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170-532: The Alteration is a 1976 alternate history novel by Kingsley Amis , set in a parallel universe in which the Reformation did not take place. It won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1977. In his biography of Kingsley Amis, Richard Bradford devotes a chapter to The Alteration , its origins and context within the author's life. In 1973, Amis had heard a reproduction of the voice of Alessandro Moreschi ,

340-527: A Megaduke and commander of its armies and manages to fight off the invading Ottoman armies of Mehmet II . He saves the city from Islamic conquest , and even chases the Turks deeper into lands they had previously conquered. One of the earliest works of alternate history published in large quantities for the reception of a large audience may be Louis Geoffroy 's Histoire de la Monarchie universelle : Napoléon et la conquête du monde (1812–1832) (History of

510-431: A multiverse of alternative worlds, complete with the paratime travel machines that would later become popular with American pulp writers. However, since his hero experiences only a single alternate world, the story is not very different from conventional alternate history. In the 1930s, alternate history moved into a new arena. The December 1933 issue of Astounding published Nat Schachner 's "Ancestral Voices", which

680-744: A three-year guerrilla war , which ended in a truce in July 1921 (although violence continued until June 1922, mostly in Northern Ireland). In December 1921, the Anglo-Irish Treaty was concluded between the British government and representatives of the Second Dáil . It gave Ireland complete independence in its home affairs and practical independence for foreign policy, but an opt-out clause allowed Northern Ireland to remain within

850-416: A "Union" of former English North American colonies breaks away in 1848 instead of 1776, conquering most of North America. The same book also features the publication of The Origin of Species , the widespread application of electricity including in aviation and Beethoven's composing of twenty symphonies before his death in 1835. Galliard , an alternative-universe counterpart to Keith Roberts 's Pavane ,

1020-611: A Home Rule bill through parliament, it looked certain that one would finally pass in 1914. To prevent this from happening, the Ulster Volunteers were formed in 1913 under the leadership of Edward Carson . Their formation was followed in 1914 by the establishment of the Irish Volunteers , whose aim was to ensure that the Home Rule Bill was passed. The Act was passed but with the "temporary" exclusion of

1190-459: A POD only to explain the existence and make no use of the concept, or may present the universe without explanation of its existence. Isaac Asimov 's short story " What If— " (1952) is about a couple who can explore alternate realities by means of a television-like device. This idea can also be found in Asimov's novel The End of Eternity (1955), in which the "Eternals" can change the realities of

1360-412: A Pennsylvania State Police officer, who knows how to make gunpowder, is transported from our world to an alternate universe where the recipe for gunpowder is a tightly held secret and saves a country that is about to be conquered by its neighbors. The paratime patrol members are warned against going into the timelines immediately surrounding it, where the country will be overrun, but the book never depicts

1530-464: A Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg. When a story's assumptions about the nature of time travel lead to the complete replacement of the visited time's future, rather than just the creation of an additional time line, the device of a "time patrol" is often used where guardians move through time to preserve the "correct" history. A more recent example is Making History by Stephen Fry in which

1700-469: A bitter war with the "Spanish" in Mexico (the chief scientist at the laboratory where the experiment occurred is described as a Gnostic, and references to Christian Gnosticism appear repeatedly in the book). Although not dealing in physical time travel, in his alt-history novel Marx Returns , Jason Barker introduces anachronisms into the life and times of Karl Marx , such as when his wife Jenny sings

1870-565: A century, with the migrations of the Celts being one of the more enduring themes of archaeological and linguistic studies. The most recent genetic research strongly associates the spread of Indo-European languages (including Celtic) through Western Europe with a people bringing a composite Beaker culture , with its arrival in Britain and Ireland dated to around the middle of the third millennium BC. According to John T. Koch and others, Ireland in

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2040-412: A certain drug, and the agent is constantly trying to maximize the consistency of behavior among his alternate selves, attempting to compensate for events and thoughts he experiences, he guesses are of low measure relative to those experienced by most of his other selves. Many writers—perhaps the majority—avoid the discussion entirely. In one novel of this type, H. Beam Piper's Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen ,

2210-559: A character in Ada makes a long-distance call, all the toilets in the house flush at once to provide hydraulic power. Guido Morselli described the defeat of Italy (and subsequently France) in World War I in his novel, Past Conditional (1975; Contro-passato prossimo ), wherein the static Alpine front line which divided Italy from Austria during that war collapses when the Germans and

2380-629: A different history. "Sidewise in Time" has been described as "the point at which the alternate history narrative first enters science fiction as a plot device" and is the story for which the Sidewise Award for Alternate History is named. A somewhat similar approach was taken by Robert A. Heinlein in his 1941 novelette Elsewhen in which a professor trains his mind to move his body across timelines. He then hypnotizes his students so that they can explore more of them. Eventually, each settles into

2550-797: A divided United States , in which the Empire of Japan takes the Pacific states, governing them as a puppet, Nazi Germany takes the East Coast of the United States and parts of the Midwest , with the remnants of the old United States' government as the Neutral Zone, a buffer state between the two superpowers. The book has inspired an Amazon series of the same name . Vladimir Nabokov 's novel, Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969),

2720-572: A mode of transportation connecting Europe with Africa and North America, with heavier-than-air vehicles being exclusive to New England. Allusion to known historical figures include the political scene in Britain in the 1970s, and may reflect Amis's increasingly conservative attitudes. For example, Lord Stansgate ( Tony Benn ) presides over the Holy Office, and Officers Paul Foot and Corin Redgrave are two of its feared operatives. Pope John XXIV

2890-479: A nation. It assumes that by giving a nation an alternative history, alternative values can be made to grow." In the English language, the first known complete alternate history may be Nathaniel Hawthorne 's short story " P.'s Correspondence ", published in 1845. It recounts the tale of a man who is considered "a madman" due to his perceptions of a different 1845, a reality in which long-dead famous people, such as

3060-530: A new language and culture introduced directly by migration and genetic replacement). The earliest written records of Ireland come from classical Greco-Roman geographers. Ptolemy in his Almagest refers to Ireland as Mikra Brettania ("Little Britain"), in contrast to the larger island, which he called Megale Brettania ("Great Britain"). In his map of Ireland in his later work, Geography , Ptolemy refers to Ireland as Iouernia and to Great Britain as Albion . These 'new' names were likely to have been

