray one or more alternate histories that diverged from a common past.

In French, alternate history novels are called uchronie. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people This neologism is based on the prefix u- (as in the word utopia, a place that does not exist) and the Greek for time, chronos. A neologism (from Greek neo = "new" + logos = "word" is a word that although devised relatively recently in a specific time period has been Utopia is a name for an ideal community taken from the title of a book written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional Island in the An uchronie, then, is defined as a time that does not exist, a "non-time". Another occasionally-used term for the genre is "allohistory" (lit. "other history"). ^[2]

History of alternate history fiction

Antiquity

The earliest example of alternate history appears to be Book IX, sections 17–19, of Livy's History of Rome from Its Foundation. Titus Livius (traditionally 59 BC &ndash AD 17 known as Livy in English, was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome Livy contemplates the possibility of Alexander the Great expanding his empire westward instead of eastward and attacking Rome in the 4th century BC. Alexander the Great ( or, Mégas Aléxandros; July 20 356 BC June 10 or June 11 323 BC also known as Alexander III of Macedon (el Ἀλέξανδρος Γ' His main question is: "What would have been the results for Rome if she had been engaged in war with Alexander?"^[3]

19th century

One of the earliest works of alternate history seems to be the French Louis Geoffroy's Histoire de la Monarchie universelle: Napoléon et la conquête du monde (1812-1832) [History of the Universal Monarchy: Napoleon And The Conquest Of The World] (1836), which tell the story of a victorious Napoleon over Russia in 1811, England in 1814, and later unifying the world under his enlightened leadership. Louis Geoffroy (Born 1803-Died 1858 was the Pseudonym of Louis-Napoléon Geoffroy-Château a French Writer who penned a one of the earliest works of work Year 1836 ( MDCCCXXXVI) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap

In the English language, the first known complete alternate history is Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "P.'s Correspondence", published in 1845. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4 1804 – May 19 1864 was an American novelist and Short story writer The short story is a literary genre of Fictional Prose Narrative that tends to be more concise and to the point than longer works of fiction such " P's Correspondence " is a 1845 Short story by the 19th century American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, constituting a pioneering work of Alternate It recounts the tale of a man who is considered "a madman" due to his perceiving a different 1845, a reality in which long-dead famous people are still alive such as the poets Burns, Byron, Shelley, and Keats, the actor Edmund Kean, the British politician George Canning and even Napoleon Bonaparte. Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796 (also known as Rabbie Burns, Scotland's favourite son, the Ploughman Poet, the Bard of Ayrshire Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4 1792 – July 8 1822 ˈpɝːsɪ ˈbɪʃ ˈʃɛlɪ was one of the major English Romantic poets and is widely considered to be among Edmund Kean (March 17 1789 &ndash May 15 1833 was an English Actor, regarded in his time as the greatest ever George Canning (11 April 1770 &ndash 8 August 1827 was a British statesman and Politician who served as Foreign Secretary and is at present the shortest serving Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821 was a French military and political leader who had a significant impact on the History of Europe.

The first novel-length alternate history in English would seem to be Castello Holford's Aristopia (1895). Castello Holford was an American writer best known for writing Aristopia in 1895 Aristopia is a 1895 novel by Castello Holford, considered the first novel-length Alternate history in English (and among the first known alternate histories Year 1895 ( MDCCCXCV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year While not as nationalistic as Louis Geoffroy's Napoléon et la conquête du monde, 1812–1823, Aristopia is another attempt to portray a utopian society. Louis Geoffroy (Born 1803-Died 1858 was the Pseudonym of Louis-Napoléon Geoffroy-Château a French Writer who penned a one of the earliest works of work In Aristopia, the earliest settlers in Virginia discover a reef made of solid gold and are able to build a Utopian society in North America. The Commonwealth of Virginia ( is an American state Gold (ˈɡoʊld is a Chemical element with the symbol Au (from its Latin name aurum) and Atomic number 79 Utopia is a name for an ideal community taken from the title of a book written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional Island in the

Early 20th century and the era of the pulps

Although a number of alternate history stories and novels appeared in the late 1800s and early 1900s (see, for example, Charles Petrie’s If: A Jacobite Fantasy [1926]), the next major work is perhaps the strongest anthology of alternate history ever assembled. Sir Charles Alexander Petrie 3rd Baronet ( September 28, 1895 - December 13, 1977) was a popular historian In 1931, British historian Sir John Squire collected a series of essays, many of which could be considered stories, in If It Had Happened Otherwise from some of the leading historians of the period. Sir John Squire ( John Collings Squire) ( April 2, 1884 – December 20, 1958) was a British Poet, Writer If It Had Happened Otherwise (ISBN 028397821X is a 1931 collection of essays edited by J In this work, scholars from major universities as well as important non-university-based authors turned their attention to such questions as "If the Moors in Spain Had Won" and "If Louis XVI Had Had an Atom of Firmness. Louis XVI ( 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) Louis-Auguste de France, ruled as King of France and Navarre " The essays range from serious scholarly efforts to Hendrik Willem van Loon's fanciful and satiric portrayal of an independent 20th century Dutch city state on the island of Manhattan. Hendrik Willem van Loon ( January 14, 1882 &ndash March 11, 1944) was a Dutch-American historian and journalist Manhattan Island, in New York Harbor, is much the largest part of the Borough of Manhattan, one of the Five Boroughs which form the City of New York

Two popular themes for alternate history seem to be Napoleon's victory and the American civil war. One of the entries in Squire's volume was Winston Churchill's "If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg"^[4], written from the viewpoint of a historian in a world where the Confederacy had won the American Civil War, considering what would have happened if the North had been victorious (in other words, a character from an alternate world imagining a world more like the real one we live in, although not necessarily getting all the details right). Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC, PC (Can ( 30 November 1874 The Confederate States of America (also called the Confederacy, the Confederate States, and CSA) formed as the government set up from 1861 Causes of the war See also Origins of the American Civil War, Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War The coexistence of a slave-owning South This kind of speculative work which posts from the point of view of an alternate history is variously known as a "recursive alternate history", a "double-blind what-if" or an "alternate-alternate history". Other authors appearing in Squire's book included Hilaire Belloc and André Maurois. Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (27 July 1870 &ndash 16 July 1953 was a French -born Writer who became a Naturalised British subject André Maurois, born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog, ( July 26, 1885 &ndash October 9, 1967) was a French author and man of letters

Another example of alternate history from this period (and arguably the first to explicitly posit cross-time travel from one universe to another as anything more than a visionary experience) was H.G. Wells' Men Like Gods (1923) in which several Englishmen are transferred via an accidental encounter with a cross-time machine into an alternate universe in which Britain had changed course in earlier centuries and developed into a seemingly pacifistic and utopian society. Time travel is a common theme in Science fiction and is depicted in a variety of media Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 &ndash 13 August 1946 He was an outspoken socialist and a pacifist, his later works becoming increasingly political Men Like Gods is a novel written in 1923 by H G Wells. It features a utopian parallel universe. When the Englishmen, led by a satiric figure based on Winston Churchill, try to seize power, the utopians simply point a ray gun at them and send them on to someone else's universe. Wells works out the entire multiverse-pancake framing complete with paratime travel machines that would become popular with U. S. pulp writers (see below), but since his hero experiences only a single alternate world this story is not very different from conventional alternate history (the intruders from our world cause no significant change in the world they enter and are really just a device for examining the results of a past divergence between Wells' utopia and our own world).

The 1930s would see alternate history move into a new arena. The December 1933 issue of Astounding published Nat Schachner's "Ancestral Voices". Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American Science fiction Magazine. Nat Schachner (full name Nathaniel Schachner January 16, 1895 - 1955 also appearing as "Nathan Schachner" and under other bylines was an American This was quickly followed by Murray Leinster's "Sidewise in Time". Murray Leinster ( June 16, 1896 in Norfolk Virginia - June 8, 1975) was a Nom de plume of William Fitzgerald Jenkins "Sidewise in Time" is a Science fiction Short story by Murray Leinster that was first published in the June 1934 issue of Astounding While earlier alternate histories examined reasonably straight-forward divergences, Leinster attempted something completely different. In his "world gone mad", pieces of Earth traded places with their analogs from different timelines. The story follows Professor Minott and his students from the fictitious Robinson College as they wander through these dangerous analogs, each of which features remnants of worlds which followed a different history.

