Alternate history fiction
Alternate history fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction that explores "what if" scenarios by altering historical events and imagining their consequences. While the narrative often includes true historical details, it diverges from known history to create alternative outcomes based on pivotal moments, such as battles, elections, or wars. Popular themes include the ramifications of the Confederacy winning the American Civil War or the Axis powers prevailing in World War II. This genre enables authors to craft parallel worlds, where different timelines coexist and may interact, often utilizing time travel to facilitate changes to the past.
The origins of alternate history can be traced back to ancient texts, with examples from classical literature exploring hypothetical scenarios. The genre gained prominence in the early twentieth century through magazines that published speculative tales, providing a fresh departure from traditional historical fiction. Notable works, like Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle," further exemplify the exploration of alternate realities and their implications. Scholars and historians also engage with this genre, noting that it can serve as a tool for examining historical narratives and their impact on national identity. Overall, alternate history fiction combines creativity with historical inquiry, challenging readers to reconsider the events that shape our world.
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Alternate history fiction
Alternate history fiction is a form of speculative fiction. Although many historical details in this type of fiction are true, the outcome differs from history. This often occurs because the author alters a single event, such as the victor in an election, a battle, or a war. The American Civil War and World War II have inspired writers to explore the decades that followed if the Confederacy had won the former and the Axis Powers had prevailed in the latter. Some authors create parallel worlds in which multiple alternate histories unfold and even interact. Many write time-travel science fiction in which one or more individuals change events in the past, creating a domino effect of alterations. Anthologies, short stories, novels, and series have been created using various devices to develop alternative pasts and explore repercussions in modern times. Other names used to describe the subgenre are alternative history, counterfactual fiction, and uchronia.
Background
Scholars point to several publications as possibly being the first recognized work of alternate history fiction. One possibility is Book IX of The History of Rome by Titus Livius (c. 59 BCE–c. 17 CE), in which the writer speculates what might have been if Alexander the Great had attempted to conquer Rome instead of Persia. Joanot Martorell’s Tirant Lo Blanc, which was published in Valencia in 1490, is another suggestion. It follows Sir Tirant the White on chivalric adventures and imagines the world if Mehmed II had not captured Constantinople in 1453 as he expanded the Ottoman Empire.
Alternate history fiction became popular in the early twentieth century when science fiction magazines such as Astounding, Galaxy, and Planet Stories published short fiction exploring these ideas. These tales were a departure from the established and popular genre of historical fiction, which authors had been producing throughout the nineteenth century by inserting fictional characters into true events without altering history. Alternate history fiction was the next step. Authors mixed real and fictional characters experiencing real events but added the speculative fiction element, imagining an alteration to the world if certain truths were different in large or small ways. Such differences may be as dramatic as the outcome of a world war or small enough to be overlooked. An example of the latter is the 1952 Ray Bradbury story “A Sound of Thunder.” In this tale, a man who travels back in time millions of years inadvertently crushes a butterfly; when he returns to his own time, the world is slightly but significantly altered.
Many historians are also invested in alternate history examinations because such speculation can be useful in explaining history. For example, historians Philip Tetlock, Richard Ned Lebow, and Geoffrey Parker edited the 2006 essay collection Unmaking the West: “What-If?” Scenarios That Rewrite World History. These works were created with historians’ guidance and within established parameters to undo the rise of the West at specific points in history. Novelists have frequently explored this fertile territory, asking what the result would be if a certain event had unfolded differently.
Overview
Some scholars say alternate history fiction’s function is to show readers that changes occur throughout history and help them consider the possibilities and impact of world events. Historians note that, done well, alternate history fiction informs readers as to what life was like in earlier times and places and for various cultures in an entertaining way.
Analysis of literature in the subgenre indicates to some researchers that national identity plays a large role in authors’ approaches to alternate history fiction. For example, American authors frequently expand upon ideas of how the United States would be different if the South had won the Civil War or if earlier wars with Native Americans had ended differently. British writers often examine life in the United Kingdom after a German World War II victory, possibly because the fighting was on the nation’s doorstep. Still, life under Nazi rule is a common theme for writers regardless of nationality. Notably, American author Philip K. Dick wrote the influential novel The Man in the High Castle (1962), in which the United States has been partitioned. The West Coast is ruled by Japan, and the East is a puppet state of Nazi Germany. Dick was inspired by Bring the Jubilee (1953), Ward Moore’s novel in which the American Civil War was won by the Confederate States of America. Dick’s novel is among the most prominent early explorations of parallel universes. In his work, some individuals in the alternate world become aware of the world in which the Axis powers were defeated.
Although parallel worlds seem to be the realm of science fiction, these concepts have their roots in science. American physicist Hugh Everett explained his many worlds theory in 1957, but ideas related to parallel worlds emerged several decades earlier as physicists studied quantum mechanics. The rules of physics at the quantum level are very different from how the world works at the ordinarily observable level. Electrons are often described as orbiting an atom’s nucleus but appear to exist in several places simultaneously. In quantum physics, the location of an electron must be described as a probability distribution of where it is more likely to occur. If the electron can exist in multiple places at once, parallel worlds would seem possible as well. In 1935 physicist Erwin Schrödinger created a thought experiment about a cat in a sealed box that is often misinterpreted to mean the cat is both dead and alive as long as it cannot be observed, but the thought experiment more accurately points out that the cat exists in two parallel universes, alive in one and dead in the other. This idea, which came to be known as the Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI), has inspired physicists and authors alike.
While creating alternate history fiction is in many ways like any other fiction writing, authors may need to research the time period about which they are writing and know its history. Changing elements of factual history should be done to advance the story, while elements unchanged should be authentic. Many readers may know, for example, when and where a battle took place, so unless the author has a compelling reason to change these facts, readers will expect them to be accurate.
Bibliography
Abbott, Carl. “The Past Conditionally: Alternative History in Speculative Fiction.” Perspectives on History, 1 Jan. 2016, www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/january-2016/the-past-conditionally-alternative-history-in-speculative-fiction. Accessed 13 Nov. 2023.
Adlahka, Sarah. “Five Tips on Writing Alternate History and Time Travel.” Career Authors, 8 Aug. 2022, careerauthors.com/five-tips-on-writing-alternate-history-and-time-travel/. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.
“Alternate History.” The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, 21 Aug. 2023, sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/alternate‗history. Accessed 13 Nov. 2023.
Crumey, Andrew. “Parallel Worlds.” Aeon, 9 Oct. 2013, aeon.co/essays/can-the-multiverse-explain-the-course-of-history. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.
Kelly, Stuart. “When Novels Change History.” The Guardian, 30 Nov. 2011, www.theguardian.com/books/2011/nov/30/when-novels-change-history. Accessed 13 Nov. 2023.
Learn, Joshua Rapp. “Schrödinger’s Cat Experiment and the Conundrum That Rules Modern Physics.” Discover, 5 May 2021, www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/schroedingers-cat-experiment-and-the-conundrum-that-rules-modern-physics. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.
Reed, Susan. “A Catalan Classic Rediscovered.” British Library European Studies Blog, 15 May 2013, blogs.bl.uk/european/2013/05/a-catalan-classic-rediscovered.html. Accessed 13 Nov. 2023.
Spufford, Francis. “Alternative History in Fiction.” Faber, 6 Oct. 2023, www.faber.co.uk/journal/alternative-history-in-fiction/. Accessed 13 Nov. 2023.