Ino started a thread here http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=93734 about a book titled What If? It is the second volume of a book edited by a Robert Cowley, and contains article by well known historians that speculate on how the world might be different if one event or another had happened differently. One of the replies mentioned another book in the same vein Almost America As I have always like alternate history I thought, instead of hijacking the other thread, I would start this one, and try to gather just what alternate histories, non-fiction or fiction, have captured the interest of Dopers. I always liked H. Beam Piper’s Paratime stories. And the Discovery Channel had an interesting series of three shows on the What If? theme(Southern California after The Big One, MLK becomming President, and the discovery that there is intelligent life out there. C’mon, let us know what ones you liked.
Baker, try most anything by Harry Turtledove, and particularly an anthology of alternate history short stories he edited (and contributed to). He’s a past master at the art, and has two series going at the moment that are very well done: one in which lizardlike aliens attempt an invasion in the early days of WWII, and one in which the South wins the Civil War and what happened thereafter.
The series of story anthologies entitled “Alternate …” (e.g., Alternate Presidents, Alternate Wars, etc.) is unbalanced, with some extremely good stuff and some mediocre.
Thanks Polycarp, I have read some Turtledove, Down In The Bottomlands and The Two Georges I’ll try some more of his work.
I have just finished Turtledove’s Great War series (Premise: The Confederates won the civil war and are an independent nation with the support of the Allies when the First World War breaks out). I really enjoyed it, and I’m going to try some more of his stuff.
Although out of print, this one usually floats around second-hand shops…
The Third World War: A Future History (1978, revised in 1985 and 1990)
Jointly written by a host of military experts marshalled by General Sir John Hackett, it’s a fairly dry portrait of the world events leading up to and the prosecution of a third world war. It’s very, very dated now (apparently the US forces had their shiny new XM-1 tanks to thank in the early stages of the war), but a very authoritative work.
It was also used to form the basis of Harold Coyle’s “Team Yankee” and obviously partly inspired Tom Clancy’s “Red Storm Rising”. Okay, it was intended as a future history at the time of publication, but it makes interesting reading in hindsight. I wonder if Simon Pearson’s recent War in 2006 (more of a story, but not as authoritative) will have the same impact, or any of Larry Bond/Harold Coyle’s output?
Peter Tsouras’s Disaster at D-Day. Reads like a work of military history. Everything goes wrong for the Allies, starting with the loss of Omaha beach and ending with [IIRC] Erwin Rommel becoming German chancellor. Strictly for MilHist buffs, but if (like me) you like that sort of thing, you’ll enjoy it.
Philip K Dick’s The man in the high castle. Strange & unsettling Sci-Fi novel set in a post-WW2 USA which has been subjugated by the victorious Japanese (in the west) and Germans (in the east). It’s a while since I read it but some of its scenes still occupy a wee corner of my mind (as do many of PKD’s books!)
David Downing’s The Moscow Option, an alternate WWII history concentrating on 1942. It starts in summer of '41, Hitler is injured in a plane crash, so Goering takes over until he recuperates. The OKW is in charge of the war in the East, and then it starts to diverge. The Pacific War also is radically different. From the tidbits of information that he drops once in a while, it is a pity that he didn’t expand the book to cover the whole war.
You have to read “Past Watch, the Redemption of Christopher Columbus”, by Orson Scott Card. Not quite the same as the op, but along the same lines.
Also by Card, the “Alvin Maker” series is set in North America, but there is still a French and Spanish (I think) presence in what is now the US. It is based on people and events of the period, like William Henry Harrison and others, but is not historically accurate. When I read them I got a sense of what could have been but for a few small changes in history.
Stephen Fry’s Making History is worth reading, though it’s got some parts that didn’t really work for me. The chapter headings are wonderful.
There’s also a book called Fatherland by Robert Harris. I saw the HBO movie based on it, so I can’t tell you anything about the book itself, but the story seemed pretty good.
William Sander’s * Journey to Fusang *
Robert Harris’s “Fatherland”, as KneadToKnow mentioned, takes the premise that Germany won WWII. The novel is set in the alternate-universe 1961 and President Kennedy (that’s Joseph, Sr.) is set to make a state visit to der Fuehrer (aka, History’s Biggest Asshole) in Berlin on his birthday. Harris goes into some pretty amazing detail about what he believes a victorious Berlin would look like 20 years after the war. The main plot of the novel concerns a Berlin detective investigating a series of murders in the SS ranks, ala Martin Cruz Smith’s “Gorky Park”. The book, a basic potboiler, was okay - mostly due to the interesting historical take. I can’t speak for the HBO movie - didn’t see it.
Didn’t Newt Gingrich co-author a book called 1945, where the Nazis win?