3230-434: A northerly area, although summers are cooler than those in continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century AD. The island was Christianised from the 5th century onwards. During this period Ireland was divided into many petty kingships under provincial kingships (Cúige "fifth" of the traditional provinces) vying for dominance and the title of High King of Ireland . In

3400-576: A political reality until the Viking Age and even then was not a consistent one. Ireland did have a culturally unifying rule of law: the early written judicial system, the Brehon Laws , administered by a professional class of jurists known as the brehons . The Chronicle of Ireland records that in 431, Bishop Palladius arrived in Ireland on a mission from Pope Celestine I to minister to

3570-498: A republican rebellion inspired and led by the Society of United Irishmen , with the aim of creating an independent Ireland. Despite assistance from France the rebellion was put down by British and Irish government and yeomanry forces. The rebellion lasted from the 24th of May to the 12th of October that year and saw the establishment of the short lived Irish Republic (1798) in the province on Connacht . It saw numerous battles across

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3740-511: A sheep's tooth were carbon-dated to c. 4,350 BC. Field systems were developed in different parts of Ireland, including at the Céide Fields , that has been preserved beneath a blanket of peat in present-day Tyrawley . An extensive field system , arguably the oldest in the world, consisted of small divisions separated by dry-stone walls . The fields were farmed for several centuries between 3,500 BC and 3,000 BC. Wheat and barley were

3910-664: A sixteen-part epic comic book series called Captain Confederacy began examining a world where the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War . In the series, the Captain and others heroes are staged government propaganda events featuring the feats of these superheroes. Since the late 1990s, Harry Turtledove has been the most prolific practitioner of alternate history and has been given

4080-662: A son, Stephen II of England. When Henry of York ("the Abominable") tried to usurp his nephew's throne, there was a papal crusade (the "War of the English Succession") to restore the rightful heir, culminating in the "Holy Victory" at Coverley, which was designated as the ecclesiastical capital of England. Secondly, the Protestant Reformation did not take place as Martin Luther was reconciled to

4250-592: A staple of the alternate history genre. A number of alternate history stories and novels appeared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (see, for example, Joseph Edgar Chamberlin 's The Ifs of History [1907] and Charles Petrie 's If: A Jacobite Fantasy [1926]). In 1931, British historian Sir John Squire collected a series of essays from some of the leading historians of the period for his anthology If It Had Happened Otherwise . In that work, scholars from major universities, as well as important non-academic authors, turned their attention to such questions as "If

4420-486: A strong indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games , Irish music , Irish language , and Irish dance . The island's culture shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football , rugby , horse racing , golf , and boxing . The names Ireland and Éire derive from Old Irish Ériu , a goddess in Irish mythology first recorded in

4590-470: A subgenre of science fiction , alternative history is a genre of fiction wherein the author speculates upon how the course of history might have been altered if a particular historical event had an outcome different from the real life outcome. An alternate history requires three conditions: (i) A point of divergence from the historical record, before the time in which the author is writing; (ii) A change that would alter known history; and (iii) An examination of

4760-629: A third. Robinson explores world history from that point in AD 1405 (807 AH ) to about AD 2045 (1467 AH). Rather than following the great man theory of history, focusing on leaders, wars, and major events, Robinson writes more about social history , similar to the Annales School of history theory and Marxist historiography , focusing on the lives of ordinary people living in their time and place. Philip Roth 's novel, The Plot Against America (2004), looks at an America where Franklin D. Roosevelt

4930-503: A time machine is used to alter history so that Adolf Hitler was never born. That ironically results in a more competent leader of Nazi Germany and results in the country's ascendancy and longevity in the altered timeline. While many justifications for alternate histories involve a multiverse , the "many world" theory would naturally involve many worlds, in fact a continually exploding array of universes. In quantum theory, new worlds would proliferate with every quantum event, and even if

5100-411: A tyrannical US Government brushes aside the warnings of scientists about the dangers of time travel and goes on with a planned experiment - with the result that minor changes to the prehistoric past cause Humanity to never have existed, its place taken by tentacled underwater intelligent creatures - who also have a tyrannical government which also insists on experimenting with time-travel. Time travel as

5270-427: A vehicle to expound them. This book introduced the idea of a person being transported from a point in our familiar world to the precise geographical equivalent point in an alternate world in which history had gone differently. The protagonists undergo various adventures in the alternate world, and then are finally transported back to our world, again to the precise geographical equivalent point. Since then, that has become

The Alteration - Misplaced Pages Continue

5440-541: A verse from the Sex Pistols 's song " Anarchy in the U.K. ", or in the games of chess she plays with the Marxes' housekeeper Helene Demuth , which on one occasion involves a Caro–Kann Defence . In her review of the novel, Nina Power writes of "Jenny's 'utopian' desire for an end to time", an attitude which, according to Power, is inspired by her husband's co-authored book The German Ideology . However, in keeping with

5610-402: Is a Machiavellian Yorkshireman, who allows the cold war to heat up as a Malthusian plot to resolve Europe's population growth – the church has access to bacteriological warfare as an alternative to birth control , whose prior papal prohibition John XXIV opposes. The book's coda, set in 1991, fifteen years after the events of the main body of the book, reveals that events have turned out as

5780-495: Is a form of historiography that explores historical events in an extrapolated timeline in which key historical events either did not occur or had an outcome different from the historical record, in order to understand what did happen. The earliest example of alternate (or counterfactual) history is found in Livy 's Ab Urbe Condita Libri (book IX, sections 17–19). Livy contemplated an alternative 4th century BC in which Alexander

5950-557: Is a product of its mild but changeable climate which is free of extremes in temperature. Much of Ireland was woodland until the end of the Middle Ages . Today, woodland makes up about 10% of the island, compared with a European average of over 33%, with most of it being non-native conifer plantations. The Irish climate is influenced by the Atlantic Ocean and thus very moderate, and winters are milder than expected for such

6120-405: Is a story of incest that takes place within an alternate North America settled in part by Czarist Russia and that borrows from Dick's idea of "alternate-alternate" history (the world of Nabokov's hero is wracked by rumors of a "counter-earth" that apparently is ours). Some critics believe that the references to a counter-earth suggest that the world portrayed in Ada is a delusion in the mind of

