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The Borders of Genre: The Glorification of Fascism Within Alternate History

The image problem is a real one. So is the fact that within the English-speaking online AH community, what-ifs about WW2 and the CSA are the most common topics of discussion, by a fair margin.

Having been participating in the online AH community for over two decades, though, this isn't a new problem. Go back to the turn of the millennium, and the biggest topics of AH online discussion (particularly for newcomers) were... WW2 and the CSA. About the only change I've seen is that discussion of WW1 has increased to the point that it's a clear third, and that comes with its own troublesome issues about apologism (or glorification) of imperialism and colonialism, amongst other concerning trends.

I'm not going to pretend I know what the solution is, but "keep writing about stuff other than WW2 and the CSA" isn't the answer. I've been doing that for two decades. So have plenty of others. But the single biggest topics of discussion, and single biggest historical periods explored in published AH, are the same.
 
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The image problem is a real one. So is the fact that within the English-speaking online AH community, what-ifs about WW2 and the CSA are the most common topics of discussion, by a fair margin.

Having been participating in the online AH community for over two decades, though, this isn't a new problem. Go back to the turn of the millennium, and the biggest topics of AH online discussion (particularly for newcomers) were... WW2 and the CSA. About the only change I've seen is that discussion of WW1 has increased to the point that it's a clear third, and that comes with its own troublesome issues about apologism (or glorification) of imperialism and colonialism, amongst other concerning trends.

I'm not going to pretend I know that the solution is, but "keep writing about stuff other than WW2 and the CSA" isn't the answer. I've been doing that for two decades. So have plenty of others. But the single biggest topics of discussion, and single biggest historical periods explored in published AH, are the same.

I don't think there is a solution. WW2 and the ACW are just too prominent as The Main Events of History for most people. That's what people know and that's what's going to attract their attention - a book with the swastika over Westminster Palace or a zeppelin with a Confederate roundel painted on the side is going to draw more readers than one that's got, I don't know, a modern city with the Kingdom of Jerusalem's flag somewhere. SLP should continue doing the Lord's work by exploring other events going differently, of course, but I can't see the general fixation on WW2 and the ACW changing until there's a massive shift in education and popular culture.
 
SLP should continue doing the Lord's work by exploring other events going differently, of course, but I can't see the general fixation on WW2 and the ACW changing until there's a massive shift in education and popular culture.

Unless there actually is another World War, it's hard to imagine some other conflict or event displacing WW2 as the setting or POD for AH fiction. Accumulating more history since WW2 may lessen the overall prominence, but what single thing could really take its place?
 
Unless there actually is another World War, it's hard to imagine some other conflict or event displacing WW2 as the setting or POD for AH fiction. Accumulating more history since WW2 may lessen the overall prominence, but what single thing could really take its place?

I was wondering about 9/11 as one potential candidate (at least to Americans), but that not happening results in a world a lot less easy to depict than 'Nazis still around' or 'CSA here to stay' I guess. Plus I suppose the people most invested in 9/11 as the springboard for fiction probably write (or wrote) War on Terror technothrillers?
 
I was wondering about 9/11 as one potential candidate (at least to Americans), but that not happening results in a world a lot less easy to depict than 'Nazis still around' or 'CSA here to stay' I guess. Plus I suppose the people most invested in 9/11 as the springboard for fiction probably write (or wrote) War on Terror technothrillers?

Well, yeah. The 20th century without WW2 is... I don't know what. It is the same with the American Civil War: neither was an aberrant conflict that erupted purely by chance, many long and well-understood arrows point towards it from the 'Factors leading to...' table in the history books.
 
To Chime in, I think the problem is both one of history and fiction. Which well considering this is historical fiction is kind of obvious. This went through several revisions so I hope it isn't a world salad.

In the historical sense, well history is sometimes not so fact as it is storytelling at least speaking as someone who took history in undergrad and minored in philosophy.) if certain views on history get propagated or are propagated in a work as being 'true' then it becomes apart of people's popular imagination of what might as well then be fact. The Nazi's as this ultimate evil, very understandably comes from the multitude of histories on the topic, yet because there's so much talked about them of course people are going to ask what if they won. However due to how some stories you get really distorted views on what this evil was like, to move away from the Nazi's and to it's 'brother' villains in Imperial Japan who are often twisted from people to faceless evil.