Time travel as a means of creating historical divergences

This period also saw the publication of the time travel novel Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp, which was similar to Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court but sent an American academic to the Italy of the Ostrogoths at the time of the Byzantine invasion led by Belisarius. This article details time travel itself For other uses see Time Traveler. Lest Darkness Fall is an alternate history Science fiction novel written in 1939 by author L Lyon Sprague de Camp, ( November 27 1907 – November 6 2000) was an American science fiction and fantasy author Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30 1835 – April 21 1910 better known by the Pen name Mark Twain, was an American Humorist, satirist A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889 Novel by American Humorist and Writer Mark Twain. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest The Ostrogoths (Ostrogothi or Austrogothi were a branch of the Goths, an East Germanic tribe that played a major role in the political events of the late Flavius Belisarius (Βελισάριος (505(? – 565 was one of the greatest Generals of the Byzantine Empire and one of the most acclaimed generals in history De Camp's work is concerned with the historical changes wrought by his time traveler, Martin Padway, thereby making the work an alternate history. Padway is depicted as making permanent changes and implicitly forming a new time branch (in contrast to Twain's hero, who ultimately fails, with the result that history reverts to its "normal" course — making this book a secret history, though this sub-genre did not exist as such in Twain's time). A secret history (or shadow history) is a revisionist interpretation of either fictional or real (or known History which is claimed to have been deliberately

Time travel as the cause of a point of divergence (creating two histories where before there was one, or simply replacing the future that existed before the time traveling event) has continued to be a popular theme over the decades. In Bring the Jubilee, by Ward Moore, the hero, who lives in a world in which the South won the Civil War, travels through time and brings about an alternate history in which the North won at Gettysburg. Bring the Jubilee, by Ward Ward Moore (b August 10 1903, Madison New Jersey - d January 28 1978) was the working name of American author Joseph Ward

When a story's assumptions about the nature of time necessitate, as in the Bradbury tale, a replacement of the visited historical time's future rather than just the creation of a new time line, the next step is obviously the founding of a time patrol (a device that is not to be confused with the paratime police, see below). Such an agency has the grim task of saving civilization every day, every hour, with patrol members—depicted most notably in Poul Anderson's "Time Patrol"—racing uptime and downtime to preserve the "correct" history. Poul William Anderson ( November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American Science fiction author who wrote during a Golden

It should be noted that "uptime" connotes time-travel into the past: against the current of the time-stream, just as travel "upriver" is against the current of the river. "Downtime" connotes time-travel into the future, traveling with but faster than (and therefore ahead of) the current of the time-stream.

This can lead to terrible moral dilemmas. In Delenda Est, the interference of time-travelling outlaws causes Carthage to win the Second Punic War and destroy Rome. Delenda Est is a Short story written by Poul Anderson, within his Time Patrol ( 1960) series Carthage (Καρχηδών Karkhēdōn, Carthago from the Phoenician קרת חדשת phn-Latn Qart-ḥadašt meaning new town) refers The Second Punic War (referred to as "The War Against Hannibal" by the Romans lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2 As a result, there is a completely different Twentieth Century — "not better or worse, just completely different". The hero, Patrol Agent Manse Everard, must return to that period, fight the outlaws and change history back, restoring his (and our) familiar history — but only at the price of totally destroying the world which has taken its place, and which is equally deserving of existence. The stakes are the highest imaginable: billions of lives balanced against other billions of lives, for one man to decide. "Risking your neck in order to negate a world full of people like yourself" is how the hero describes what he eventually undertakes.

Of course not all time travel stories involve alternate histories. The writer may ignore the possibility of change, or have the cause-and-effect work out so that the time traveler's actions cause the future he remembers, as in Harry Harrison's The Technicolor Time Machine. For the radio personality see Harry Harrison (radio. Harry Harrison (born Henry Maxwell Dempsey, March 12 1925 The Technicolor Time Machine is a 1967 Science fiction novel by Harry Harrison. Another example of this approach is Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man, in which the protagonist travels back to the Holy Land of 28 AD to meet Jesus, but upon meeting him (he is actually a retarded man) he starts to play the role of the Jesus he knows to the point that it is him the one who ends up dying in the cross. Michael John Moorcock (born 18 December 1939, in London) is an English writer primarily of Science fiction and fantasy who has also Behold the Man (1969 is a Science fiction Novel by Michael Moorcock.

Cross-time stories

H. G. Wells' "cross-time"/"many universes" variant (see above) was fully developed by De Camp in his 1940 short story "The Wheels of If" (Unknown Fantasy Fiction, October 1940), in which the hero is repeatedly shifted from one alternate history to another, each more remote from our own than the last. Unknown (also known as Unknown Worlds) was a pulp Fantasy fiction magazine, edited by John W This subgenre was used early on for purposes far removed from quasi-academic examination of alternative outcomes to historical events. Fredric Brown employed it to satirize the s-f pulps and their adolescent readers—and fears of foreign invasion—in the classic What Mad Universe (1949). Fredric Brown ( October 29, 1906, Cincinnati &ndash March 11, 1972) was an American Science fiction and What Mad Universe is a Science-fiction novel written in 1949 by the American author Fredric Brown. In Clifford Simak's Ring Around the Sun (1953), the hero ends up in an alternate earth of thick forests in which humanity never developed (the ultimate divergence) but where a band of mutants is establishing a colony; the story line appears to frame the author's anxieties regarding McCarthyism and the Cold War. Clifford Donald Simak ( August 3, 1904 - April 25, 1988) was a major American Science fiction writer McCarthyism is a term describing the intense anti-communist suspicion in the United States in a period that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the

Introducing the paratime patrol

Also in the late 1940s and the 1950s, however, writers such as H. Beam Piper, Sam Merwin, Jr. and Andre Norton wrote thrillers set in a multiverse in which all alternate histories are co-existent and travel between them occurs via a technology involving portals and/or paratime capsules. Henry Beam Piper ( March 23, 1904 – c November 6, 1964) was an American Science fiction author Samuel Kimball Merwin Jr ( April 28[[ 910]] Plainfield New Jersey - January 13[[ 996]] Los Angeles California) was an American Andre Alice Norton ( February 17, 1912 &ndash March 17, 2005) was an American Science fiction and Fantasy author Parallel universe or alternative reality is a self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own These authors established the convention of a secret paratime trading empire that exploits and/or protects worlds lacking the paratime technology via a network of James Bond-style secret agents (Piper called them the "paratime police"). James Bond 007 is a Fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve Novels and two Short story The Paratime series written by H Beam Piper consists of several short stories one novella and one novel they deal with an advanced civilization that is able to travel between

This concept provided a convenient framing for packing a smorgasbord of historical alternatives (and even of timeline "branches") into a single novel, either via the hero chasing or being chased by the villain(s) through multiple worlds or (less artfully) via discussions between the paratime cops and their superiors (or between paratime agents and new recruits) regarding the histories of such worlds.

The paratime theme is sometimes used without the police; Poul Anderson dreamed up the Old Phoenix tavern as a nexus between alternate histories. Poul William Anderson ( November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American Science fiction author who wrote during a Golden A character from a modern American alternate history Operation Chaos can thus appear in the English Civil War setting of A Midsummer's Tempest. In this context, the distinction between an alternate history and a parallel universe with some points in common but no common history may not be feasible, as the writer may not provide enough information to distinguish.