6290-529: Is a thinly disguised Harold Wilson and his Secretary of State is Enrico Berlinguer . Other references are more obscure; opera-lovers with a good knowledge of Latin will, however, be able to identify the two castrati from the Vatican, Federicus Mirabilis and Lupigradus Viaventosa, as the German singers Fritz Wunderlich and Wolfgang Windgassen , both recently deceased when Amis was writing. Just as The Man in

6460-538: Is accepted that such movements are notoriously difficult to identify. Historical linguists are skeptical that this method alone could account for the absorption of Celtic language, with some saying that an assumed processual view of Celtic linguistic formation is 'an especially hazardous exercise'. Genetic lineage investigation into the area of Celtic migration to Ireland has led to findings that showed no significant differences in mitochondrial DNA between Ireland and large areas of continental Europe, in contrast to parts of

6630-544: Is also mentioned in this tribute to the subgenre. (The Galliard and the Pavane were both forms of Renaissance dance .) Alternate history Since the 1950s, as a subgenre of science fiction, some alternative history stories have featured the tropes of time travel between histories, the psychic awareness of the existence of an alternative universe by the inhabitants of a given universe, and time travel that divides history into various timestreams . Often described as

6800-594: Is also still in existence. Germany is a nation-state, known as Almaigne and ruled by an Emperor, although it may not have exactly the same national boundaries. The "Vicar General" of the "Emperor Patriarch" of Candia suggests that the Greek Orthodox Church survives as a separate ecclesiastical jurisdiction, albeit exiled from its native Greece (which is still under Ottoman domination ) and with its headquarters in Crete . Finally, this opening section cites

6970-517: Is another attempt to portray a Utopian society. In Aristopia , the earliest settlers in Virginia discover a reef made of solid gold and are able to build a Utopian society in North America . In 1905, H. G. Wells published A Modern Utopia . As explicitly noted in the book itself, Wells's main aim in writing it was to set out his social and political ideas, the plot serving mainly as

The Alteration - Misplaced Pages Continue

7140-481: Is defeated in 1940 in his bid for a third term as President of the United States, and Charles Lindbergh is elected, leading to a US that features increasing fascism and anti-Semitism. Michael Chabon , occasionally an author of speculative fiction, contributed to the genre with his novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007), which explores a world in which the State of Israel was destroyed in its infancy and many of

7310-621: Is extant in Ireland as a voluntary donation. In turn, Henry assumed the title of Lord of Ireland which Henry conferred on his younger son, John Lackland , in 1185. This defined the Anglo-Norman administration in Ireland as the Lordship of Ireland . When Henry's successor died unexpectedly in 1199, John inherited the crown of England and retained the Lordship of Ireland. Over the century that followed, Norman feudal law gradually replaced

7480-537: Is not, the scope of inventors is severely limited. Electricity has been banned; the only form of internal combustion engine permitted is the Diesel , which works without a spark . Some of the incidental pleasure of the book is in the "alternative technology" reminiscent of Amis's friend and fellow-author Harry Harrison , such as the high-speed train that takes characters from London to Rome in just seven hours, via Thomas Sopwith 's Channel Bridge. Airships feature as

7650-677: Is part of the United Kingdom . As of 2022, the population of the entire island is just over 7 million, with 5.1 million in the Republic of Ireland and 1.9 million in Northern Ireland, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. The geography of Ireland comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. Its lush vegetation

7820-671: Is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel , the Irish Sea , and St George's Channel . Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles , the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest in the world. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially named Ireland ), a sovereign state covering five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland , which

7990-640: Is set in Europe following the Nazi victory. The novel Dominion by C.J. Sansom (2012) is similar in concept but is set in England, with Churchill the leader of an anti-German Resistance and other historic persons in various fictional roles. In the Mecha Samurai Empire series (2016), Peter Tieryas focuses on the Asian-American side of the alternate history, exploring an America ruled by

8160-494: Is suggested that, had Gordon Banks been fit to play in the 1970 FIFA World Cup quarter-final, there would have been no Thatcherism and the post-war consensus would have continued indefinitely. Kim Stanley Robinson 's novel, The Years of Rice and Salt (2002), starts at the point of divergence with Timur turning his army away from Europe, and the Black Death has killed 99% of Europe's population, instead of only

8330-566: Is unclear. However, a number of finds of Roman coins have been made, for example at the Iron Age settlement of Freestone Hill near Gowran and Newgrange . Ireland continued as a patchwork of rival kingdoms; however, beginning in the 7th century, a concept of national kingship gradually became articulated through the concept of a High King of Ireland . Medieval Irish literature portrays an almost unbroken sequence of high kings stretching back thousands of years, but some modern historians believe

8500-686: The Lebor Gabála Érenn , a medieval Christian pseudo-history of Ireland, along with the presence of Celtic culture, language and artefacts found in Ireland such as Celtic bronze spears, shields, torcs and other finely crafted Celtic associated possessions. The theory holds that there were four separate Celtic invasions of Ireland. The Priteni were said to be the first, followed by the Belgae from northern Gaul and Britain. Later, Laighin tribes from Armorica (present-day Brittany) were said to have invaded Ireland and Britain more or less simultaneously. Lastly,

8670-622: The Act of Settlement 1701 . Daniel O'Connell led a subsequent campaign, for the repeal of the Act of Union, which failed. Later in the century, Charles Stewart Parnell and others campaigned for autonomy within the Union, or " Home Rule ". Unionists, especially those located in Ulster, were strongly opposed to Home Rule, which they thought would be dominated by Catholic interests. After several attempts to pass

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8840-663: The Crosstime Traffic series for teenagers featuring a variant of H. Beam Piper's paratime trading empire. The concept of a cross-time version of a world war, involving rival paratime empires, was developed in Fritz Leiber 's Change War series, starting with the Hugo Award winning The Big Time (1958); followed by Richard C. Meredith 's Timeliner trilogy in the 1970s, Michael McCollum 's A Greater Infinity (1982) and John Barnes' Timeline Wars trilogy in