It's easy to see Imperial Japan written off as the Mongols but with battleships, because you have histories that see them as barbaric, cruel, dishonorable, scheming, duplicitous etc. Namely because of their actions at Pearl Harbor and treatment of people during the Second Sino-Japanese war and beyond. But the issue with this common narrative is that, it obscures what is a regime that adopted European outlooks on power, and the need for empire. This was brutality that steamed from views all too espoused by 'civilized' nations against their 'lessers' it just tends to be hidden behind some orientalist cloak that makes it's exotic.

Mitigating this might be hard to do, because who is really going to take up the instruction oh you need to read more. But at the same time what if people don't like their stories spoiled as the truth might not be so 'grand'?

There's also a problem what can be done to fight an oversaturation of common premises, outside of taking the steps to write something different? As someone who writes non-European oriented AH, or even just stories with certain premises if we are talking the realm of fanfiction too, there are times where you need to be the change you want to see in the world, because almost no one else will. I wanted to imagine a world where Yoshimoto Imagawa beat Nobunaga Oda, changing Japanese history forever, but I was also in a situation where I had to be the one to bring this scenario to life. So if we really and truly want to see a change to the histories being presented then we as a community have to take those steps, even if it's the simple question of how can we broaden our horizons of what is AH, or what makes it so special so that it is not about only WW2 or the Civil War.

Because there is an inherent problem of the AH genre, where I think we we talk of alternate history and indeed even history proper, as this grand and boring conception of Great People (usually men) Wars, and 'Grand events' like elections and revolutions and untimely deaths. Alternate history can be as much about the little things than it is the 'important stuff.' Assuming the important stuff at least has the decency to not be European or American, but I notice that seldom see that much pop culture AH as a whole either when it could be just as neat to explore. Perhaps we owe more to the genre to explore it's implications to it's fullest, clothing, dancing, music, art, sports, celebrities, even outcasts and criminals Although I'm saying this as someone exploring a sci-fi franchise with Earth (Mass Effect) and finding its history and culture poorly of Earth and Humanity so underdeveloped and filling in those cracks or trying to. I've gained an appreciation to create and talk about the 'little things' we might ignore or use as shallow window dressing otherwise. Apologies if I'm bringing in fanfiction, but I myself often times working with fanfiction as if it where 'AH'.

Storywise: the problem with any stories that goes with hard capital 'A' antagonists is you need them be a threat or an obstacle, which in the case of 'bad guy' nations can make them seem like these dark and cool powers. Be it German super technology, 'Southern Chivalry' or Japanese Samurai ethos but in the modern day. Although I must at least point out that this is also very much a problem other fiction, look at Fallout's Enclave, the Empire in Star Wars where you people want the 'cool' evil without the evil that comes along with it.

Making a decent 'evil' antagonist requires threading a bunch of needles, and one of the things I think should be looked at are making your 'villains' every day people not frothing at the mouth super villains, ideologues, sadists, but those who see their actions as a nine to five job. Someone annoyed at their quota of killing prisoners being off, because their missing a card game at a bar. You keep them cruel but give them a mystique of 'coolness', If your work even needs such a threat. An Age of Miracles and CalBear's treatment of China in AANW has turned me off of the concept that need these 'evil' antagonists of sorts, with all the above baggage required.

So I guess to summarize this little rant of mine, We need to be mindful that people write from history or pop history, which can be mitigated, even it's just encouraging them to read a little more. I think we need to be more experimental and creative with the genre and go encourage that as well, which some the anthology ideas here have tried to do.
 
In SS-GB's case, it's very much an interrogation of post-war British triumphalism- the resistance are heroic, but they're ruthless. The protagonist is a collaborator, even if he eventually switches sides like a Vichy gendarme. It's very much taking on the myth that the British were made of different stuff than the Europeans.
I think on that anti-triumphalist line Deighton was walking the same path that Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo were emphasising right from the title of It Happened Here (1964).
I will mention that It Happened Here despite being incredibly scrappy is probably one of the best ‘Sealion Britain’ scenarios out there purely because

A). It’s an openly Anti-Fascist film, the intent from the beginning was to critique and dismantle Fascism and those who join it and it ends with all the Fascists being bluntly mown down in a reference to Nazi reprisals done at the start of the film. Indeed Sebastian Shaw appears to discuss about anyone could possible harbour Fascist sympathies and how the only human way to live is to destroy Fascism in whatever ever way you can; it’s probably the best scenes of the film.