Paratime thrillers published in recent decades often cite the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (first formulated by Hugh Everett III in 1957) to account for the differing worlds. The many-worlds interpretation or MWI (also known as relative state formulation, theory of the universal wavefunction, parallel universes, Quantum mechanics is the study of mechanical systems whose dimensions are close to the Atomic scale such as Molecules Atoms Electrons Hugh Everett III ( November 11, 1930 – July 19, 1982) was an American physicist who first proposed the Many-worlds interpretation Some science fiction writers interpret the splitting of worlds to depend on human decision-making and free will, while others rely on the butterfly effect from chaos theory to amplify random differences at the atomic or subatomic level into a macroscopic divergence at some specific point in history; either way, science fiction writers usually have all changes flow from a particular historical point of divergence (often abbreviated 'POD' by fans of the genre). The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in Chaos theory. In Mathematics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems – that is systems whose state evolves with time – that may exhibit dynamics that Macroscopic is commonly used to describe physical objects that are measurable and observable by the Naked eye. Prior to Everett, science-fiction writers drew on higher dimensions and the speculations of P. D. Ouspensky to explain their characters' cross-time jauntings. Peter D Ouspensky ( March 4, 1878 – October 2, 1947) ( Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii, also Uspenskii or Uspensky

While many justifications for alternate histories involve a multiverse, the "many world" theory would naturally involve many worlds, in fact a continually exploding array of universes. In quantum theory, new worlds would proliferate with every quantum event, and even if the writer uses human decisions, every decision that could be made differently would result in a different timeline. A writer's fictional multiverse may, in fact, preclude some decisions as humanly impossible, as when, in Night Watch, Terry Pratchett depicts a character informing Vimes that while anything that can happen, has happened, nevertheless there is no history whatsoever in which Vimes has ever murdered his wife. Night Watch is the 29th Novel in Terry Pratchett 's Discworld series published in 2002 Terence David John Pratchett, OBE (born 28 April 1948 is an English fantasy, Science fiction, and children's author. When the writer explicitly maintains that all possible decisions are made in all possible ways, one possible conclusion is that the characters were neither brave, nor clever, nor skilled, but simply lucky enough to happen on the universe in which they did not choose the cowardly route, take the stupid action, fumble the crucial activity, etc. ; few writers focus on this idea, although it has been explored in stories such as Larry Niven's All the Myriad Ways, where the reality of all possible universes leads to an epidemic of suicide and crime because people conclude their choices have no moral import.

In any case, even if it is true that every possible outcome occurs in some world, it can still be argued that traits such as bravery and intelligence might still affect the relative frequency of worlds in which better or worse outcomes occurred (even if the total number of worlds with each type of outcome is infinite, it is still possible to assign a different measure to different infinite sets). In Mathematics the concept of a measure generalizes notions such as "length" "area" and "volume" (but not all of its applications have to do with The physicist David Deutsch, a strong advocate of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, has argued along these lines, saying that "By making good choices, doing the right thing, we thicken the stack of universes in which versions of us live reasonable lives. David Elieser Deutsch FRS (born 1953 in Haifa, Israel) is a Physicist at the University of Oxford. When you succeed, all the copies of you who made the same decision succeed too. What you do for the better increases the portion of the multiverse where good things happen. " ^[5] This view is perhaps somewhat too abstract to be explored directly in science fiction stories, but a few writers have tried, such as Greg Egan in his short story The Infinite Assassin, where an agent is trying to contain reality-scrambling "whirlpools" that form around users of a certain drug, and the agent is constantly trying to maximize the consistency of behavior among his alternate selves, attempting to compensate for events and thoughts he experiences but he guesses are of low measure relative to those experienced by most of his other selves. Greg Egan (born 20 August 1961) is an Australian science fiction author.

Many writers — perhaps the majority — avoid the discussion entirely. In one novel of this type, H. Beam Piper's Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, a country is saved because a Pennsylvanian cop is dropped into it, with the trade secret of how to make gunpowder, before it is overrun; the paratime patrol members are warned against going into the timelines immediately surrounding it, where the country will be overrun, but the book never depicts the slaughter of the innocent thus entailed, remaining solely in the timeline where the country is saved. Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen is a 1965 Science fiction novel by H

The cross-time theme was further developed in the 1960s by Keith Laumer in the first three volumes of his Imperium sequence, which would be completed in Zone Yellow (1990). John Keith Laumer (June 9 1925–January Piper's politically more sophisticated variant was adopted and adapted by Michael Kurland and Jack Chalker in the 1980s; Chalker's G. Michael Joseph Kurland (born 1938 is an American author best known for his works of (in chronological order Science fiction and Detective fiction. Jack Laurence Chalker ( December 17, 1944 – February 11, 2005) was an American Science fiction author. O. D. Inc trilogy (1987–89), featuring paratime detectives Sam and Brandy Horowitz, marks the first attempt at merging the paratime thriller with the police procedural. Kurland's Perchance (1988), the first volume of the never completed "Chronicles of Elsewhen", presents a multiverse of secretive cross-time societies that utilize a variety of means for cross-time travel, ranging from high-tech capsules to mutant powers. Harry Turtledove has launched the Crosstime Traffic series for teenagers that features a variant of H. Crosstime Traffic is a series of books by Harry Turtledove. The central premise of the stories is an Earth that has discovered access to alternate universes where history Beam Piper's paratime trading empire.

The concept of a cross-time version of a world war, involving rival paratime empires, was developed in Fritz Leiber's Change War series, starting with the Hugo Award winning The Big Time (1958); followed by Richard C. Meredith's Timeliner trilogy in the 1970s, Michael McCollum's A Greater Infinity (1982) and John Barnes' Timeline Wars trilogy in the 1990s. This article refers to the science fiction writer For the actor see Fritz Leiber Sr The Hugo Awards are given every year for the best Science fiction or Fantasy works and achievements of the previous year Richard Carlton Meredith (1937 &ndash 1979 also known as Richard C Michael Allen McCollum (born 1946 in Phoenix Arizona) is an American Science fiction author and engineer John Barnes (born 1957 is a prolific American Science fiction author whose stories often explore questions of individual moral responsibility within a larger social

Such "paratime" stories may include speculation that the laws of nature can vary from one universe to the next, providing a science fictional explanation—or veneer—for what is normally fantasy. Aaron Allston's Doc Sidhe and Sidhe Devil take place between our world, the "grim world" and an alternate "fair world" where the Sidhe retreated to. Aaron Allston (born 1960 in Corsicana Texas) is an American Novelist of many Science fiction books notably Star Wars Although technology is clearly present in both worlds, and the "fair world" parallels our history, about fifty years out of step, there is functional magic in the fair world. Even with such explanation, the more explicitly the alternate world resembles a normal fantasy world, the more likely the story is to be labeled fantasy, as in Poul Anderson's "House Rule" and "Loser's Night. "

In both science fiction and fantasy, whether a given parallel universe is an alternate history may not be clear. The writer might allude to a POD only to explain the existence and make no use of the concept, or may present the universe without explanation to its existence.

Development of more sophisticated framings

Most of the early cross-time thrillers depicted the multiverse in Euclidean terms (pancake universes stretching to left and right of any given zero universe with the divergence point being earlier and earlier, and the differences greater and greater, the farther one moved in either direction from the zero point). McCollum and some later writers, however, have posited a pseudo-Einsteinian paratime in which universes are constantly shifting around, moving closer or farther from each other, with time dilating or contracting from one universe to another in unpredictable ways. This framing device expands the potential for using cross-time fiction to compare different outcomes uptime, downtime and crosstime all at once.

Major writers explore alternate histories

In 1962, Philip K. Year 1962 ( MCMLXII) was a Common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Dick published The Man in the High Castle, an alternate history in which Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan won World War II. The Man in the High Castle is a 1962 Alternate history Novel by Science fiction writer Philip K Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers The Empire of Japan ( {{unicode|Kyūjitai}}: ja 大日本帝國 Shinjitai: ja 大日本帝国 pronounced Dai Nippon Teikoku World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including This book, widely regarded as Dick's masterpiece, has enhanced the prestige of alternate history in mainstream literary circles, although Dick was not yet recognized beyond SF circles when it was first published. Dick's book also contained an example of "alternate-alternate" history, in that one of its characters is the author of a book in which the Allies won the war.

It was followed by Vladimir Nabokov's Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969), a story of incest that takes place within an alternate North America settled in part by Czarist Russia, and that borrows from Dick's idea of "alternate-alternate" history (the world of Nabokov's hero is wracked by rumors of a "counter-earth" that apparently is ours). Ada or Ardor A Family Chronicle is a Novel by Vladimir Nabokov published in 1969. Some critics believe that the references to a counter-earth suggest that the world portrayed in Ada is a delusion in the mind of the hero (another favorite theme of Dick's novels). Strikingly, the characters in Ada seem to acknowledge their own world as the copy or negative version, calling it "Anti-Terra" while its mythical twin is the real "Terra. " Not only history but science has followed a divergent path on Anti-Terra: it boasts all the same technology as our world, but all based on water instead of electricity. When a character in Ada makes a long-distance call, all the toilets in the house flush at once to provide hydraulic power.