9010-646: The Duke of Wellington . Steering the Catholic Relief Bill through Parliament, aided by future prime minister Robert Peel , Wellington prevailed upon a reluctant George IV to sign the Bill and proclaim it into law. George's father had opposed the plan of the earlier Prime Minister, Pitt the Younger , to introduce such a bill following the Union of 1801, fearing Catholic Emancipation to be in conflict with

9180-472: The Empire of Japan and the Germans (and doing almost as much harm as good in spite of its advanced weapons). The series also explores the cultural impacts of people with 2021 ideals interacting with 1940s culture. Similarly, Robert Charles Wilson 's Mysterium depicts a failed US government experiment which transports a small American town into an alternative version of the US run by Gnostics , who are engaged in

9350-780: The European Economic Community . Following a referendum vote in 2016, the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland included, left the European Union (EU) in 2020. Northern Ireland was granted a limited special status and allowed to operate within the EU single market for goods without being in the European Union. Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the field of literature . Alongside mainstream Western culture ,

9520-549: The Irish parliament passed the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1367. These were a set of laws designed to prevent the assimilation of the Normans into Irish society by requiring English subjects in Ireland to speak English, follow English customs and abide by English law. By the end of the 15th century, central English authority in Ireland had all but disappeared, and a renewed Irish culture and language, albeit with Norman influences,

9690-596: The Milesians ( Gaels ) were said to have reached Ireland from either northern Iberia or southern Gaul. It was claimed that a second wave named the Euerni, belonging to the Belgae people of northern Gaul, began arriving about the sixth century BC. They were said to have given their name to the island. The theory was advanced in part because of the lack of archaeological evidence for large-scale Celtic immigration, though it

9860-405: The Protestant Ascendancy . The " Great Frost " struck Ireland and the rest of Europe between December 1739 and September 1741, after a decade of relatively mild winters. The winters destroyed stored crops of potatoes and other staples, and the poor summers severely damaged harvests. This resulted in the famine of 1740 . An estimated 250,000 people (about one in eight of the population) died from

10030-417: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the Williamite War . Irish losses during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (which, in Ireland, included the Irish Confederacy and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland ) are estimated to include 20,000 battlefield casualties. 200,000 civilians are estimated to have died as a result of a combination of war-related famine, displacement, guerrilla activity and pestilence throughout

10200-448: The Worldwar series , in which aliens invaded Earth during World War II . Other stories by Turtledove include A Different Flesh , in which the Americas were not populated from Asia during the last ice age ; In the Presence of Mine Enemies , in which the Nazis won World War II; and Ruled Britannia , in which the Spanish Armada succeeded in conquering England in the Elizabethan era , with William Shakespeare being given

10370-418: The time travel novel Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp in which an American academic travels to Italy at the time of the Byzantine invasion of the Ostrogoths . De Camp's time traveler, Martin Padway, is depicted as making permanent historical changes and implicitly forming a new time branch, thereby making the work an alternate history. In William Tenn 's short story Brooklyn Project (1948),

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10540-457: The "Viceroys" of India, Brazil and New Spain , suggesting that colonialism and direct imperialism are still realities here. A Christian/ Muslim cold war exists between the Papacy and the Ottoman Empire. Described as a war against an opponent that can never be destroyed and which can be held in check only by maintaining permanent armies and fleets, it serves the useful purpose of distracting any tendency to rebel or question. Pope John XXIV

10710-466: The "fair world" parallels our history, about fifty years out of step, there is functional magic in the fair world. Even with such explanation, the more explicitly the alternate world resembles a normal fantasy world, the more likely the story is to be labelled fantasy, as in Poul Anderson's "House Rule" and "Loser's Night". In both science fiction and fantasy, whether a given parallel universe is an alternate history may not be clear. The writer might allude to

10880-455: The 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters , and was extended during the 18th century. With the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom . A war of independence in the early 20th century was followed by the partition of the island , leading to the creation of the Irish Free State , which became increasingly sovereign over

11050-424: The 17th century left a deep sectarian division in Ireland. Religious allegiance now determined the perception in law of loyalty to the Irish King and Parliament. After the passing of the Test Act 1672 , and the victory of the forces of the dual monarchy of William and Mary over the Jacobites , Roman Catholics and nonconforming Protestant Dissenters were barred from sitting as members in the Irish Parliament. Under

11220-426: The 1920s. In Jo Walton 's "Small Change" series, the United Kingdom made peace with Hitler before the involvement of the United States in World War II, and slowly collapses due to severe economic depression. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen have written a novel, 1945 , in which the US defeated Japan but not Germany in World War II, resulting in a Cold War with Germany rather than

11390-484: The 1980s; Chalker's G.O.D. Inc trilogy (1987–89), featuring paratime detectives Sam and Brandy Horowitz, marks the first attempt at merging the paratime thriller with the police procedural. Kurland's Perchance (1988), the first volume of the never-completed "Chronicles of Elsewhen", presents a multiverse of secretive cross-time societies that utilize a variety of means for cross-time travel, ranging from high-tech capsules to mutant powers. Harry Turtledove has launched

11560-420: The 1990s. Such "paratime" stories may include speculation that the laws of nature can vary from one universe to the next, providing a science fictional explanation—or veneer—for what is normally fantasy. Aaron Allston 's Doc Sidhe and Sidhe Devil take place between our world, the "grim world" and an alternate "fair world" where the Sidhe retreated to. Although technology is clearly present in both worlds, and

11730-525: The 9th century, waves of Viking raiders plundered Irish monasteries and towns. These raids added to a pattern of raiding and endemic warfare that was already deep-seated in Ireland. The Vikings were involved in establishing most of the major coastal settlements in Ireland: Dublin , Limerick , Cork , Wexford , Waterford , as well as other smaller settlements. On 1 May 1169, an expedition of Cambro-Norman knights, with an army of about 600 men, landed at Bannow Strand in present-day County Wexford . It

11900-401: The American Civil War (named the "War of Southron Independence" in this timeline). The protagonist, the autodidact Hodgins Backmaker, travels back to the aforementioned battle and inadvertently changes history, which results in the emergence of our own timeline and the consequent victory of the Union instead. The American humorist author James Thurber parodied alternate history stories about

