Writing and Printing

Alternate history

Alternate history (also alternative history, allohistory, althist, or simply A.H.) is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which one or more historical events happen differently than they did in reality. As conjecture grounded in historical fact, alternate history stories explore "what if?" scenarios about pivotal events in human history and depict outcomes diverge significantly from the historical record. These works typically feature a point of divergence (POD) from recorded history, a change that alters the subsequent course of events, and the resulting ramifications. Some alternate histories are considered a subgenre of science fiction or historical fiction. Since the 1950s, many works in the genre have incorporated tropes such as time travel between timelines, psychic awareness of parallel universes, or the splitting of history into separate timestreams.

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See also

• ▸Guillaume Apollinaire
• ▸John B. Friedman
• ▸Book design

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