Isaac Asimov's short story "What If—" is about a couple who can explore alternate realities by means of a television-like device. Isaac Asimov (c January 2 1920 &ndash April 6 1992 ˈaɪzək ˈæzɪmʌv originally Исаак Озимов but now transcribed into Russian as, was a Russian " What If— " is a Fantasy Short story by Isaac Asimov that was first published in the Summer 1952 issue of Fantastic and This idea can also be found in Asimov's 1955 novel The End of Eternity. The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov is a Science fiction novel with mystery and thriller elements on the subjects of Time In that novel, the Eternals can change the realities of the world, without people being aware of it.

The Plot Against America (2004) by Philip Roth looks at an America where Franklin D. Roosevelt is defeated in 1940 in his bid for a third term as President of the United States, and Charles Lindbergh is elected, leading to increasing fascism and anti-Semitism in the U. The Plot Against America A Novel (ISBN 0-618-50928-3 is a novel by Philip Roth published in 2004 "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Philip Milton Roth (born March 19, 1933, Newark New Jersey) is an American novelist WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout Fascism is a totalitarian nationalist and corporatist ideology Antisemitism (alternatively spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism; also rarely known as judeophobia) is the Prejudice against or hostility S.

In the Darren Shan Books "The Saga of Darren Shan" this subject is addressed in the twelfth book. Darren O'Shaughnessy (born July 2, 1972 in London, England) who commonly writes under the pen name Darren Shan, is an Irish The Saga of Darren Shan (known as Cirque Du Freak The Saga of Darren Shan in the US is a young adult 12 book series written by Darren Shan about the struggle It is said that history cannot be changed claiming that even if you went back in time and killed Adolf Hitler someone else would just replace him. Hi and welcome to Wikipedia! Please understand that this article is frequently vandalized and vandalism is reverted immediately

Contemporary alternate history in popular literature

The late 1980s and the 1990s saw a boom in popular-fiction versions of alternate history, fueled by the emergence of Harry Turtledove, the steampunk genre and two series of anthologies — the "What Might Have Been" series edited by Gregory Benford and the "Alternate . Harry Norman Turtledove (born June 14 1949) is an American historian and novelist who has written Historical fiction, Fantasy, and Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy and Speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s Gregory Benford (born January 30, 1941 in Mobile Alabama) is an American science fiction author and Astrophysicist who is on the . . " series edited by Mike Resnick. Michael "Mike" Diamond Resnick (born Chicago, March 5, 1942) better known by his published name Mike Resnick, is a popular and prolific This period also saw alternate history works by S.M. Stirling, Kim Stanley Robinson, Harry Harrison, Howard Waldrop and others. Stephen Michael Stirling is a French -born Canadian - American Science fiction and Fantasy author Kim Stanley Robinson (born March 23 1952) is an American Science fiction Writer, probably best known for his award-winning Howard Waldrop (born September 15, 1946, in Houston Mississippi) is a Science fiction author who works primarily in Short fiction

Since the late 1990s, Harry Turtledove has been the most prolific practitioner of alternate history. His books include a series in which the South won the American Civil War (a massive series of 11 volumes that began in 1997 and completed in 2007) and another in which aliens invade Earth during the Second World War. Timeline-191 is a fan name given to a series of Harry Turtledove alternate history Novels including How Few Remain as well as The Confederate States of America (also called the Confederacy, the Confederate States, and CSA) formed as the government set up from 1861 Causes of the war See also Origins of the American Civil War, Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War The coexistence of a slave-owning South Tosev timeline is a fan name given to a series of Harry Turtledove 's alternate history Science fiction novels it includes the Worldwar World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Other stories by this author include one with the premise that America had not been colonized from Asia during the last ice age; as a result, the continent still has living mammoths and a hominid species other than homo sapiens, one in which the Nazis won World War Two, as well as one in which the Spanish Armada succeeded in conquering Britain in the Elizabethan era, with William Shakespeare being given the task of writing the play that will motivate the Britons to rise up against their Spanish conquerors. The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World, consisting of the Continents of North America and South America An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the Temperature of the Earth 's surface and atmosphere resulting in an expansion of continental Ice sheets A mammoth is any Species of the Extinct Genus Mammuthus. These Proboscideans are members of the elephant family and Human beings, humans or man (Origin 1590–1600 L homō man OL hemō the earthly one (see Humus Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers The Spanish Armada ( Spanish: Grande y Felicísima Armada, "Great and Most Fortunate Navy" or Armada Invencible, "Invincible Romance and reality The Victorian era and the early twentieth century idealised the Elizabethan era William Shakespeare ( baptised Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. He also co-authored a book with actor Richard Dreyfuss The Two Georges, which postulates what would have happened if the United Kingdom had retained the American colonies, with George Washington and King George III making peace. Richard Stephen Dreyfuss (born October 29 1947 is an Academy Award -winning American Actor, known for a number of film television and theater roles such The Two Georges is an alternate history novel co-written by Science fiction Author Harry Turtledove and Oscar -winning George Washington (February 22 1732 December 14 1799 served as the first President of the United States of America (1789&ndash1797 and led the George III (George William Frederick 4 June 1738 George III's long reign was marked by a series of military conflicts involving his kingdom much of the rest of Europe and places He did a two-volume series in which the Japanese not only bomb Pearl Harbor but also invade and occupy the Hawaiian Islands. The attack on Pearl Harbor (or Hawaii Operation, as it was called by the Imperial General Headquarters) was a surprise Military strike conducted by In 2005, he published two short stories set in a world where the east coast of North America exists as an eighth continent in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The short story is a literary genre of Fictional Prose Narrative that tends to be more concise and to the point than longer works of fiction such The first novel of a projected trilogy set in this particular timeline was published in 2007.

A seminal work in the genre is Keith Roberts' Pavane (1968), which describes a Britain conquered in 1588 when the Spanish Armada was not destroyed by a providential storm. Keith Roberts (1935 - 2000 was a British Science fiction author. Pavane by Keith Roberts is an alternate history Science fiction Fix-up novel first published by Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd

Perhaps the most incessantly explored theme in popular alternate history focusses on worlds in which the Nazis won World War Two. In some versions, the Nazis conquer the entire world; in others, they conquer most of the world but a "Fortress America" exists under siege. Fatherland (1992) by Robert Harris, set in Europe following the Nazi victory, has been widely praised for portraying a more believable society and series of events than most other novels set in a Nazified world or Nazified Eurasia. Fatherland is a bestselling 1992 thriller Novel by the English Writer and journalist Robert Harris, which doubles Robert Dennis Harris (born March 7, 1957 in Nottingham) is a best-selling English Novelist. Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Several writers have posited points of departure for such a world but then have injected time splitters from the future or paratime travel (for instance, James P. Hogan's The Proteus Operation (1986) and Michael P. Kube-McDowell's Alternities (1988)). James Patrick Hogan (born June 27, 1941) is a British Science fiction Author. The Proteus Operation is a Science fiction Novel which was written by James P Michael Paul Kube-McDowell (born August 29, 1954, Philadelphia Pennsylvania) is a Science fiction Novelist. Norman Spinrad wrote The Iron Dream in 1972, which is intended to be a science fiction novel written by Adolf Hitler after fleeing from Europe to North America in the 1920s. Norman Richard Spinrad (born September 15, 1940) is an American Science fiction author The Iron Dream is a Metafictional 1972 Alternate history novel by Norman Spinrad. Hi and welcome to Wikipedia! Please understand that this article is frequently vandalized and vandalism is reverted immediately Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen have written a novel, 1945, in which the U. Newton "Newt" Leroy Gingrich, (born Newton Leroy McPherson on June 17, 1943) is an American politician and author who served as the Speaker William R Forstchen (born 1950 is an American Science fiction author who began publishing in 1983 with the novel Ice Prophet. 1945 is an alternate history co-authored by Newt Gingrich and William R S. defeated Japan but not Germany in World War II, resulting in a Cold War with Germany rather than the Soviet Union. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Gingrich and Fortschen neglected to write the promised sequel; instead, they wrote a trilogy about the American Civil War, starting with Gettysburg, in which the Confederates win a victory at Gettysburg. Gettysburg A Novel of the Civil War is an Alternate history novel written by Newt Gingrich and William R Background and movement to battle See also [[Gettysburg Campaign]] [[Gettysburg Battlefield]] [[Gettysburg Confederate order of battle]] [[Confederate order of battle]]

Beginning with The Probability Broach in 1981, L. Neil Smith wrote several novels which postulated the disintegration of the U. The Probability Broach is the first novel (1980 by science fiction writer L L Neil Smith (full name Lester Neil Smith III) also known to readers and fans as El Neil, is a Libertarian Science fiction Author S. Federal Government during the Whiskey Rebellion and the creation of a libertarian utopia. The Whiskey Rebellion, less commonly known as the Whiskey Insurrection, was a popular uprising that had its beginnings in 1791 and culminated in an insurrection in 1794 in the Libertarianism is a term used by a broad spectrum of political philosophies which prioritize individual Liberty and seek to minimize or even abolish the

A recent time travelling splitter variant involves entire communities (and not just individuals like Twain's Connecticut Yankee) being shifted uptime to be the founding fathers of new time branches. These communities are transported either from the present or the near-future to the past via a natural disaster, the action of technologically advanced aliens, or a human experiment gone wrong.

