Some historians have embraced alternate history or iffy history as a tool of analysis. Most haven't. Why not? I think iffy history hasn't taken off among historians at least partly so many historians buy into one of two schools of thought (Tides of History and Great Man). Another part of the problem has also been the poor quality of the thinking behind so much of the alternate history that has been produced by professional historians. From what I've seen, an awful lot of the stuff that gets produced is more "If Only" than "What If". Much of the rest of it depends on Parallelism over a period of centuries. In other words, very little outside of the specific thing changed is affected. For example, the south may win the Civil War in some alternate history, but Bill Gates and George Bush are still around, and still have their historic personalities. Obviously that just isn't realistic.

Another problem with historians and alternate history is that professional historians tend to specialize. A historian may know a great deal about Western Europe in the 1500s, but have very little knowledge of the New World or of Africa or Asia. The pieces of history are connected in hundreds, if not thousands of subtle and obvious ways. Depth of knowledge isn't as important in making a good alternate history as breadth of knowledge, though both are useful.

One of the biggest problems with realistic Alternate History is that even relatively minor changes can quickly turn history into a "wibbly-wobbly timey-whimey" mess (to quote Dr Who) in short order if you follow through even a large subset of the implications. Ironically, sometimes the elimination of a "Great Man" would probably have very little impact on the rest of history.  Other times, yes the elimination of one person could make a huge difference.

I think that there are sometimes tides of history. For example, once the US was in World War II and the Soviets weren't knocked out of the war it gets very hard to find anything outside of Alien Space Bat territory that doesn't lead to the Germans and Japanese losing the war. There were desperate struggles and hard fought campaigns, but certainly by August of 1942 the Axis was going to lose the war unless the Germans made peace with the Soviets. They couldn't do that because the Soviets would have just sat back until the Germans and the Allies ground each other down enough, and then reentered the war. The Soviets weren't going to make a peace that left the Germans in control of economically valuable parts of the Soviet Union. They would not keep their part of any bargain that gave the Germans access to Soviet raw materials, and in the long run Germany couldn't win the war without those raw materials.

Several issues ago I mentioned the concept of history having broad floodplains where major changes can be triggered easily and gorges where things are just going to go a certain way pretty much whatever an individual or small group does. I find that the real AH potential almost always is away from the major events that hit history books. Climactic battles are usually climactic because they represent one side's last realistic chance to avoid a major defeat and loss of the war. They usually don't represent a chance for the side that historically lost the war to win it.

For example, a smashing victory at D-Day would probably not have won the war for the Axis. It would have made the war longer and more deadly, but the Germans and Japanese would almost certainly have still lost. The only tiny bit of uncertainty to that is the possibility of a negotiated peace between the Germans and the Soviets if the Germans had been able to shift enough forces east after that victory to stop the Soviet summer offensive that historically crushed Army Group Center, but as I pointed out earlier a peace between the Soviets and the Germans was very unlikely..

On the other hand, a seemingly minor change can percolate up through society over a period of centuries. A time-traveler steps on a bug in California in 1400. The affect may damp out quickly. The bug would have died in almost the same place a day later. The ripples may spread out over a period of centuries, starting with changes in bugs and bacteria, working its way up to mammals a few centuries later, then to Indians after a century or two, then to Mexico, and then to Europe. There could even be no detectable change in humans until after the time traveler gets home, after which the changes break out into humans in some nasty way.

I firmly believe that alternate history can be a useful tool for understanding real history, but only in the hands of someone who is willing to follow through the implications of a change, and with a wide enough base of knowledge to see the connections between the point of divergence being looked at and a wide range of other things connected to that change.

Revised on Feb 4, 2012.

More Stuff For POD Members Only

What you see here is a truncated on-line version of a larger zine that I contribute to POD, the alternate history APA.  POD members get to look forward to more fun stuff.