B). The scrappy nature meant that it was forced to get more down into the weeds and the mud of the world, a ground eye view instead of a birds eye as it were. Instead of the ‘Oh boy, we have to recuse King George and stop the Nazi Atom Bomb program’ of SS-GB, it’s about the normal life’s of people under Fascism. Which allows it to examine it almost like a horror story as it were, the horrors of being an absent minded person within the Fascist system.

Oh also it very openly ends with the Nazi system obviously collapsing all around the main characters, indeed even as it starts British Partisans are winning and forcing the Nazi’s to resort to Anti-Partisan Units and mass evacuations of British villages and the ending consists of the last gasp of Nazi Britain occurring as it relies on the last dregs of resources to stay afloat.

Essentially, It Happened Here is a must for Alternate History viewers because in many respects it feels like a deconstruction and analyse of the worlds of ‘Sealion Wins’ etc. worlds.
 
I don't think there is a solution. WW2 and the ACW are just too prominent as The Main Events of History for most people. That's what people know and that's what's going to attract their attention - a book with the swastika over Westminster Palace or a zeppelin with a Confederate roundel painted on the side is going to draw more readers than one that's got, I don't know, a modern city with the Kingdom of Jerusalem's flag somewhere. SLP should continue doing the Lord's work by exploring other events going differently, of course, but I can't see the general fixation on WW2 and the ACW changing until there's a massive shift in education and popular culture.

There's got to be mileage in a proper historiography comparing the British and American scenes on this, simply because the American Civil War simply *isn't* that well known here- its gained prominence recently for political reasons but my parents growing up would know the historical background of the Crimean War enough to put context to the Light Brigade and so on, but could look at Dukes of Hazzard and assume that the General Lee was just the southern equivalent of driving around with a Scottish flag on the bonnet.
 
I guess a better example would be WW2 and [big regional historical event], with the ACW in the US and other countries having their national equivalent (not necessarily a civil war but a big event most people know about)
In Australia, fer'instance, I'd put those events as WW2 and WW1 respectively, because the Anzac legend is such a big thing (and if anything, becoming bigger).
 
I saw the Tweet when it was going viral, liked by someone for whom I have a lot of respect, but at the time just considered it another instance on Twitter of someone throwing ignorant shit at the wall. It's 100% coming from a place of ignorance, "Google it" might have been a bit less called for were they not asking for Fire on the Mountain - the book you are asking for literally exists and it was published in 1988. However, as with all ignorance on Twitter it comes with a hefty dose of arrogance along with it, the statement was not made to be proven wrong.

Similarly, perhaps instead of offering the services of a popular search engine could have just added a link to the SLP catalogue and a polite "Over 100 books and only a small few of them based around Nazi or Confederate victories." No one ever Tweets to be proven wrong though, so I doubt it would have done much. I'm curious, @Gary Oswald, if there was any response from Burns? Regardless of the worth of just another ignorarrogant (TM) Tweet, it does seem to have engendered some soul searching, a lot more hand wringing, the merest hint of suggestions, and has gone very far from the original point.

First of all, let's make clear right away that the historical events under scrutiny here are between them the most significant global event of... ever? In the case of World War II. That might be recency bias, could say recent history but that doesn't feel significant enough. It's incredibly significant, anyway. The American Civil War is another incredibly significant event, perhaps not on a global scale, but there is a massive dose of protagonist syndrome going on from some in the US as well as others internationally who know that history better than there own. Add to that these two events casting a long shadow over much subsequent history and politics, maybe not so surprising they should be of interest.

This is not a denial of the issue but has to be acknowledged. It also has to be acknowledged that the most prominent work of alternate history content that most people would know about - Amazon's adaptation of The Man in the High Castle - has a myriad of problematic aspects not present in the original work (which has its own, different, problematic elements, a discussion for another day!) It's difficult to escape such an image, but all alternate history is Nazi/Confederate wish-fulfilment. Just like all anime is for perverts. Just like all wrestling fans are illiterate rednecks. Just like all horror fans are sadists who enjoy watching people chopped up. Just like all football supporters are violent hooligans. Trust me on this, I have a bluecheck and a job in the media.