S. M. Stirling wrote the Island in the Sea of Time trilogy, in which Nantucket Island and all its modern inhabitants are transported to Bronze Age times to become the world's first superpower. Island in the Sea of Time is the first out of the three novels of the Nantucket series by S The term Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced Metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use included techniques for In Eric Flint's 1632 series, a small town in West Virginia is transported to 17th century Europe and leads a revolution against the Habsburgs. Eric Flint (born 1947 is an American Alternate history and Fantasy author, editor, and e-publisher. West Virginia ( is a state in the Appalachian Upland South, and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, bordered by John Birmingham's Axis of Time trilogy deals with the culture shock when a United Nations naval task force from 2021 finds itself back in 1942 helping the Allies against the Japanese and the Germans (and doing almost as much harm as good in spite of its advanced weapons). John Birmingham (born 7 August 1964 is an Australian author Birmingham was born in Liverpool, England and migrated to Australia with his parents in The Axis of Time Trilogy is an Alternate history series of Novels written by Australian journalist and author John Birmingham The Empire of Japan ( {{unicode|Kyūjitai}}: ja 大日本帝國 Shinjitai: ja 大日本帝国 pronounced Dai Nippon Teikoku

Alternate history in the contemporary fantasy genre

Many fantasies and science fantasies are set in a world that has a history somewhat similar to our own world, but with magic added. Since the existence of magic implies different laws of nature it is difficult to imagine a credible point of divergence: The effects of divergence would have existed throughout human history and indeed throughout all evolution of life (unless one posits sudden changes in the laws of nature in medieval or modern times brought about by aliens, a time-space warp, etc. ). One example of a universe that is in part historically recognizable but also obeys different physical laws is Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions in which the Matter of France is history, and the fairy folk are real and powerful. Three Hearts and Three Lions is a 1961 Fantasy novel by Poul Anderson. The Matter of France, also known as the Carolingian cycle, is a body of Legendary history that springs from the Old French Medieval literature A partly familiar European history for which the author provides a point of divergence is Randall Garrett's "Lord Darcy" series: a monk systemizing magic rather than science, so the use of foxglove to treat heart disease is called superstition. Randall Garrett ( December 16, 1927 - December 31, 1987) was an American Science fiction and Fantasy author

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell takes place in an alternate version of England where a separate Kingdom ruled by the Raven King and founded on magic existed for in Northumbria for over 300 years. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the debut novel by British writer Susanna Clarke. In Patricia Wrede's Regency fantasies, Great Britain has a Royal Society of Wizards, and in Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest William Shakespeare is remembered as the Great Historian, with the novel itself taking place in the era of Cromwell and Charles I—and an earlier Industrial Revolution. Patricia Collins Wrede is an American Fantasy Writer, born 1953 in Chicago Illinois; she is the eldest of five children A Midsummer Tempest is an 1974 alternate history fantasy novel by Poul Anderson. Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 Old Style &ndash 3 September 1658 Old Style) was an English military and political leader best known Charles I, (19 November 1600 &ndash 30 January 1649 was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution. The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture manufacturing and transportation had a profound effect on the

The Tales of Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card (a parallel to the life of Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) takes place in an alternate America, beginning in the early 19th century. The Tales of Alvin Maker is a series of novels by Orson Scott Card that revolve around the experiences of a young man Alvin Miller who discovers he has incredible powers Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is a bestselling American Author, Critic, political writer and speaker. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the fourth largest Christian denomination in the United States and the largest and most well-known Prior to that time, a POD occurred: England, under the control of Oliver Cromwell, had banished "makers", or anyone else demonstrating "knacks" (an ability to perform seemingly supernatural feats) to the North American continent. Thus the early American colonists embraced as perfectly ordinary these gifts, and counted on them as a part of their daily lives. The political divisions of the continent is considerably altered, with two large English colonies bookending a smaller "American" nation, one aligned with England, and the other governed by exiled Cavaliers. Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I during the English Civil War ( 1642 &ndash 1651 Actual historical figures are seen in a much different light: Ben Franklin is revered as the continents's finest "maker", George Washington was executed at the hands of an English army, and "Tom" Jefferson is the first president of "Apallachee", the result of a compromise between the Continentals and the British.

On the other hand, when the "Old Ones" still manifest themselves in England in Keith Roberts's Pavane, which takes place in a technologically backward world after a Spanish assassination of Elizabeth I allowed the Spanish Armada to conquer England, the possibility that the fairies were real but retreated from modern advances makes the POD possible: the fairies really were present all along, in a secret history. Keith Roberts (1935 - 2000 was a British Science fiction author. Pavane by Keith Roberts is an alternate history Science fiction Fix-up novel first published by Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd Again, in the English Renaissance fantasy Armor of Light by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Melissa Scott (born 1960, Little Rock Arkansas) is a Science fiction and Fantasy author noted for her science fiction novels featuring Barnett, the magic used in the book, by Dr. John Dee and others, actually was practiced in the Renaissance; positing a secret history of effective magic makes this an alternate history with a POD, Sir Philip Sidney's surviving the Battle of Zutphen, and shortly there after saving the life of Christopher Marlowe. John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609 was a noted English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, occultist Sir Philip Sidney ( November 30, 1554 &ndash October 17, 1586) became one of the Elizabethan Age's most prominent figures

Many works of fantasy posit a world in which known practitioners of magic were able to make it function, and where the consequences of such reality would not, in fact, disturb history to such an extent as to make it plainly alternate history. Many ambiguous alternate/secret histories are set in Renaissance or pre-Renaissance times, and may explicitly include a "retreat" from the world, which would explain the current absence of such phenomena.

When the magical version of our world's history is set in contemporary times, the distinction becomes clear between alternate history on the one hand and contemporary fantasy, using in effect a form of secret history (as when Josepha Sherman's Son of Darkness has an elf living in New York City, in disguise) on the other. Contemporary fantasy is a subgenre of Fantasy, also known as modern-day fantasy, or indigenous fantasy. Josepha Sherman is an American author In 1990 she won the Compton Crook Award for the novel The Shining Falcon. In works such as Robert A. Heinlein's Magic, Incorporated where a construction company can use magic to rig up stands at a sporting event and Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos and its sequel Operation Luna, where djinns are serious weapons of war — with atomic bombs — the use of magic throughout the United States and other modern countries makes it clear that this is not secret history—although references in Operation Chaos to degaussing the effects of cold iron make it possible that it is the result of a POD. Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7 1907 – May 8 1988 was an American Novelist and Science fiction Writer. Operation Chaos is a 1971 Science fiction / Fantasy Fixup Novel by Poul Anderson. Operation Luna is the 2000 sequel to the 1971 Fixup Novel Operation Chaos by Poul Anderson. The sequel clarifies this as the result of a collaboration of Einstein and Planck in 1901, resulting in the theory of "rheatics". Moseley applies this theory to "degauss the effects of cold iron and release the goetic forces. Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley ( November 23, 1887 – August 10, 1915) was an English physicist. " This results in the suppression of ferromagnetism and the reemergence of magic and magical creatures. Ferromagnetism is the basic mechanism by which certain materials (such as Iron) form Permanent magnets and/or exhibit strong interactions with Magnets it

Alternate history shades off into other fantasy subgenres when the use of actual, though altered, history and geography decreases, although a culture may still be clearly the original source; Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds and its sequels take place in a fantasy world, albeit one clearly based on China, and with allusions to actual Chinese history, such as the Empress Wu. The Fantasy Genre has spawned many new Subgenres with no clear counterparts in the myths or Folklore upon which the tradition of fantasy storytelling is Barry Hughart (born March 13, 1934) in Peoria, Illinois, is an American author of Fantasy Novels Bridge of Birds is a Fantasy novel by Barry Hughart, first published in 1984 A fantasy world is a type of Imaginary world, part of a Fictional universe used in Fantasy novels and games Wu Zetian ( (625 – December 16, 705 In 705 she was overthrown in a coup and Emperor Zhongzong was returned to the throne Richard Garfinkle's Celestial Matters incorporates ancient Chinese physics and Greek Aristotelian physics, using them as if factual. Richard Garfinkle (fl 1990s is an American writer of Science fiction. Celestial Matters is a science fiction novel set in an alternate universe with different laws of physics written by Richard Garfinkle and published by The Greek Philosopher Aristotle ( 384 BC – 322 BC) developed many theories on the nature of Physics that are completely different

Philip Pullman mined both pseudo-alternate history and cross-time themes in His Dark Materials (1996–2000), a science-fantasy trilogy for young adults. Philip Pullman CBE (born October 19, 1946) is an English writer. His Dark Materials is a Trilogy of Fantasy Novels by Philip Pullman comprising Northern Lights (1995 Most notable is his variant version of England in the first volume, although given the different (magical) laws of nature there could be no credible point of departure, nor does Pullman attempt to provide one.

