Doug's Alternate History Site
History is full of turning points: battles lost that could have been won, difficult decisions that could have gone either way, kings or presidents who died but could have lived, and so on. Alternate history is speculation, speculation about what might have been had things happened differently. History is full of forks in the road, and the world we live in is a result of the paths taken in the past. But it did not have to be that way.
Imagine a world where Rome never fell, where the Central Powers won the First World war, or where the Axis won the Second or a world where Carthage, the Confederacy or the Aztec Empire live on in the Twentieth Century. Worlds where the inventions of Leonardo Da Vinci kicked off an Industrial Revolution during the Italian Renaissance, where the Black Death annihilated Europe altogether, or where China's emperors had sent their huge seafaring junks rounding the Cape to Europe or crossing the Pacific to America.
Of course America wouldn't be "America" in such a world, and that is what alternate history is all about: postulating what would the world be like if things had gone the other way. I have posted a few timelines here, recounting what I (or others) think would have, or at least could have, happened if history had been otherwise. If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail me at:
douglas.hoff@gmail.comTimelines, Essays and So Forth
New (or New-ish, anyway)
Empty America
And, speaking of the Middle Ages, be sure to check out Faelin's
How the West Was Weird:
Part 52 onward Seventeen Short Scenes (Partial Bibliography)German Military Regime in the 1930s
Mattias Persson
Ben Potash
A New WW1 Timeline:
John Curry
A New Lettow-Vorbeck Timeline:
Will Prout
My original take (now somewhat embarrassingly simplistic) on the South winning the American Civil War:
The Last Best Hope/The Approach of Danger
Doug Hoff
What could have happened if Napoleon did not invade Russia:
Napoleon Does Not Invade Russia
DFowler955@aol.com
The apocalyptic consequences of the premature death of one of history's bloody tyrants:
Stalin Dies Before Coming to Power
Mike Reid
A very original timeline:
As if things could be any worse:
The history of a Latin American Superpower:
Jesse Laughlin McMasters Brocksmith
The West is weird in:
Things heat up in the 70's with: