Anachronistic historical treatment of viewing the past through contemporary eyes is as old as, well, historical fiction (and nonfiction!) itself. It may be annoying and inaccurate at times, but it's at least understandable.
History is full of people who'd be remembered fondly if they'd had the decency to shuffle off this mortal coil earlier. Mugabe is an obvious one from recent years.A fun little alternate history idea I have in my head is Robespierre being assassinated a short while after the declaration of war or even before it to stoke up the passions of France. Since he hasn't really done anything one would find questionable at that time, this being before the paranoia in France really got out of control, I'm imagining him to be kind of an 18th century Jean Jaures. A figure well liked by all sides despite clearly being on the left side of the political spectrum.
He hasn't called for revolutionary measures to handle the swirling mass of chaos and has most probably not even converted to republicanism yet. Hell, he said so himself that a republic without a king isn't always the best form of government and thought that, as long as the people are well represented and their is equality, then a monarchy can be pretty good.
So an interesting thing is how he'd be remembered. If before things really get heated, then I think he wouldn't really be all that memorable in France. He would be honored at the time for being one of France's most persistent democrats but, overtime, would probably be forgotten by history except by historians who'd probably mention him as one of the brighter spots of what would be a very confusing time.
He'd most probably be buried in the Pantheon and I like to imagine would technically the first person to stay buried there as the eventual discovery of 's correspondence with the king would mean that he'd be moved out of it.
“Had Mao died in 1956, his achievements would have been immortal. Had he died in 1966, he would still have been a great man but flawed. But he died in 1976. Alas, what can one say?”History is full of people who'd be remembered fondly if they'd had the decency to shuffle off this mortal coil earlier. Mugabe is an obvious one from recent years.
“Had Mao died in 1956, his achievements would have been immortal. Had he died in 1966, he would still have been a great man but flawed. But he died in 1976. Alas, what can one say?”
- Chen Yun
I had one soft-AH concept where a western-dominated super-UN destroyed China, India, and Brazil in the 1950s/60s to ensure they could never become a threat, and the result was that Chinese-Americans in the present viewed Mao as a hero who fought vainly but ferociously to the end.
(Needless to say, IOTL, nearly all Chinese-Americans have a rather different view of him, to put it mildly)
Bit one-handed no?
There’s a lot of Thirty Years’ War PODs and such but is there much in the way of actual fiction about it? Looking for some to read or watch.
(the author is slightly to the right of General Franco, but he writes a cracking swashbuckler.)
Ore what about communism, heck some parts of Germany might want go back to the old way, being a monarchy as the old ways might be better than the current situation.Having read some discussions on how the Morgenthau plan doesn't actually address why the Nazis took hold in Germany, something I'm imagining in a Morgenthau plan Germany is that there would be a big neo-Nazi movement. I mean, that was a time they were all united into one nation, they terrified the world and conquered large swathes of land.
The argument that things were better during their time would probably hold some ground as, ignoring the piping hot mess that was the Nazi economy, they were still an industrial powerhouse even though that was done by the people before them, while a Morgenthau Germany wouldn't have industry at all. The Neo-Nazi arguments would probably be less based on any perceived moral degeneracy, but through the literal industrial degeneration done to Germany.
Having read some discussions on how the Morgenthau plan doesn't actually address why the Nazis took hold in Germany, something I'm imagining in a Morgenthau plan Germany is that there would be a big neo-Nazi movement. I mean, that was a time they were all united into one nation, they terrified the world and conquered large swathes of land.
The argument that things were better during their time would probably hold some ground as, ignoring the piping hot mess that was the Nazi economy, they were still an industrial powerhouse even though that was done by the people before them, while a Morgenthau Germany wouldn't have industry at all. The Neo-Nazi arguments would probably be less based on any perceived moral degeneracy, but through the literal industrial degeneration done to Germany.
New idea - a North/South Korean division between Communist Manchuria and the Republic of China, but the focus is the Manchurian consulate in NYC, the split between Chinese-Americans, and tension over Manchurian malfeasance.