12070-412: The American Civil War in his 1930 story "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox", which he accompanied with this very brief introduction: " Scribner's magazine is publishing a series of three articles: 'If Booth Had Missed Lincoln', 'If Lee Had Won the Battle of Gettysburg', and 'If Napoleon Had Escaped to America'. This is the fourth". Another example of alternate history from this period (and arguably

12240-692: The Austrians forsake trench warfare and adopt blitzkrieg twenty years in advance. Kingsley Amis set his novel, The Alteration (1976), in the 20th century, but major events in the Reformation did not take place, and Protestantism is limited to the breakaway Republic of New England. Martin Luther was reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church and later became Pope Germanian I. In Nick Hancock and Chris England 's 1997 book What Didn't Happen Next: An Alternative History of Football it

12410-598: The Catholic West. William Shakespeare 's work was suppressed in this history, although Thomas Kyd 's original text of Hamlet has survived, and is still performed in 1976 (albeit only in New England). Shelley lived until 1853, at which point he set fire to Castel Gandolfo outside Rome and perished. By contrast, Mozart , Beethoven , Blake , Hockney and Holman Hunt have allowed their talents to submit to religious authority. Edward Bradford argues that

12580-683: The Chalices ( The Lord of the Rings ), Saint Lemuel's Travels ( Gulliver's Travels ), and The Wind in the Cloisters ( The Wind in the Willows ). There is also reference to a Monsignor Jean-Paul Sartre of the Jesuits , and A. J. Ayer (who was in real life a noted atheist) is Professor of Dogmatic Theology at New College, Oxford . "Science" is literally a dirty word, and while "invention"

12750-526: The Church Peter Damian in the 11th century. In his famous work De Divina Omnipotentia , a long letter in which he discusses God 's omnipotence , he treats questions related to the limits of divine power, including the question of whether God can change the past, for example, bringing about that Rome was never founded: I see I must respond finally to what many people, on the basis of your holiness's [own] judgment, raise as an objection on

12920-607: The English Isles are administered by a Convocation of clergy accountable to the Catholic hierarchy. The rule of the Church is absolute and totalitarian, controlled by the Holy Office, a sort of KGB or Gestapo equivalent. (Monsignors Henricus and Laurentius – Heinrich Himmler and Lavrentiy Beria – are mentioned in passing.) The state of the world is illustrated in a description of national, clerical and royal figures at

13090-608: The English church at the time, the Catholic Church , was published in 1216 and the Parliament of Ireland was founded in 1297. From the mid-14th century, after the Black Death , Norman settlements in Ireland went into a period of decline. The Norman rulers and the Gaelic Irish elites intermarried and the areas under Norman rule became Gaelicised . In some parts, a hybrid Hiberno-Norman culture emerged. In response,

13260-656: The Gaelic Brehon Law across large areas, so that by the late 13th century the Norman-Irish had established a feudal system throughout much of Ireland. Norman settlements were characterised by the establishment of baronies, manors, towns and the seeds of the modern county system. A version of Magna Carta (the Great Charter of Ireland ), substituting Dublin for London and the Irish Church for,

13430-524: The Great had survived to attack Europe as he had planned; asking, "What would have been the results for Rome if she had been engaged in a war with Alexander?" Livy concluded that the Romans would likely have defeated Alexander. An even earlier possibility is Herodotus 's Histories , which contains speculative material. Another example of counterfactual history was posited by cardinal and Doctor of

13600-698: The Hawaiian Islands. Perhaps the most incessantly explored theme in popular alternate history focuses on the aftermath of an Axis victory in World War II . In some versions, the Nazis and/or Axis Powers win; or in others, they conquer most of the world but a "Fortress America" exists under siege; while in others, there is a Nazi/Japanese Cold War comparable to the US/Soviet equivalent in 'our' timeline. Fatherland (1992), by Robert Harris ,

13770-753: The High Castle features a book titled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy , depicting a world (but not our own) in which the Axis powers lost World War II , so The Alteration refers to an alternate history book by one Philip K. Dick entitled The Man in the High Castle . This book-within-a-book depicts a world in which Stephen II was never born, so the "Holy Victory" never happened, and Henry VIII became king legitimately. As in reality, Henry married Catherine of Aragon , but their son Henry, Duke of Cornwall survived infancy, becoming Henry IX in 1547. Martin Luther became "schismatic" in this world, as he did in reality, and

13940-621: The Imperium is one of the earliest alternate history novels; it was published by Fantastic Stories of the Imagination in 1961, in magazine form, and reprinted by Ace Books in 1962 as one half of an Ace Double . Besides our world, Laumer describes a world ruled by an Imperial aristocracy formed by the merger of European empires, in which the American Revolution never happened, and a third world in post-war chaos ruled by

14110-561: The Irish "already believing in Christ". The same chronicle records that Saint Patrick , Ireland's best known patron saint , arrived the following year. There is continued debate over the missions of Palladius and Patrick, but the consensus is that they both took place and that the older druid tradition collapsed in the face of the new religion. Irish Christian scholars excelled in the study of Latin and Greek learning and Christian theology. In

14280-657: The Irish Volunteers' name and opposed Ireland's involvement in the war. The Easter Rising of 1916 was carried out by the latter group together with a smaller socialist militia, the Irish Citizen Army . The British response, executing fifteen leaders of the Rising over a period of ten days and imprisoning or interning more than a thousand people, turned the mood of the country in favour of the rebels. Support for Irish republicanism increased further due to

14450-515: The Japanese Empire while integrating elements of Asian pop culture like mechas and videogames. Several writers have posited points of departure for such a world but then have injected time splitters from the future. For instance James P. Hogan 's The Proteus Operation . Norman Spinrad wrote The Iron Dream in 1972, which is intended to be a science fiction novel written by Adolf Hitler after fleeing from Europe to North America in

14620-464: The Jews and Israel, Chabon also plays with other common tropes of alternate history fiction; in the book, Germany actually loses the war even harder than they did in reality, getting hit with a nuclear bomb instead of just simply losing a ground war (subverting the common "what if Germany won WWII?" trope). The late 1980s and the 1990s saw a boom in popular-fiction versions of alternate history, fueled by