A lot of people won't want to accept these are unfair stereotypes, and I know some will no doubt wish to derail this conversation to tell me how "that's true about them, actually". What can be done to challenge this? Not much, because if you see someone expressing this online I can guarantee they're not open for proof they're wrong. On the other hand, maybe someone just scrolling the replies might come across a counter argument that, if not swaying them, might encourage them to be a bit more open. Perhaps I should have actually brought the Tweet here as an internal discussion matter for SLP asking if we want the Twitter account to drop the catalogue and a few subsequent replies maybe directing toward vignettes on the Magazine saying as politely as possible "here's a wealth of stuff beyond the tip of the iceberg."

If published alternate history has chased and cultivated an audience that is drawn to swastikas and the rebel battle flag, this particular branch of it found here has not. It's long been understood that books with flags and/or maps tend to sell better from SLP, but looking through the catalogue of colours it seems very, very few of the books have recognisable Fascist iconography and I reviewed it in the broadest possible definition counting the Flash-and-Circle motif on A Greater Britain and the use of Hitler's hairline on @The Red's Red Fuhrer series. Far, far more of the books have variations on British flags and Communist iconography, which have their own issues, of course. Maybe that's the argument: not here.

They might not be published here, but they have the self-publishing route. Poorly drawn covers of Gruppenfuhrers picking up blonde, buxom land girls in conquered Britain. Amazon isn't going to give a shit. Should the community here take a more active bent in slamming these. As much as I'd like to see it; it does put someone in the awful position of having to read that vile dross. Also, I think many of us remember the time this was tried on the forum itself, not even the public magazine, and the threat of litigation by its ossean gabby author over the matter.

Keep writing works that defy the stereotype. Promote this place as one where you can find works outside the stereotype. Keep doing the work needed here as mentioned almost as an afterthought in the article. You're not going to convince those that are happy being ignorant of anything that disproves their view, but you might get some others. Maybe hammer home alternate history as more of a setting as opposed to a genre, though I'll be saying more on that in the Magazine soon enough, and even then you'll find some idiot that will refuse to accept Alien is a horror film because it's set in space.

If this is a concern, and I think it should be to an extent, though not because of one ignorarrogant (TM) Tweet, the worst thing you can do if you really enjoy it is nothing. Do it in a positive way: focus on what you actually like and promote it where possible. It might feel a wasted effort. because there'll be those that enjoy their ignorance too much on the outside; as well as those who would rather complain without any action to make things better on the inside. Outside and inside pissing in at times. However, if you enjoy something and want to be able to discuss it without cringing it's worth trying to up the game to achieve that.
 
I guess a better example would be WW2 and [big regional historical event], with the ACW in the US and other countries having their national equivalent (not necessarily a civil war but a big event most people know about)

"Rome never falls" is a venerable one as well, isn't it? It was considered enough of a biggie that the Faction Paradox books had a story where all the Rome-Never-Fell worlds and all the Nazis-Won worlds are having a war.
 
"Rome never falls" is a venerable one as well, isn't it? It was considered enough of a biggie that the Faction Paradox books had a story where all the Rome-Never-Fell worlds and all the Nazis-Won worlds are having a war.

There's definitely been a strong Byzantophile tendency to Pre-1900 discussion.
 
Essentially, It Happened Here is a must for Alternate History viewers because in many respects it feels like a deconstruction and analyse of the worlds of ‘Sealion Wins’ etc. worlds.

It feels like this just reverts to an issue the article already addresses, listing individual good works of Nazi victory AH can feel more like a cover for the problem instead of a remedy. Particular to It Happened Here I wouldn't say that a work of media whose production involved getting a bunch of actual fascists boozed up and allowed to cosplay in a world where their dreams came true is a glowing example of how the genre can avoid accidentally glorifying fascism.
 
