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Alternate History General Discussion

I have seen it argued at alternatehistory.com that there is a double standard about imperialism in alternate history. If it was a Western power or Japan, it was imperialism. If it was anyone else, it wasn't imperialism. Do you agree with this?
 
Ricardolindo said:
I have seen it argued at alternatehistory.com that there is a double standard about imperialism in alternate history. If it was a Western power or Japan, it was imperialism. If it was anyone else, it wasn't imperialism. Do you agree with this?
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Not really, no. We refer to really large entities of any sort as “empires” as with, to use an obvious example, the Mongol Empire. Them being imperialist is pretty inherent in that. Disproportionate focus on online alternate history is given to Western powers and Japan because people know more about them than elsewhere - it only makes sense discussion on imperialism is focused on them, rather than the ones that get very little attention.

There is a very different issue, I think, in alternate history, particularly on the Old Country. There’s an issue of people stanning their favorite empire and being blind to its evils, while seeing those evils in every other empire. English-language alternate history being such as it is means it's disproportionately centred around the British Empire. This is not exclusively the case and really it's mapped onto what's well-known - the Byzantine Empire has many fans, the Ottoman Empire several, and there are a few people who consistently make quite well-made maps showing a surviving Portuguese Empire or a remnant state in Africa in a positive light - but it's disproportionately the British Empire that's the subject of it. And honestly, I don't think there are that many people who stan empires that aren't western, or Japan. See all the scenarios around a Beautiful and Attractive Imperial Federation maintaining it forever. Arguments like that are, I think, likelier to be used to whatabout the empires focused upon in AH than they are to be used in good faith.
 
Indicus said:
Not really, no. We refer to really large entities of any sort as “empires” as with, to use an obvious example, the Mongol Empire. Them being imperialist is pretty inherent in that.
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Personally, I am wary of using the term imperialist for pre-modern empires. The Mongol Empire, for example, didn't have an ideological foundation that modern empires, like the British Empire, did.
 
Ricardolindo said:
Personally, I am wary of using the term imperialist for pre-modern empires. The Mongol Empire, for example, didn't have an ideological foundation that modern empires, like the British Empire, did.
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In addition, pre-modern empires allowed for integration that modern empires didn't. The conquered peoples were usually assimilated into the conquerors.
 
For the love of god Ricardo, please stop coming into threads to talk about the nature of imperialism until you've actually done the reading. This is another case where you're dropping statements that are either ignorant, or casually offensive, or both.

And by 'done the reading,' I mean actual books, not posts on the other place or fucking Quora.
 
Avian Overlord said:
Screwing up lend lease on the political side to the point where it’s too little too late seems like a natural way to flip things for an axis victory TL. Just because something’s your war to lose… doesn’t mean you can’t lose it.
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Yeah, FWIW I'm a bit of an Allied Inevitabilitist but for all the might of Soviet industry, I see the arguments that a United States that sits on its hands or just completely messes up its economy via non-committal approaches is something that can lead to at least an Axis stalemate, akin to AANW. The difficulty is making that 'mess-up' happen, especially if Japan is going to do something like Pearl Harbor. Stupid Juice was in high supply during WWII, notably in some nations' high commands, but IOTL FDR seemed to inoculate most of his cabinet and economic chiefs against it.
 
SenatorChickpea said:
For the love of god Ricardo, please stop coming into threads to talk about the nature of imperialism until you've actually done the reading. This is another case where you're dropping statements that are either ignorant, or casually offensive, or both.

And by 'done the reading,' I mean actual books, not posts on the other place or fucking Quora.
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Dear Liam, I have read about imperialism and my understanding is that, by definition, imperialism requires an ideological foundation. Pre-modern empires like the Mongol Empire, the Roman Empire and others, AFAIK, did not have such an ideological foundation. Please, correct me if I am wrong.
 
Avian Overlord said:
Screwing up lend lease on the political side to the point where it’s too little too late seems like a natural way to flip things for an axis victory TL. Just because something’s your war to lose… doesn’t mean you can’t lose it.
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Even if the US decides to sit it out, I still think that the Allies would ultimately win, largely because they were much more willing to learn from their mistakes. I definitely think the UK was pragmatic enough to send men to the Eastern front if they needed to for example.
 
Catalunya said:
Even if the US decides to sit it out, I still think that the Allies would ultimately win, largely because they were much more willing to learn from their mistakes. I definitely think the UK was pragmatic enough to send men to the Eastern front if they needed to for example.
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Is it possible to come up with a configuration of "World War 2" that the Axis powers can win? Maybe; for all the fuckups France, the UK, the USA, etc made they might have made more somehow.
Can Nazi Germany win the wars they actually started in 1939 and 1941? Well, I think it's telling that most of the stories where they do so involve a lot of handwaving.
 
Moving aside from “What if Germany won WW2” to “What if Germany won WW1”, someone posited that instead of a post-war boom or return to stability, Germany in the aftermath of any potential “victory” or stalemate would be on fire. The country was nearly starved to death by the British blockade, the military basically took over the civilian government, they had to deal with socialist revolutionaries at home and in neighboring countries.
 
Incognitia said:
Is it possible to come up with a configuration of "World War 2" that the Axis powers can win? Maybe; for all the fuckups France, the UK, the USA, etc made they might have made more somehow.
Can Nazi Germany win the wars they actually started in 1939 and 1941? Well, I think it's telling that most of the stories where they do so involve a lot of handwaving.
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I mean theoretically they could win if the Allies keep fucking up, but OTL the Nazis already did way better than anyone should realistically expect in retrospective. If the French called their bluff just once, you wouldn’t have German troops anywhere near Stalingrad.
 
Christian said:
Moving aside from “What if Germany won WW2” to “What if Germany won WW1”, someone posited that instead of a post-war boom or return to stability, Germany in the aftermath of any potential “victory” or stalemate would be on fire. The country was nearly starved to death by the British blockade, the military basically took over the civilian government, they had to deal with socialist revolutionaries at home and in neighboring countries.
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Plausible it'd be less kaisereich and more kaisershite, the only sunlit uplands come from carving up and looting their European conquests and that could blow up in their face.
 
Christian said:
Moving aside from “What if Germany won WW2” to “What if Germany won WW1”, someone posited that instead of a post-war boom or return to stability, Germany in the aftermath of any potential “victory” or stalemate would be on fire. The country was nearly starved to death by the British blockade, the military basically took over the civilian government, they had to deal with socialist revolutionaries at home and in neighboring countries.
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It depends on at what point the Central Powers won World War I.
 
Christian said:
Moving aside from “What if Germany won WW2” to “What if Germany won WW1”, someone posited that instead of a post-war boom or return to stability, Germany in the aftermath of any potential “victory” or stalemate would be on fire. The country was nearly starved to death by the British blockade, the military basically took over the civilian government, they had to deal with socialist revolutionaries at home and in neighboring countries.
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There’s an interesting scenario where World War 1 ends let say around 1917/18 in a ‘German Victory’ (woo we get to keep chunks of Belgium, Luxembourg and our African Colonies and Eastern puppet states, I say as I cough up blood).

But within a few years the Empire implodes, as either we get ‘Lundendorff’s style Fascism’ or the Spartcists takeover, so we get a Marxist state that’s already industrialised.
 
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