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.
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Alternate History General Discussion
- Thread starter Elektronaut
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An interesting Alternate History would be if Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was more successful in his ambitions for Sexual Reform, given how for starters, words like Urning would be used to describe Homosexual men for example (additionally discussions about bisexual, intersex and trans folks would definitely be more advanced too).
Elektronaut
Effectively Stood Down
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- The Legendarium of Gentleman Julius
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- He/Him
There's quite a lot of male-male historical fiction, it's just not mainstream, even the 'mainstream' stuff. Mary Renault was writing it back in the fifties as a 'big name' author and she's way off being a household name in writing even today. There's also a lot of it which is published just above the self-publishing level, by small publishers, and which usually isn't very good. The genre is written mostly by women but not exclusively. Some of the more 'mainstream' stuff has done pretty well by critics, for example Madeline Miller and the Song of Achilles or At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill.
Whether the actual sexuality in people was different, as opposed to just the terms and what was socially normative being different, is a huge debate and is far from resolved. It's a very difficult area and in some ways not in a good place academically.
There's been a degree of leeway for young men to fuck about in lots of societies throughout history, including our own. It's been a very long-running, maybe even foundational, assumption in the UK for example that young men have sex with each other at university and then later settle down into opposite-sex relationships.
Whether the actual sexuality in people was different, as opposed to just the terms and what was socially normative being different, is a huge debate and is far from resolved. It's a very difficult area and in some ways not in a good place academically.
There's been a degree of leeway for young men to fuck about in lots of societies throughout history, including our own. It's been a very long-running, maybe even foundational, assumption in the UK for example that young men have sex with each other at university and then later settle down into opposite-sex relationships.
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- Location
- Arlington, Virginia
- Location
- Arlington, Virginia
I usually don't like to post my own writing, but I have a review on NeverWas about what may well be the best alternate history novel I've ever read: To Climates Unknown by Arturo Serrano.
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 there 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 be the first person to stay buried there as the eventual discovery of Mirabeau's correspondence with the king would mean that he'd be moved out of it.
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 there 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 be the first person to stay buried there as the eventual discovery of Mirabeau's correspondence with the king would mean that he'd be moved out of it.
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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.
- Location
- Arlington, Virginia
“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)
I Saw A Red Sky
He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but 🤓
Bit one-handed no?
I Saw A Red Sky
He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but 🤓
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 concept actually was most inspired by postwar AANW and its psychotic western alliance blasting everyone who resists or tries to catch up. I figured "something like that would make a great outright villain."
I've mostly moved away from it for various reasons (including yes, some small discomfort), but @SpanishSpy 's quote made me think of it.
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- he/him
1632 is the main ah literature but that very much is one handed.
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.
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.
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I can't think of good alternate history fiction set in the Thirty Years War.
For straight historical fiction that crosses over with the war but doesn't focus on it, the Captain Alatriste novels by Arturo Pérez-Reverte is fun (the author is slightly to the right of General Franco, but he writes a cracking swashbuckler.) Or, of course, there's the Musketeers books.
For straight historical fiction that crosses over with the war but doesn't focus on it, the Captain Alatriste novels by Arturo Pérez-Reverte is fun (the author is slightly to the right of General Franco, but he writes a cracking swashbuckler.) Or, of course, there's the Musketeers books.
I Saw A Red Sky
He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but 🤓
Looked at the wikipedia controversies section expecting something juicy but it's just plagiarism :/
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.
Creekmench
A shade of indigo
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The German diaspora would be pissed off and radicalized since their ancestral homeland would be reduced to cow pasture and it would prove Hitler right since the world Jewish cabal did destroy Germany. Like stuff like this letter would be viral and popular.
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- Western New York
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.
I Saw A Red Sky
He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but 🤓
Politically active diaspora in America up to that point was heavily KMT and continued to be until around the 70s, and while the US'd get it's share of prominent exiles from Jiang's China not many of them would be too friendly to cringefail CPC. Would be interesting to see a Chinese community develop in the Soviet Union though.