A fantasy version of the paratime police was developed by children's writer Diana Wynne Jones in her Chrestomanci quartet (1977–1988), with wizards taking the place of high tech secret agents. Diana Wynne Jones (born London 16 August 1934 is a British writer principally of Fantasy novels for children and adults as well as a small Chrestomanci (ˈkrɛstəmænsɪ is the title of a position held by at least two major characters in a series of fantasy novels by Diana Wynne Jones. Among the novels in this series, Witch Week stands out for its vivid depiction of a history alternate to that of Chrestomanci's own world rather than our own (and yet with a specific POD that turned it away from the "normal" history of most worlds visited by the wizard). Witch Week is part of the Chrestomanci series of Fantasy novels by Diana Wynne Jones.

Terry Pratchett's works includes several references to alternate histories of Discworld. Discworld is a comedic Fantasy Book series by the British author Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat Men At Arms observes that in millions of universes, Edward d'Eath became an obsessive recluse rather than the instigator of the plot that he is in the novel. Men at Arms is the 15th Discworld Novel by Terry Pratchett first published in 1993 In Jingo, Vimes accidentally picks up a pocket organizer that should have gone down another leg of the Trousers of Time, and so can hear the organizer reporting on the deaths that would have occurred had his decision gone otherwise. Indeed, Discworld contains an equivalent of the Time Patrol in its History Monks. The Order of Wen the Eternally Surprised, better known as the History Monks, and also sometimes referred to as the Men In Saffron (see Men in Black) and No Such Monastery Night Watch revolves around a repair of history after a time traveler's murder of an important figure in Vimes's past. Thief of Time presents them functioning as a fullscale Time Patrol, ensuring that history occurs at all. Thief of Time is the 26th Discworld Novel written by Terry Pratchett.

Elements of alternate history

There are certain elements which are common to all alternate histories, whether they deal with history on the micro-level (personal alternate histories) or the macro-level (world-changing events). These elements include:

• a point of change from the history of our world prior to the time at which the author is writing;
• a change which would alter history as it is known;
• an examination of the ramifications of that change.

Alternate histories do not:

• need to be set in the past;
• need to spell out the point of divergence;
• need to deal with world changing events;
• need to include famous people.

The boundaries of alternate history

This leads to readers encountering stories which read as though they were alternate history, but which were not written as such. An example would be Robert A. Heinlein's The Man Who Sold the Moon. The Man Who Sold the Moon is a Science fiction Novella by Robert A Written in 1949, it posits that the first moon launch is run by a private organization rather than a government agency in the 1960s. New readers encountering the book may well presume that this is alternate history since it is clearly a counter-factual depiction of the first moon launch, now almost 40 years in the past. However, when written, the first moon launch was 20 years in the future. Thus, The Man Who Sold the Moon is out of date science fiction and not true alternate history.

Also one should not confuse the alternate history subgenre with secret history, which gives an account of history at odds with our general understanding—presenting its own account (whether seriously or satirically intended) as having been concealed or suppressed by an elite. For instance, a story that depicts key events of U. S. history as having been controlled by the Illuminati and the Freemasons—or by aliens—might be secret history. "Illuminata" redirects here For the 1998 John Turturro film see Illuminata (film. Writers occasionally unite AH and secret history. One example is "Dukakis and the Aliens," by Robert Sheckley in which Michael Dukakis defeats George H. W. Bush for the presidency in 1988 and then is taken to a secret saucer base under Area 51 to meet his new masters. Robert Sheckley ( July 16, 1928 &ndash December 9, 2005) was a Hugo and Nebula nominated American author Michael Stanley Dukakis (born November 3, 1933) is an American Democratic politician former Governor of Massachusetts, and was the Democratic George Herbert Walker Bush (born June 12 1924 served as the forty-first President of the United States from 1989 to 1993 Area 51 is a nickname for a military base located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States ^[6]

AH also should not be mistaken for fantasy tales that employ a lost history trope, i. e. , that assume a stage of human civilization which supposedly has been forgotten through the passage of time, not through conspiratorial suppression. The works of Robert Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien are excellent examples of lost history, which generally does not purport to represent a different timeline from our own. People from England or Ireland named Robert Howard include Sir Robert Howard (died 1436 father of John Howard 1st Duke of Norfolk Robert Howard

It is also possible to have novels that explore Points of Divergence (the key concept in alternate history) without actually being works of alternate history themselves. Two good examples are Jack Williamson's influential pulp novel The Legion of Time (1938) and Marge Piercy's critically acclaimed Woman on the Edge of Time (1976). John Stewart Williamson ( April 29, 1908 – November 10, 2006) who wrote as Jack Williamson (and occasionally under the Pseudonym Marge Piercy (born March 31, 1936) is an American Poet, Novelist, and social activist. In the Piercy book, which follows Williamson's basic concept, a patient in a mental hospital is able to travel into two alternate futures—one an ecotopia run by reformed Weather Underground types and the other a fascist dystopia run by people-hating robots. In Science fiction stories involving Time travel, an alternate future or alternative future is a possible Future which never comes to pass typically Ecotopia The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston is the title of a seminal book by Ernest Callenbach, published in 1975 A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος alternatively cacotopia, kakotopia, cackotopia, or anti-utopia) is the vision of a society Decisions she must make to resist a new type of brain operation will determine which future wins. This is a time travel story, a cross-time story, a Christopher Priest-style delusional alternate reality story, and a POD story all rolled into one but it is not alternate history because the POD occurs in the present (or perhaps the near future), not in the past. Christopher Priest (born July 14, 1943 in Cheadle, near Stockport, Greater Manchester) is an English novelist whose notable works

Less obvious is the difference between alternate history and "what if" stories. The latter subgenre extrapolates, from the present, a concrete near-future possibility that is often an expression of current public fears (hence the alternate term "cautionary tale" used by Vita Sackville-West; see below). Victoria Mary Sackville-West The Hon Lady Nicolson, CH ( March 9, 1892 &ndash June 2, 1962) best known as Vita Sackville-West For instance, beginning in the 1870s the British reading public was treated to a number of what-if books about a German or French invasion of an unready British Isles. During the Great Depression, Sinclair Lewis wrote of a fascist takeover in the United States in his classic It Can't Happen Here (1935). Sinclair Lewis ( February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American Novelist, Short-story writer and It Can't Happen Here is a semi-satirical political Novel by Sinclair Lewis published in 1935 Year 1935 ( MCMXXXV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. During the early years of World War II, Sackville-West penned the science fantasy Grand Canyon (1942) in which the Germans invade a woefully unprepared United States. Year 1942 ( MCMXLII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (the link will display the full 1942 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. One could define such tales as borderline alternate history, since they are usually set in a time that is only shortly after the time of writing and the events described could not have occurred without a branching of history before, if only slightly before, the book was written.

