The Ottoman Army was in such a dire state in 1912, due in part to Abdulhamid II having badly mismanaged it, and in part because the Young Turk Revolution badly divided the army into factions, that you need a substantial divergence - potentially something like an earlier Young Turk Revolution giving the CUP more time to mold the army in its image - for the Ottomans to even have a chance of winning the First Balkan War.
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Alternate History General Discussion
- Thread starter Elektronaut
- Start date
kratostatic
You Wouldn't Steal A Political Party
- Location
- Anyers-upon-Senn, Island-of-France
- Pronouns
- He/him
I don't think Japhy was referring to a single work specifically, more the fact that relatively minor changes in European/USA history can have pages of discussion/timelines on their own while the whole rest of the world has the same kind of thing happen every time if it even merits a mention.
No offense intended but you have a tendency to latch onto throwaway remarks and then try to drill down into the specific example given when there's nothing actually there.
Int terms of the overall picture on SLP of eurocentricism, it's not brilliant. On the first page of Scenarios and PoDs right now there's:
7 "general" threads - the main "lists" thread, Football PoDs and so on.
6 European threads (2 UK, 2 France, 1 Germany and 1 Russia)
5 US threads, one of which is also a Mexico thread and another which mentions Spain
2 Japan threads, one of which is also Taiwan
1 New Zealand thread
There's no African threads, no South American threads, no India threads, no China threads (unless you're the CCP), no Middle-East threads. Sure some of those could be in the lists threads but apart from South Americans in the football thread I'm not hopeful.
You personally are actually one of the less Eurocentric discussion starters, to your credit. You started one of the Europe threads (and that's Novgorod so not exactly one of the classics!), one of the Japan threads and the New Zealand thread.
- Location
- Over the rainbow
I'd draw a distinction between Eurocentrism and (conscious or subconscious) racism, though.
"Write what you know" is an adage for a reason. The majority of contributors to this forum, or T'Other Place for that matter, are from the Anglosphere or European (or both). Most of what they know of history will be from history or culture as it is absorbed in the countries they come from. The majority of AH tends to be written to cover the last 100-150 years, or when it goes further back it tends to be in regions which are covered in school history courses in those regions (say hello, ancient Greeks and Romans).
Other areas where people aren't familiar about simply aren't going to attract as much interest. This applies both to writers and readers. Post half a dozen threads on, say, different PODs that take place 200+ years ago across various parts of South America, Africa and Southeast Asia, and while you may attract some interested readers, there won't be many who feel knowledgeable enough to contribute.
If writing about the last century and a half, that includes imperialism, and writing about a slew of historical characters who are (by modern standards) a bunch of racists, imperialists, and several other -ists. As @Japhy notes, there's immense scope for examinations of alternatives to imperialism and in general how things could have been handled differently. But the Eurocentrism should also be seen in light of the actual hisorical and cultural knowledge of the contributor base.
"Write what you know" is an adage for a reason. The majority of contributors to this forum, or T'Other Place for that matter, are from the Anglosphere or European (or both). Most of what they know of history will be from history or culture as it is absorbed in the countries they come from. The majority of AH tends to be written to cover the last 100-150 years, or when it goes further back it tends to be in regions which are covered in school history courses in those regions (say hello, ancient Greeks and Romans).
Other areas where people aren't familiar about simply aren't going to attract as much interest. This applies both to writers and readers. Post half a dozen threads on, say, different PODs that take place 200+ years ago across various parts of South America, Africa and Southeast Asia, and while you may attract some interested readers, there won't be many who feel knowledgeable enough to contribute.
If writing about the last century and a half, that includes imperialism, and writing about a slew of historical characters who are (by modern standards) a bunch of racists, imperialists, and several other -ists. As @Japhy notes, there's immense scope for examinations of alternatives to imperialism and in general how things could have been handled differently. But the Eurocentrism should also be seen in light of the actual hisorical and cultural knowledge of the contributor base.
- Pronouns
- he/him
Like Jared said, it's the nature of people to write about countries they know more about. We're a mostly European bunch so that leads to a mostly eurocentric knowledge base, it's a shame but I don't think talking about areas where knowledge is low is really better.
In shameless self promotion news, the articles are considerably less euro centric I would add.
kratostatic
You Wouldn't Steal A Political Party
- Location
- Anyers-upon-Senn, Island-of-France
- Pronouns
- He/him
I have been letting those pass me by I have to say, need to get back into the habit of reading them.
- Pronouns
- he/him
It's been mostly reviews and writing advice of late, tbf.
I think the last series on historical events was Tyler's articles on the Taiping revolution in early autumn, though I do eventually hope to finish the Scramble of Africa series and I think Zachary still had plans for his forgotten war series on post colonial African conflicts.
- Location
- Albany, NY
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I am less concerned with Euro-centrism/Anglosphere-centrism as what focuses are on then I am about the fact that Euro-American Imperialism is just something that happens, either as the focus of works that dream of Imperial Federations or Suez-less worlds or TLs where the carving up of Africa for nearly a Century or more is just something that inevitably happens for filler updates or what-have-you. No one is an asshole for writing about WI so and so becomes PM in 1857, but the continued unquestioning nature of Imperialism is a problem in the genre. Writing what you know isn't a bad thing, but there are plenty of people who write about things in AH they don't know and things don't change anyway. And when we get to Imperial Federations and Triumphs in the Suez then we're crossing lines that are not all that dissimilar then fascist apologies.
And as I am always a fan of shameless self-promotion @Gary Oswald has done a truely great job of not letting that shit stand in the blog. This site isn't even that bad at it in general, but if we're talking about the genre, yeah I don't see how there isn't a problem.
And as I am always a fan of shameless self-promotion @Gary Oswald has done a truely great job of not letting that shit stand in the blog. This site isn't even that bad at it in general, but if we're talking about the genre, yeah I don't see how there isn't a problem.