14790-771: The Late Bronze Age was part of a maritime trading-network culture called the Atlantic Bronze Age that also included Britain, western France and Iberia, and that this is where Celtic languages developed. This contrasts with the traditional view that their origin lies in mainland Europe with the Hallstatt culture . The long-standing traditional view is that the Celtic language, Ogham script and culture were brought to Ireland by waves of invading or migrating Celts from mainland Europe. This theory draws on

14960-586: The Moors in Spain Had Won" and "If Louis XVI Had Had an Atom of Firmness". The essays range from serious scholarly efforts to Hendrik Willem van Loon 's fanciful and satiric portrayal of an independent 20th-century New Amsterdam , a Dutch city-state on the island of Manhattan . Among the authors included were Hilaire Belloc , André Maurois , and Winston Churchill . One of the entries in Squire's volume

15130-480: The Myriad Ways , where the reality of all possible universes leads to an epidemic of suicide and crime because people conclude their choices have no moral import. In any case, even if it is true that every possible outcome occurs in some world, it can still be argued that traits such as bravery and intelligence might still affect the relative frequency of worlds in which better or worse outcomes occurred (even if

15300-727: The Papacy still holds sway across Western Europe , in this version of the twentieth century Protestantism is limited to the breakaway Republic of New England , which includes such locations as Cranmeria (named after Thomas Cranmer ), Hussville (named for Jan Huss ), Waldensia ( Waldensians ) and Wyclif City ( John Wycliffe ). The head of the schismatic church in New England is the Archpresbyter of Arnoldstown (named after Benedict Arnold ). Joseph Rudyard Kipling held office as "First Citizen" from 1914 to 1918, while Edgar Allan Poe

15470-664: The Pope planned. Europe's surplus population has become cannon fodder for the war, which ended in a narrow victory although the Ottoman Empire got as far as Brussels . However, one of Hubert's childhood friends, Decuman, is mentioned as being among the occupation troops in Adrianople in far western Turkey , suggesting that the Ottomans either lost the war, or at least were forced to make significant territorial concessions to

15640-403: The Roman Catholic Church and later became Pope Germanian I . Luther's anti-Semitism may have infected this history to a greater extent during his papacy, as the novel discloses that Jews are forced to seclude themselves and wear yellow stars to advertise their religious and ethnic identity. In this history, Thomas More did not marry, and ascended to the Papacy as Pope Hadrian VII . While

15810-841: The Soviet Union. Gingrich and Forstchen neglected to write the promised sequel; instead, they wrote a trilogy about the American Civil War, starting with Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War , in which the Confederates win a victory at the Battle of Gettysburg - however, after Lincoln responds by bringing Grant and his forces to the eastern theater, the Army of Northern Virginia is soon trapped and destroyed in Maryland, and

15980-700: The United Kingdom, which it immediately exercised. Additionally, Members of the Free State Parliament were required to swear an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the Irish Free State and make a statement of faithfulness to the king. Disagreements over these provisions led to a split in the nationalist movement and a subsequent Irish Civil War between the new government of the Irish Free State and those opposed to

16150-692: The Universal Monarchy: Napoleon and the Conquest of the World) (1836), which imagines Napoleon 's First French Empire emerging victorious in the French invasion of Russia in 1812 and in an invasion of England in 1814, later unifying the world under Bonaparte's rule. The Book of Mormon (published 1830) is described as an "alternative history" by Richard Lyman Bushman , a biographer of Joseph Smith . Smith claimed to have translated

16320-582: The Y-chromosome pattern. When taking both into account, a study concluded that modern Celtic speakers in Ireland could be thought of as European "Atlantic Celts" showing a shared ancestry throughout the Atlantic zone from northern Iberia to western Scandinavia rather than substantially central European. In 2012, research showed that the occurrence of genetic markers for the earliest farmers was almost eliminated by Beaker-culture immigrants: they carried what

16490-565: The alleged Papal Bull Laudabiliter , issued by an Englishman, Adrian IV , in 1155. The document apparently encouraged Henry to take control in Ireland in order to oversee the financial and administrative reorganisation of the Irish Church and its integration into the Roman Church system. Some restructuring had already begun at the ecclesiastical level following the Synod of Kells in 1152. There has been significant controversy regarding

16660-484: The authenticity of Laudabiliter , and there is no general agreement as to whether the bull was genuine or a forgery. Further, it had no standing in the Irish legal system. In 1172, Pope Alexander III further encouraged Henry to advance the integration of the Irish Church with Rome. Henry was authorised to impose a tithe of one penny per hearth as an annual contribution. This church levy, called Peter's Pence ,

16830-440: The authorities, counterintelligence was a fundamental line of defence. With a regular army of only slightly over seven thousand men at the start of the war, and with limited supplies of modern weapons, the state would have had great difficulty in defending itself from invasion from either side in the conflict. Large-scale emigration marked most of the post-WWII period (particularly during the 1950s and 1980s), but beginning in 1987

17000-445: The authority of bishops and priests. Second, the mishandling of the paedophile scandals humiliated the Church, whose bishops seemed less concerned with the victims and more concerned with covering up for errant priests. Third, prosperity brought hedonism and materialism that undercut the ideals of saintly poverty. The financial crisis that began in 2008 dramatically ended this period of boom. GDP fell by 3% in 2008 and by 7.1% in 2009,

17170-452: The authors did not alter the real history of the past when they wrote the stories. Similar to the genre of alternative history, there is also the genre of secret history - which can be either fictional or non-fictional - which documents events that might have occurred in history, but which had no effect upon the recorded historical outcome. Alternative history also is thematically related to, but distinct from, counterfactual history , which

17340-486: The cause of a point of divergence (POD), which can denote either the bifurcation of a historical timeline or a simple replacement of the future that existed before the time-travelling event, has continued to be a popular theme. In Ward Moore 's Bring the Jubilee (1953), the protagonist lives in an alternate history in which the Confederacy has won the American Civil War. He travels backward through time and brings about

17510-399: The choice of authors and musicians here is not meant to imply Amis's own preferences, but questions the value of art subordinated to a destructive ideology that represses sexual freedom and human choice. Underscoring the clerical domination of this world, Hubert's small collection of books includes a set of Father Bond novels (an amalgam of Father Brown and James Bond ), as well as Lord of

