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Alternate History General Discussion

Talking about "The End of History" in TLs about the 1990s/2000s are a bit of a cliche. I've engaged in it myself to be fair, but bringing it up in TLs about the 90s where it's like "You thought the 90s were supposed to be peaceful.... NOT" just elicits an eye-roll from me, especially when you consider that Fukuyama's book wasn't entirely wrong and parts of it still hold up.
 
Are there any alternate history stories that explore that? Any stories in general that explores a good person, at least by the standards of the time, who cares about the inhabitants and tries to make their lives better, but the very nature of colonialism negates any possible good or makes any good done insignificant?

Not AH, but I'd say Max Havelaar and later Lord Jim.
 
Talking about "The End of History" in TLs about the 1990s/2000s are a bit of a cliche. I've engaged in it myself to be fair, but bringing it up in TLs about the 90s where it's like "You thought the 90s were supposed to be peaceful.... NOT" just elicits an eye-roll from me, especially when you consider that Fukuyama's book wasn't entirely wrong and parts of it still hold up.
Now I’m imagining a TL where the Soviet Union manages to hold on through the ‘90s devoting some time to the question of what Fukuyama writes then...
 
Something that alternate history can do more is having a Rashomon style multiple perspective type of narrative. I mean, come on, historians are constantly arguing on whether or not one interpretation is true, whether they meant to do that or this, or if they were or were not something. Simulating that with multiple perspectives that might all be equally valid could be interesting.
 
Something that alternate history can do more is having a Rashomon style multiple perspective type of narrative. I mean, come on, historians are constantly arguing on whether or not one interpretation is true, whether they meant to do that or this, or if they were or were not something. Simulating that with multiple perspectives that might all be equally valid could be interesting.
I agree, but I also get why people avoid doing this. It's the sort of thing that requires a lot of skill to pull off (if you do it badly people just get annoyed and decide that you don't actually have a clear plot in mind) and plenty of people don't feel they have enough skill.
 
Talking about "The End of History" in TLs about the 1990s/2000s are a bit of a cliche. I've engaged in it myself to be fair, but bringing it up in TLs about the 90s where it's like "You thought the 90s were supposed to be peaceful.... NOT" just elicits an eye-roll from me, especially when you consider that Fukuyama's book wasn't entirely wrong and parts of it still hold up.
Now I’m imagining a TL where the Soviet Union manages to hold on through the ‘90s devoting some time to the question of what Fukuyama writes then...
Additionally, if Labour in Britain went with someone like Bryan Gould as leader, if Tiananmen Square lead to a Hardline crackdown or if America went with a Tom Harkin type in 92’ then things would probably seem much different etc.
 
Additionally, if Labour in Britain went with someone like Bryan Gould as leader, if Tiananmen Square lead to a Hardline crackdown or if America went with a Tom Harkin type in 92’ then things would probably seem much different etc.
I feel like you could technically end “The End of History” quicker if the Quebec Referendum of 1995 was successful,causing a recession and Bob Dole becoming Prez in ‘96 as a result.
 
Something that alternate history can do more is having a Rashomon style multiple perspective type of narrative. I mean, come on, historians are constantly arguing on whether or not one interpretation is true, whether they meant to do that or this, or if they were or were not something. Simulating that with multiple perspectives that might all be equally valid could be interesting.

That is a trick @Thande 's LTTW has been using, where you'll get different history books and writers pushing a different "this is the important part" or dismissing something that's a big deal in another, politically different writer, and handy footnotes to flag up that we shouldn't take the latest "book" as gospel truth.
 