- Pronouns
- he/him
Even if the timeline does involve general imperial expansion, I can forgive a lot for at least one entry set on the ground, from the perspective of a colonised person. It's amazing how many stories never reach that far.
- Pronouns
- he/him
The general absence of people who aren't straight, cis, or male is also something that the genre needs to address, of course.
TR1996
Well-known member
- Location
- Adelaide, South Australia
I am planning on continuing that at some stage and writing about the other big mid-19th century rebellions, BTW. I've done a fair bit of reading on the Panthay Rebellion as it stands, and I've been eyeing a couple books on the other rebellions that I'll probably pick up for myself over Christmas.
Been in a bit of a real-life, post-university, job-searching funk that hasn't helped my productivity levels.
ChrisNuttall
Well-known member
Being racist is hardly limited to one colour or creed. Malaysia has a very strong system of 'Malay Supremacy' that does a lot of harm to the country.
Chris
ChrisNuttall
Well-known member
I think a lot of AH readers don't really care about such things, unless they have historical impact. Edward II may have been bisexual - there was a lot of hostile commentary about it - but it doesn't matter from a historical point of view.
It's also easy to step on landmines. Cleopatra has been condemned for starting sexual relationships with the two most powerful Romans of her era, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. She really had no choice. Egypt was defenseless against Rome. Keeping the leading Romans sweet was about the only thing she could do. But this makes her look bad today.
Chris
- Pronouns
- he/him
Define 'historical impact.'
For most people, there's nothing historically impactful in and of itself about being straight, cis or male.
It is absolutely a problem that a demographic who make up something under half the population make up, and this is me guessing but I think it's an educated guess, ninety percent of the characters.
Edward II's sexuality absolutely mattered historically- it was crucial to how he's depicted then and now. It shapes the entire perception of the person of the monarch.
This is one thing historical crime fiction and romance fiction have over our genre: lots and lots of women POV characters, not all of them queens.
- Location
- Albany, NY
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Chris you endorsed a plot organized by avowed white supremacists to hijack the Hugo Awards because too many women, people of color and queer people had won in the past few years on your blog.
Have you ever considered the fact that maybe you just don't know what majorities of people are fine or even interested in reading? You guys did lose after all.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
As a gentleman from the LGBT+ community I have generally gone with the rule of thumb that most of my main characters will be part of that community, hell I’m doing it right now and one of these I need to send Qingdao Blues off to be reviewed by the lovely editors here.
Now Alternate History and the lack LGBT+ of representation is probably down to fact being that until the past decades, there weren’t any particular attempts to catalogue and analyse the history of LGBT+ people before the 1950s. Now that information is easily available, so the excuses are a lot less fathomable.
Now Alternate History and the lack LGBT+ of representation is probably down to fact being that until the past decades, there weren’t any particular attempts to catalogue and analyse the history of LGBT+ people before the 1950s. Now that information is easily available, so the excuses are a lot less fathomable.
- Location
- Albany, NY
- Pronouns
- She/Her
David I hate to be an ass or to overstep, but "SPOILER ALERT someone is Trans" is a damned poor tone to treat things with in writing. Its not really surprising you had some pushback on it IMO.
ChrisNuttall
Well-known member
This is the core of the problem.
It isn't easy to write the 'other,' whoever that 'other' might be. The further someone is from your experience, the harder it is to present them. Getting bashed for honest mistakes merely leads to bad feeling, loathing and a belief the critic is either a monster or a troll. And then you just don't try to expand at all.
As a general rule, anyone who offers constructive advice is a useful critic and anyone who bashes you personally can be safely ignored.
Chris
That's not how the character is portrayed in the book. Windy is portrayed sympathetically and well accepted by the other characters.
The dilemma David is in is that if he does NOT write LGBT+ characters, he's exacerbating the problem, but when he does, he's told off for it because he's not LGBT+ and thus cannot be anything other than offensive by definition.
It's one I find myself sympathising with, and when I learned he'd had PMs criticising him for daring to portray a Trans character, I simply decided I'd not ever bother myself. Which makes the criticism that's been coming around above rather ironic.
- Pronouns
- he/him
I understand that.
But well @RyanF got an amazon review of Red in Braid calling it 'utter pish'. @The Red got called racist for portraying the Japanese Army as fighting to the death in an ah where the coup against hirohito succeeds.
People are going to critique you and the critique is often going to be baseless. That's just the nature of the world. Not all criticism is equally well thought out.
I think it gives too much power to that critique if you change your writing plans to try and avoid it. Try and be sensitive yes, get advice from people of that group before writing it, yes. But ultimately I think a writer has to write what they think is the best story and sod the critics.
There is a story that I want to write and have had half written for years that deals with very sensitive subjects and I keep rewriting it to try and get it right and be sensitive about it. But I still want to write it, when I think I'm good enough, and if people get upset about it, I'm happy to look them in the eye and say I gave it my best shot and it might not be perfect but I'd rather this story is written than not and I think that's better than just sticking to writing about people like me.
Yeah, well, not to put too fine a point on it: I've got enough grief going on right now and I'm juggling enough not to want to kick a hornets nest even with the best of intentions and doing the best I can.
I may well change my mind in a while. I think the criticism of someone trying to incorporate LGBT+ representation sympathetically and carefully on the grounds the author wasn't LGBT+ was damn stupid and destructive, but at the end of the day, it exists, some people get het up about it, and if an author treads there, obviously, they should expect some grief no matter what. If and when I re-enter the state of having enough spare emotional capacity to be able to just take the flames, I'll change my mind, because I do think that more representation of any and all minority groups in fiction is a good idea.
Even if the author is not a member of each and every minority group they add as characters.