17680-435: The copies of you who made the same decision succeed too. What you do for the better increases the portion of the multiverse where good things happen." This view is perhaps somewhat too abstract to be explored directly in science fiction stories, but a few writers have tried, such as Greg Egan in his short story The Infinite Assassin , where an agent is trying to contain reality-scrambling "whirlpools" that form around users of

17850-628: The development of the linen industry, Ireland was largely passed over by the Industrial Revolution , partly because it lacked coal and iron resources and partly because of the impact of the sudden union with the structurally superior economy of England, which saw Ireland as a source of agricultural produce and capital. The Great Famine of 1845–1851 devastated Ireland, as in those years Ireland's population fell by one-third. More than one million people died from starvation and disease, with an additional million people emigrating during

18020-731: The disintegration of the US Federal Government after Albert Gallatin joins the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 and eventually leads to the creation of a libertarian utopia. In the 2022 novel Poutine and Gin by Steve Rhinelander, the point of divergence is the Battle of the Plains of Abraham of the French and Indian War. That novel is a mystery set in 1940 of that time line. A recent time traveling splitter variant involves entire communities being shifted elsewhere to become

18190-526: The document from golden plates, which told the story of a Jewish group who migrated from Israel to the Americas and inhabited the region from about 600 B.C. to 400 A.D., becoming the ancestors of Native Americans . In the 2005 biography Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling , Bushman wrote that the Book of Mormon "turned American history upside down [and] works on the premise that a history—a book—can reconstitute

18360-461: The economy improved, and the 1990s saw the beginning of substantial economic growth. This period of growth became known as the Celtic Tiger . The Republic's real GDP grew by an average of 9.6% per annum between 1995 and 1999, in which year the Republic joined the euro . In 2000, it was the sixth-richest country in the world in terms of GDP per capita. Historian R. F. Foster argues the cause

18530-567: The emergence of the prolific alternate history author Harry Turtledove , as well as the development of the steampunk genre and two series of anthologies—the What Might Have Been series edited by Gregory Benford and the Alternate ... series edited by Mike Resnick . This period also saw alternate history works by S. M. Stirling , Kim Stanley Robinson, Harry Harrison , Howard Waldrop , Peter Tieryas , and others. In 1986,

18700-460: The emerging Penal Laws , Irish Roman Catholics and Dissenters were increasingly deprived of various civil rights, even the ownership of hereditary property. Additional regressive punitive legislation followed in 1703, 1709 and 1728. This completed a comprehensive systemic effort to materially disadvantage Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters while enriching a new ruling class of Anglican conformists. The new Anglo-Irish ruling class became known as

18870-407: The ensuing pestilence and disease. The Irish government halted export of corn and kept the army in quarters but did little more. Local gentry and charitable organisations provided relief but could do little to prevent the ensuing mortality. In the aftermath of the famine, an increase in industrial production and a surge in trade brought a succession of construction booms. The population soared in

19040-476: The famine, mostly to the United States and Canada. In the century that followed, an economic depression caused by the famine resulted in a further million people emigrating. By the end of the decade, half of all immigration to the United States was from Ireland. The period of civil unrest that followed until the end of the 19th century is referred to as the Land War . Mass emigration became deeply entrenched and

19210-629: The first attempt in 1799. According to contemporary documents and historical analysis, this was achieved through a considerable degree of bribery, with funding provided by the British Secret Service Office, and the awarding of peerages, places and honours to secure votes. Thus, the parliament in Ireland was abolished and replaced by a united parliament at Westminster in London, though resistance remained, as evidenced by Robert Emmet 's failed Irish Rebellion of 1803 . Aside from

19380-522: The first that explicitly posited cross-time travel from one universe to another as anything more than a visionary experience) is H.G. Wells ' Men Like Gods (1923) in which the London -based journalist Mr. Barnstable, along with two cars and their passengers, is mysteriously teleported into "another world", which the "Earthlings" call Utopia. Being far more advanced than Earth, Utopia is some 3000 years ahead of humanity in its development. Wells describes

19550-475: The following decades until it declared a republic in 1948 ( Republic of Ireland Act, 1948) and Northern Ireland, which remained a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s . This subsided following the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. In 1973, both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, with Northern Ireland as part of it, joined

19720-521: The funeral of Stephen III, late King of England, which opens the book. There is reference to the Kings of Portugal , Sweden , Naples and Lithuania , which suggests that no Italian nation-state exists in this history due to the temporal strength of the Papacy. The Crown Prince of Muscovy is also mentioned, suggesting that Tsarism holds sway, and the Dauphin leads one to conclude that the French monarchy

19890-478: The general progress of the expedition. He wanted to re-exert royal authority over the invasion which was expanding beyond his control. Henry successfully re-imposed his authority over Strongbow and the Cambro-Norman warlords and persuaded many of the Irish kings to accept him as their overlord, an arrangement confirmed in the 1175 Treaty of Windsor . The invasion was legitimised by reference to provisions of

20060-645: The geneticist David Reich , who says: "British and Irish skeletons from the Bronze Age that followed the Beaker period had at most 10 per cent ancestry from the first farmers of these islands, with other 90 per cent from people like those associated with the Bell Beaker culture in the Netherlands." He suggests that it was Beaker users who introduced an Indo-European language, represented here by Celtic (i.e.