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It feels like this just reverts to an issue the article already addresses, listing individual good works of Nazi victory AH can feel more like a cover for the problem instead of a remedy. Particular to It Happened Here I wouldn't say that a work of media whose production involved getting a bunch of actual fascists boozed up and allowed to cosplay in a world where their dreams came true is a glowing example of how the genre can avoid accidentally glorifying fascism.
I do now realise having finally read the article, because the earlier the photos kept causing my attempt to read it to crash that I do realise I stumbled into what the article was saying. Which, eh not great on my part.

And I will say, you are right. It Happened Here is flawed and it’s understandable why when the film was originally screened there were those exact complaints towards the creators to there eternal annoyance, in there view they created an Anti-Fascist film and indeed much of the film and logic is framed through that lens. But I understand why the Board of Deputies had complaints with the material, some of them mirroring some of the stuff brought up here (particularly one of there fears is the whole point about how audiences can connect and sympathise with characters who are Fascists, which, yeah Man In A High Castle has proven that can happen).

In attempting to deconstruct the Fascist mindset and lay it bare for the problem that it is, as well as showcasing that Fascism can happen anywhere and it must be unrooted at every turn, it does give a floor to Fascists to make there points, and depending on the audience member they could definitely agree with it or connect with the character of Pauline. It’s definitely flawed to say the least with the whole ‘Message versus Substance’ problem.

In my personal opinion I do believe that Alternate History does need to move away from Nazi and Confederate Victory stuff, and that the fact that mainstream audiences still see it as being onus upon the community to do more to spread word about works that don’t possibly lead to accidental Fascist/Colonial/Confederate Glorification and actively promote works that aren’t said examples etc.

I try my best by trying to introduce people to Alternate History using Yiddish Policemen's Union over stuff like Fatherland for that reason, and indeed kind of a reaction to stuff like Fatherland.

Instead of imagining a world where the Nazi’s Won, I think reading a book about how the culture of a people they tried to destroy lasting to the present day is more worthwhile introduction (and also Chabon is a good writer etc.)
 
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The problem is simply that for the mainstream readership, and certainly in America, the two bits of history that they are vaguely aware of are WW2 and the ACW.

If one is doing an Alternate History, the most accessible change that the mainstream readership will get is to change who won, so that the losers become the winners.

What if the Nazis won WW2 is a simple concept that the mainstream readership will get. What if India wasn't partitioned would be of interest to a south Asian audience, but outside that, it would meet with blank states as to what was going on.

Unless one picks a strong POD and a well-known period of history, good luck getting anyone outside of AH to be interested.

The Assassination Bureau may show a POD where WW1 never starts, but it wasn't exactly a runaway success.

Likewise, an author has to contend with "what everyone knows". Take WW1. Blackadder Goes Forth is taken as an accurate, if humorous, representation of WW1. Well, humorous, yes. Accurate, big no. But it's part of the mythology, and doing something accurate would feel, to many, simply wrong.

If writing for a mainstream audience, one has to write something that will strike a chord with that mainstream audience. I can write about Edwardian life till I am blue in the face, but Bloody Downton Abbey is what the mainstream audience consumes because that's what it understands about the period.
 
David Flin: If writing for a mainstream audience, one has to write something that will strike a chord with that mainstream audience. I can write about Edwardian life till I am blue in the face, but Bloody Downton Abbey is what the mainstream audience consumes because that's what it understands about the period.

Yes, the sense of a lost golden age pre-1914 is so engrained that when I wrote about the genuine 1911 Great Unrest on a BBC forum, people insisted that it was a counter-factual scenario rather than true history. This was despite books like The Strange Death of Liberal England (1935) by George Dangerfield and the very crisp and focused The Edwardian Crisis (1996) by David Powell which I would recommend to anyone with an interest in modern British history - let alone more academic texts on the period.

The point you raise David is a challenge in non-alternate historical fiction too. My wife wrote a historical novel which had the mainstream attitude that women were not permitted on late 18th Century/early 19th Century ships at all. This is despite the fact Lord Nelson complained there were so many women on many of his ships that they were consuming all the drinking water. No, they were not prostitutes but wives of officers and artisans, including the blacksmith, and yes, wooden ships did have forges on them. However, she knew if she portrayed a ship as it was genuinely, many readers of historical fiction would turn away saying she was trying to push a Feminist line, just being odd or lazy with her research.
 
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