Alternate history in other media

On radio

In 1953, the NBC radio network aired a show called Stroke of Fate that posited different point of divergence creating an alternate time-line for each episode and dramatized the results along with commentary from various historians. The National Broadcasting Company ( NBC) is an American Television network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Stroke of Fate was an American radio drama in 1953. This NBC Alternate history series aired 13 episodes from October 4th to December Episodes included changes in the American Civil War, Alexander the Great surviving his illness, an alternate fate for James Wolfe at Quebec City, no Julius Caesar assassination, a different outcome of Aaron Burr's duel amongst other stories. General James Wolfe ( 2 January, 1727 &ndash 13 September, 1759) was a British Army officer known for his training reforms Quebec City ( French: Ville de Québec, or simply Québec) (kwɨˈbɛk or /keˈbɛk/ is the Capital of the Canadian province This article discusses Aaron Burr (1756-1836 the US politician All episodes have been preserved.

In films

Several films have been made that exploit the concepts of alternate history, most notably Kevin Brownlow's It Happened Here (1966), depicting a Nazi-occupied Britain. Kevin Brownlow (born on June 2, 1938 in Crowborough, Sussex) is a filmmaker film historian, Television documentary -maker It Happened Here is a 1966 British Film, set in an alternate history in which Nazi Germany successfully invades and occupies Other alternate history films include the HBO TV movie Fatherland (1994), set in the 1960s in a world where Germany won WWII and occupied Britain; 2009 Lost Memories (2002), a Korean film supposing that Hirobumi Ito was not assassinated by An Jung-geun in Harbin, China, in 1909; Timequest (2002), in which a time traveler prevents the assassination of John F. Kennedy, resulting in an altered subsequent history; and C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004), a satirical look at the history of an America where the South won the Civil War, told in the form of a British "documentary. Fatherland is a bestselling 1992 thriller Novel by the English Writer and journalist Robert Harris, which doubles 2009 Lost Memories is a 2002 South Korean Science fiction action Thriller film, directed by Lee Si-myung was a Japanese statesman Resident-General of Korea, four time Prime Minister of Japan (the 1st 5th 7th and 10th and Genrō. Ahn Jung-geun or An Jung-geun ( September 2, 1879 - March 26, 1910) (Baptismal name Thomas) was a Korean independence Timequest is a Science fiction film released in 2000 and 2002, directed by Robert Dyke. John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29 1917&ndashNovember 22 1963 often referred to by his initials JFK, was the thirty-fifth President of CSA The Confederate States of America is a 2004 Mockumentary directed by Kevin Willmott. "

A few movies about alternative universes focus on individuals rather than historical events, for example, Frank Capra’s It's a Wonderful Life, and more recently the Back to the Future series of films, Blind Chance, Sliding Doors, Run Lola Run, Me Myself I, The Butterfly Effect, and Frequency. Frank Russell Capra ( May 18, 1897 &ndash September 3, 1991) was an Academy Award winning Italian-American Film It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Film produced and directed by Frank Capra and based on the short story " The Greatest The Back to the Future trilogy is a comedic Science fiction Film Trilogy written by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis Sliding Doors is a 1998 Film written and directed by former actor Peter Howitt. Run Lola Run (original German title Lola rennt, translates as Lola Runs) is a 1998 Film by German Me Myself I is an album by Joan Armatrading. Released in 1980, the album was Armatrading's highest ever chart placing both in the UK (no The Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American Fantasy / Drama movie starring Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart Frequency is a 2000 Film, which contains elements of the time travel, thriller and Alternate history Film genres

On television

Several TV series also exploit the concept of alternate history. The science fiction television show Sliders presented alternate histories under the science-inspired guise of quantum-navigating the multiverse. A television program (US television programme (UK or television show (U Sliders is an American Science fiction television series that ran for five seasons from 1995 to 2000. The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of multiple possible Universes (including our universe that together comprise all of Reality. The alternate Americas in most episodes are nasty dystopias, although sometimes this is not evident at first. A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος alternatively cacotopia, kakotopia, cackotopia, or anti-utopia) is the vision of a society In the Japanese television series, "Zipang" (based on a manga of the same name), a modern Aegis class destroyer of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is thrown back in time to the Battle of Midway in 1942. is a Japanese Manga series by Kaiji Kawaguchi. It was first serialized in Kodansha 's Weekly Morning magazine in 2000 and has ˈmɑŋgə is the Japanese word for Comics (sometimes called komikku コミック and print Cartoons In their modern form manga date from shortly The Aegis combat system is an integrated weapons system used by the United States Navy. The, or JMSDF, is the maritime branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, tasked with the naval defense of Japan. The Battle of Midway was a major Naval battle, widely regarded as the most important one of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. The presence of the ship and its crew, their advanced technology and knowledge of the future, change the course of World War II and create an alternate timeline. An alternate Imperial Japanese Navy also appears in the OVA and TV adaptations of Yoshio Aramaki's novels Konpeki no Kantai (Deep Blue Fleet) and Kyokujitsu no Kantai (Fleet of the Rising Sun), where Isoroku Yamamoto's "revival" in the past after his apparent death in 1943 results in Japan building a strong blue-water force that travels as far as the Atlantic Ocean. Operation Vengeance was carried out to kill Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto on April 18, 1943, during the Solomon Islands campaign The term blue-water navy is a Colloquialism used to describe a maritime force capable of operating across the deep waters of open oceans Another such television show, a South Korean drama, Gung presents a point of divergence where the Korean monarchy is restored after independence from the Japanese Empire even up to the 21st Century. Princess Hours ( Korean: ko 궁, Hanja: 宫 romanized as Goong and also known as The Imperial Household ^[7] The British TV series Doctor Who had a few episodes that involved an alternate Earth where Pete Tyler, father of Rose Tyler, was alive, successful, and rich, unlike the Pete Tyler on the original Earth, who died when Rose was a baby and had been unsuccessful in business. Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. Pete Tyler, full name Peter Alan Tyler, is a Fictional character in the British Science fiction television series Doctor Who Rose Marion Tyler is a fictional character played by Billie Piper in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who The Doctor, Rose, and Mickey Smith visited the alternate Earth by accident in Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel. Mickey Smith is a Fictional character in the British Science fiction television series Doctor Who, played by Noel Clarke " Rise of the Cybermen " is an episode in the British Science fiction television series Doctor Who. " The Age of Steel " is an episode of the British Science fiction television series Doctor Who. The second season finale Army of Ghosts and Doomsday also involved travel to the same alternate Earth. " Army of Ghosts " is the twelfth and penultimate episode in the second series of the British Science fiction television series Doctor On a 2007 episode of Family Guy, Peter travels back to 1984 to meet Lois when they were both 18, and ends up not going to the country club dance and then in the present was radically changed. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Family Guy is an animated American television sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane that airs on Fox and regularly on other Peter is a popular male Given name. It comes from the Greek word πετρος (petros meaning "rock" Year 1984 ( MCMLXXXIV) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1984 Gregorian calendar)

Role-playing games

The dramatic possibilities of alternate history provide a diverse genre for exploration in role-playing games. A role-playing game ( RPG; often roleplaying game) is a Game in which the participants assume the roles of Fictional characters. Many games use an alternate historical background for their campaigns. This is a list of Role-playing games subdivided by Genre (although many games do not fit clearly into one genre or another In particular, the fourth edition of GURPS uses a setting containing multiple different alternate histories as its default campaign setting, with the supplement GURPS Infinite Worlds detailing a large number of alternate worlds included in the setting, many of them carryovers from the third-edition GURPS supplements GURPS Alternate Earths and GURPS Alternate Earths II. The Generic Universal RolePlaying System, commonly known as GURPS, is a Role-playing game system designed to adapt to any imaginary gaming GURPS Infinite Worlds is a supplement for the Fourth Edition of the GURPS Role-playing game, published by Steve Jackson Games in List of GURPS books is a listing of the publications from Steve Jackson Games and other licensed publishers for the GURPS Role-playing game. List of GURPS books is a listing of the publications from Steve Jackson Games and other licensed publishers for the GURPS Role-playing game.

