Little Decisions Could Make The Past Much Different

A co-worker and I were talking about television today and we got on the topic of the new version of V that is starting up again later this month.  I researched the series a little and found that the writer was inspired by the writing of Sinclair Lewis and had originally pitched his idea to NBC as the United States in a dictatorship.  NBC felt this was too cerebral for the normal television viewer and decided to change it to a series about a carnivorous alien race trying to take over the Earth.  *SIGH*  Television executives...

This brings up a whole subgenre of fiction called Alternative History.  To someone with a history degree this is intersting on a number of levels.  One of which is that writers take the time to imagine real people and real events in different ways and then continue to create an alternative timeline from the difference in one event into the future. One need only watch the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror" for an example.

Here's a list of books that fall into the Alternative History genre I found that I plan to check out.

It Can't Happen Here - Sinclair Lewis (1935) - A populist wins the Presidency and becomes a Dictator
Bring The Jubilee - Ward Moore (1953) - The South wins the Civil War
The Man In The High Castle - Philip K. Dick (1962) - The Axis wins World War II instead of the Allies
Fire On The Mountain - Terry Bisson (1988) - Another book about the South winning the Civil War
The Plot Against America - Philip Roth (2004) - Charles Lindbergh wins the Presidency in 1940 not FDR

You may be wondering about Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, 1984 by George Orwell or 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke - these works do not fall into this genre as they are not changing history but imagining a future, albeit one that we don't necessarily want to see happen in real life.

Rather than just the events of war or political upheaval, I think it would be interesting to come up with an Alternative History for Rock 'N Roll musicians who have departed the stage too early.  For instance, Buddy Holly on Ed Sullivan, Columbia Records releasing "Mixed Up Confusion" as an electric track on The Freewheelin Bob Dylan in 1962 rendering Newport 1965 moot, The Beatles finally reuniting for Live Aid in 1985 or Jimi Hendrix playing with the likes of Eddie Van Halen or Stevie Ray Vaughan.