Definition
In writing an alternate history, the author makes the conscious choice to change something in our past. According to Steven H Silver, alternate history requires three things: 1) the story must have a point of divergence from the history of our world prior to the time at which the author is writing, 2) a change that would alter history as it is known, and 3) an examination of the ramifications of that change.
Several genres of fiction have been confused as alternate histories. Science fiction set in what was the future but is now the past, like Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey or Nineteen Eighty-Four, are not alternate history because the author has not made the conscious choice to change the past. Secret history, works that document things that are not known to have happened historically but would not have changed history had they happened, is also not to be confused with alternate history.
Alternate history is related to but distinct from counterfactual history—the term used by some professional historians when using thoroughly researched and carefully reasoned speculations on "what might have happened if..." as a tool of academic historical research.
Read more about this topic: Alternate History
Famous quotes containing the word definition:
“One definition of man is “an intelligence served by organs.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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“The definition of good prose is proper words in their proper places; of good verse, the most proper words in their proper places. The propriety is in either case relative. The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in general, a fault.”
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