Video games

For the same reasons that this genre is explored by role-playing games, alternate history is also an intriguing backdrop for the storylines of many video and computer games. One of the most famous example of an alternate history game is Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Command & Conquer Red Alert is a Real-time strategy Computer game of the Command & Conquer franchise, produced by Westwood Studios It presents a point of divergence where Albert Einstein goes back in time to prevent World War II from ever taking place by erasing Adolf Hitler from time after he is released from Landsberg Prison in 1925. Albert Einstein ( German: ˈalbɐt ˈaɪ̯nʃtaɪ̯n; English: ˈælbɝt ˈaɪnstaɪn (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955 was a German -born theoretical Landsberg Prison is a penal facility located in the town of Landsberg am Lech in the southwest of the German state of Bavaria, about 30 miles (65 km He is successful in his mission, but in the process allows Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union to become powerful enough—as a direct result of not having a strong rival dictator like Hitler to keep his power in check—to launch a massive campaign to conquer Europe, sparking an alternate (and ultimately costlier) version of the Second World War and, eventually, a third world war in the 1970s where the USSR invades the continental US. Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991

Crimson Skies is one example of an alternate history spawning multiple interpretations in multiple genres. Crimson Skies is a Media franchise and Fictional universe created by Jordan Weisman and Dave McCoy The stories and games in Crimson Skies take place in an alternate 1930's United States, where the nation crumbled into many hostile states following the effects of the Great Depression, the Great War, and Prohibition. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, also known as Noble Experiment, refers to a Sumptuary law which prohibits Alcohol With the road and railway system destroyed, commerce took to the skies. Great cargo zeppelins escorted by fighter squadrons are the targets of many ruthless air pirates and enemy countries. A Zeppelin is a type of Rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century based on designs he had outlined This world has featured in a board game, a PC game, an Xbox game, a collectible miniatures game and various promotional novels, comics and short stories. The Xbox is a sixth-generation Video game console produced by Microsoft Corporation. Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, released in February 2008, is an alternate history game in which Winston Churchill died in 1931, Europe and North Africa fell to the Nazis, and the Axis won World War II and have invaded the United States. Turning Point Fall of Liberty is a First-person shooter Video game, developed by Spark Unlimited for the PlayStation 3, 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC, PC (Can ( 30 November 1874 Year 1931 ( MCMXXXI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German The Axis powers also known as the Axis alliance Axis nations Axis countries or sometimes just the Axis were those Countries World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including

The game Freedom Fighters portrays a situation similar to that of the movie Red Dawn and the game Red Alert 2, though less comically than the latter. Freedom Fighters is a 2003 Third-person shooter Video game available for the Playstation 2, GameCube, Xbox and Microsoft Red Dawn is a 1984 war film by John Milius about a fictional invasion of the United States by the Soviet Union, Cuba and In it, the point of divergence is during World War II, with the Soviet Union first to develop an atomic weapon, which they immediately use on Berlin. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With the balance of power and influence tipped in Russia's favor, history diverges; brief summaries at the beginning of the game inform the player of the Communist bloc's complete takeover of Europe by 1953, a different ending to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the spread of Soviet influence into South America and Mexico. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba during the Cold War. The plot of the game revolves around a Soviet invasion of the United States and the resistance fighting in New York City.

Similarly, the 2007 video game World in Conflict is set in 1989, with the Soviet Union on the verge of collapse. World in Conflict (also known as WiC or WIC) is a real-time tactical Video game developed by the Swedish video game company The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 The point of divergence is several months before the opening of the game, when Warsaw Pact forces staged a desperate invasion of Western Europe. The Warsaw Pact (see Nomenclature) was an organization of Communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. As the game begins, a Soviet invasion force lands in Seattle, taking advantage of the fact that most of the military is in Europe. The game is divided into three parts: the first focuses on the fighting retreat from Seattle towards Fort Teller in the Cascade Mountains; the second is a flashback to the recent fighting in Europe, which culminated in a Soviet attack on Manhattan; the third chronicles the fight to retake Seattle before a Chinese fleet arrives and forces the President to detonate a nuclear weapon to destroy the invaders. Manhattan Island, in New York Harbor, is much the largest part of the Borough of Manhattan, one of the Five Boroughs which form the City of New York

Another example of alternate history is the PS3 game Resistance: Fall of Man, in which WWII didn't happen, due to the absence of American forces in World War I, meaning there was no Great Depression or Treaty of Versailles. Resistance Fall of Man —often called Resistance; abbreviated to RFoM; and originally developed under the title I8 World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. This explains the game's lack of nuclear offensive capabilities against the [[Resistance: Fall of Man#The Chimera[Chimera]], an army of humans infected by an alien virus.

Points of divergence

Main article: Point of divergence

The key change between our history and the alternate history is known as the "point of divergence". In discussion of Counterfactual history, a divergence point (DP also referred to as a departure point or point of divergence ( POD) is a historical For example, in Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, the point of divergence is the attempted assassination of Franklin D. Roosevelt in Miami in 1933. In reality, this attempt failed.

Some variants of the theory of the multiverse posit that points of divergence occur every instant, springing off parallel universes for each instance (see introducing the paratime patrol for further discussion of this point). Parallel universe or alternative reality is a self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own Alternate history or alternative history is a subgenre of Speculative fiction (or Science fiction) and Historical fiction

Counterfactual history

See main articles: historical revisionism, counterfactual history

Historians also speculate in this manner; this type of speculation is known commonly as "counterfactual history". For the denial and distortion of well-established historical facts see Historical revisionism (negationism. Counterfactual history, also sometimes referred to as virtual history, is a recent form of Historiography which attempts to answer "what if" questions See also History An historian is an individual who studies and writes about History, and is regarded as an Authority on it There is considerable debate within the community of historians about the validity and purpose of this type of speculation.

For alternate histories which some assert to be factual rather than speculative, see conspiracy theory and historical revisionism. A conspiracy theory attributes the ultimate cause of an event or chain of events (usually Political, Social or Historical events or the concealment

Sidewise Award for Alternate History

In 1995, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History was established to recognize best long form (novels and series) and best short form (stories) within the genres. The Sidewise Award for Alternate History were established in 1995 to recognize the best Alternate history stories and novels of the year The award is named for Murray Leinster's story "Sidewise in Time".

Published alternate histories

Main article: Published alternate histories

See also

• The British Empire in Fiction
• Invasion literature
• Virtual history
• What If (comics)

References

Further reading

• Chapman, Edgar L. , and Carl B. Yoke (eds. ). Classic and Iconoclastic Alternate History Science Fiction. Mellen, 2003
• Collins, William Joseph. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. Paths Not Taken: The Development, Structure, and Aesthetics of the Alternative History. University of California at Davis 1990
• Gevers, Nicholas. Year 1990 ( MCMXC) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar) Mirrors of the Past: Versions of History in Science Fiction and Fantasy. University of Cape Town, 1997
• Hellekson, Karen. Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar The Alternate History: Refiguring Historical Time. Kent State University Press, 2001
• McKnight, Edgar Vernon, Jr. Kent State University (also known as Kent, Kent State, or KSU) is one of America’s largest university systems the third largest university Year 2001 ( MMI) was a Common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar. Alternative History: The Development of a Literary Genre. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1994
• Rosenfeld, Gavriel David. Year 1994 ( MCMXCIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar) The World Hitler Never Made. Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism. 2005

External links

Interactive sites

• Alternatehistory.com The most active alternate history discussion board on the Internet.
• Alternate History mailing list
• SHWI-ISOT An online RPG set in an alternate early 19th Century where people from the early 21st Century have been sent back and are altering history. A role-playing game ( RPG; often roleplaying game) is a Game in which the participants assume the roles of Fictional characters.
• soc.history.what-if The usenet newsgroup on alternate history with over a decade of archives. Usenet, a Portmanteau of "user" and "network" is a world-wide distributed Internet discussion system A newsgroup is a Repository usually within the Usenet system for messages posted from many users in different locations
• Althistory Wikia Alternate History Wikia
• (Italian) « Utopiaucronia: nel mondo della storia alternativa » with more than 2000 alternate histories in Italian, French and Spanish

Non-interactive sites

• Uchronia has an introduction to the topic, and lists over 2000 works of alternate history.
• The Sidewise Award for Alternate History lists all the winners and nominees for the award since its inception and provides information for recommending works for consideration.
• Today in Alternate History, a daily-updated blog, featuring "Important Events In History That Never Occurred Today" in several recurring timelines.
• Histalt.com is author Richard J. (Rick) Sutcliffe's collection of Alternate History links. Richard J "Rick" Sutcliffe was born in Calgary, Alberta in 1947.
• "How to Change the World", essay by Paul Kincaid
• John Reilly's Alternative History
• Changing The Times, is an Alternate History Electronic Magazine written and maintained by Alternate Historians.
• Why Do We Ask “What If?” Reflections on the Function of Alternate History by Gavriel Rosenfeld, article abstract
• Paradox: The Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction, frequently publishes alternate history stories.