Additionally, if Labour in Britain went with someone like Bryan Gould as leader, if Tiananmen Square lead to a Hardline crackdown or if America went with a Tom Harkin type in 92’ then things would probably seem much different etc.
I think the first and last options there are kind of fundamentally different from the middle one: Bryan Gould and Tom Harkin were and are fundamentally within the liberal democratic mainstream, even if they are to the left of Blair or Clinton. But the middle one is quite significant to Fukuyama’s thesis, because it would show China pressing forward with an alternative model rather than slowly coming into alignment with the rest of the world - though to the extent that the parts of his argument about the atavistic nature of unipolar politics were not noticed at the time but have drawn more scrutiny in the modern era IOTL and would likely see more attention ITTL, the book itself may not be that different compared to the reception...
 
There really should be some more Syrian Civil War AH. It's the most documented war in human history and since World War II, and there are numerous primary sources. I can imagine that >95% of those who fought in the Syrian Civil War (all sides) who were not killed in battle are still alive today. So far the more interesting PODs I can think of are:

1) NATO intervention against Assad in 2013, Syria turns into a mixture of 1990s Afghanistan and Libya
2) No ISIS-AQ split
3) Assad manages to win earlier
4) A second Lebanese Civil War emerges as a result of the spillover from Syria
 
There really should be some more Syrian Civil War AH. It's the most documented war in human history and since World War II, and there are numerous primary sources. I can imagine that >95% of those who fought in the Syrian Civil War (all sides) who were not killed in battle are still alive today. So far the more interesting PODs I can think of are:

1) NATO intervention against Assad in 2013, Syria turns into a mixture of 1990s Afghanistan and Libya
2) No ISIS-AQ split
3) Assad manages to win earlier
4) A second Lebanese Civil War emerges as a result of the spillover from Syria
5) World War III starts due to events spliing out of control in Syria.
6) the Turkish invasion of Northern Syria of 2019 escalates into a Syrian-Turkish War.
 
There really should be some more Syrian Civil War AH. It's the most documented war in human history and since World War II, and there are numerous primary sources. I can imagine that >95% of those who fought in the Syrian Civil War (all sides) who were not killed in battle are still alive today. So far the more interesting PODs I can think of are:

1) NATO intervention against Assad in 2013, Syria turns into a mixture of 1990s Afghanistan and Libya
2) No ISIS-AQ split
3) Assad manages to win earlier
4) A second Lebanese Civil War emerges as a result of the spillover from Syria

It's still not over which may lead people to be reluctant to write alternate history about it.
 
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I've found there's a lot less of the classic Axis/Confederate victories that are the staples of published AH in TL format recently and, not (just) for moral reasons. The impression I've gotten is that they got pushed out of the content loop (people did less of them, they got reasonably critiqued as implausible, so people moved on to other topics, and the copycats followed those TLs all while the sense of "this sealion stuff is implausible" hung overhead).
I think another reason is the popularity of WW2 and the ACW as just general history topics means regardless of what POD one picks it will probably already have a built-in contingent of people who say it's completely implausible, so easier to go with a less-trodden subject.
 
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I think another reason is the popularity of WW2 and the ACW as just general history topics means regardless of what POD one picks it will probably already have a built-in contingent of people who say it's completely implausible, so easier to go with a less-trodden subject.

Plus there's less competition if you write about something rarer than CSA victory in the Civil War.
 
Plus there's less competition if you write about something rarer than CSA victory in the Civil War.
Yeah, I noticed a bit back earlier in the thread there was a question of what's the third most popular AH setting after Nazi or Confederate victory and while there are popular choices I don't think there's another third one that's as ubiquitous as the former two.
 
Yeah, I noticed a bit back earlier in the thread there was a question of what's the third most popular AH setting after Nazi or Confederate victory and while there are popular choices I don't think there's another third one that's as ubiquitous as the former two.

Comes of most people knowing the basics - Hitler, Davis, Churchill, Lee, etc. But many of them have already been mined out.

Chris
 
Not AH, but I'd say Max Havelaar and later Lord Jim.

Despite being depressing and tragic because Conrad, Lord Jim is typical of a genre of colonial literature where the protagonist is "making the colony work the way it should", rather than trying to somehow improve the system. The bad guys are often renegade settlers
 
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