Alternative history may refer to a number of subjects relating to history, the chronology and study of the past. It may mean:
- Alternate history, a subgenre of speculative fiction dealing with divergences from the world's actual history
- Counterfactual history, a form of historiography which speculates on "what if" counterfactuals to actual history
- Historical revisionism, the reinterpretation of orthodox views on history or historiography
- Secret history, historical events claimed by revisionists to have been deliberately suppressed or forgotten
Famous quotes containing the words alternative and/or history:
“If you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?”
—Graham Greene (1904–1991)
“I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)