20230-402: The hero (another favorite theme of Dick's novels ). Strikingly, the characters in Ada seem to acknowledge their own world as the copy or negative version, calling it "Anti-Terra", while its mythical twin is the real "Terra". Like history, science has followed a divergent path on Anti-Terra: it boasts all the same technology as our world, but all based on water instead of electricity ; e.g., when

20400-415: The island has been shown, with evidence for Mesolithic communities around the island. Some time before 4,000 BC, Neolithic settlers introduced cereal cultivars , domesticated animals such as cattle and sheep, built large timber buildings, and stone monuments. The earliest evidence for farming in Ireland or Great Britain is from Ferriter's Cove , County Kerry , where a flint knife, cattle bones and

20570-579: The island with an estimated 30,000 dead. As a direct result of the 1798 rebellion in its aftermath in 1800, the British and Irish parliaments both passed Acts of Union that, with effect from 1 January 1801, merged the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain to create a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . The passage of the Act in the Irish Parliament was ultimately achieved with substantial majorities, having failed on

20740-491: The last known European castrato . Amis disagreed with the proposition that Moreschi's performance could be considered "great art", because Moreschi had been castrated, and "true" art centred on the celebration of human sexuality. Bradford argues that this was a matter of considerable importance for Amis himself, as he may have been suffering from impotence or sexual dysfunction in his marriage, due to advancing age. Thus, he took exception to Roman Catholic teaching, based as it

20910-446: The late 8th century to early 11th century AD Viking raids and settlement took place culminating in the Battle of Clontarf on 23 April 1014 which resulted in the ending of Viking power in Ireland. Following the 12th century Anglo-Norman invasion , England claimed sovereignty. However, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest , which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain . In

21080-558: The latter part of this century and the architectural legacy of Georgian Ireland was built. In 1782, Poynings' Law was repealed, giving Ireland legislative independence from Great Britain for the first time since 1495. The British government, however, still retained the right to nominate the government of Ireland without the consent of the Irish parliament. In 1798, members of the Protestant Dissenter tradition (mainly Presbyterian ) made common cause with Roman Catholics in

21250-421: The local names for the islands at the time. The earlier names, in contrast , were likely to have been coined before direct contact with local peoples was made. The Romans referred to Ireland by this name too in its Latinised form, Hibernia , or Scotia . Ptolemy records sixteen nations inhabiting every part of Ireland in 100 AD. The relationship between the Roman Empire and the kingdoms of ancient Ireland

21420-544: The many carved stone crosses that still dot the island today. A mission founded in 563 on Iona by the Irish monk Saint Columba began a tradition of Irish missionary work that spread Celtic Christianity and learning to Scotland , England and the Frankish Empire on continental Europe after the fall of Rome. These missions continued until the late Middle Ages , establishing monasteries and centres of learning, producing scholars such as Sedulius Scottus and Johannes Eriugena and exerting much influence in Europe. From

21590-420: The monastic culture that followed the Christianisation of Ireland, Latin and Greek learning was preserved in Ireland during the Early Middle Ages in contrast to elsewhere in Western Europe, where the Dark Ages followed the Fall of the Western Roman Empire . The arts of manuscript illumination , metalworking and sculpture flourished and produced treasures such as the Book of Kells , ornate jewellery and

21760-511: The ninth century. The etymology of Ériu is disputed but may derive from the Proto-Indo-European root * h2uer , referring to flowing water. During the last glacial period , and until about 16,000 BC, much of Ireland was periodically covered in ice. The relative sea level was less than 50m lower resulting in an ice bridge (but not a land bridge ) forming between Ireland and Great Britain. By 14,000 BC this ice bridge existed only between Northern Ireland and Scotland and by 12,000 BC Ireland

21930-417: The novel's anachronisms, the latter was not published until 1932. By contrast, the novel's timeline ends in 1871. Ireland in Europe  (dark grey) Ireland ( / ˈ aɪər l ə n d / IRE -lənd ; Irish : Éire [ˈeːɾʲə] ; Ulster-Scots : Airlann [ˈɑːrlən] ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean , in north-western Europe . It

22100-405: The ongoing war in Europe, as well as the Conscription Crisis of 1918 . The pro-independence republican party, Sinn Féin , received overwhelming endorsement in the general election of 1918 , and in 1919 proclaimed an Irish Republic , setting up its own parliament ( Dáil Éireann ) and government. Simultaneously the Volunteers, which became known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA), launched

22270-410: The poets Robert Burns , Lord Byron , Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats , the actor Edmund Kean , the British politician George Canning , and Napoleon Bonaparte , are still alive. The first novel-length alternate history in English would seem to be Castello Holford 's Aristopia (1895). While not as nationalistic as Louis Geoffroy 's Napoléon et la conquête du monde, 1812–1823 , Aristopia

22440-402: The point of view of an alternate history is variously known as " recursive alternate history ", a "double-blind what-if", or an "alternate-alternate history". Churchill's essay was one of the influences behind Ward Moore 's alternate history novel Bring the Jubilee in which General Robert E. Lee won the Battle of Gettysburg and paved the way for the eventual victory of the Confederacy in

22610-400: The population continued to decline until the mid-20th century. Immediately prior to the famine the population was recorded as 8.2 million by the 1841 census . The population has never returned to this level since. The population continued to fall until 1961; County Leitrim was the final Irish county to record a population increase post-famine, in 2006. The 19th and early 20th centuries saw

22780-420: The potential defence of Northern Ireland. Despite their country's neutrality, approximately 50,000 volunteers from independent Ireland joined the British forces during the war, four being awarded Victoria Crosses . The German intelligence was also active in Ireland. Its operations ended in September 1941 when police made arrests based on surveillance carried out on the key diplomatic legations in Dublin. To

22950-436: The principal crops. The Bronze Age began around 2,500 BC, with technology changing people's everyday lives during this period through innovations such as the wheel, harnessing oxen , weaving textiles , brewing alcohol and metalworking , which produced new weapons and tools, along with fine gold decoration and jewellery, such as brooches and torcs . How and when the island became Celtic has been debated for close to

23120-440: The protagonist's doppelganger. Philip K. Dick 's novel, The Man in the High Castle (1962), is an alternate history in which Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan won World War II. This book contains an example of "alternate-alternate" history, in that one of its characters authored a book depicting a reality in which the Allies won the war, itself divergent from real-world history in several aspects. The several characters live within

23290-408: The ramifications of that alteration to history. Occasionally, some types of genre fiction are misidentified as alternative history , specifically science fiction stories set in a time that was the future for the writer, but now is the past for the reader, such as the novels 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Arthur C. Clarke , 1984 (1949) by George Orwell and the movie 2012 (2009) because

23460-415: The reality that is most suitable for him or her. Some of the worlds they visit are mundane, some are very odd, and others follow science fiction or fantasy conventions. World War II produced alternate history for propaganda : both British and American authors wrote works depicting Nazi invasions of their respective countries as cautionary tales. The period around World War II also saw the publication of

23630-423: The rise of modern Irish nationalism , primarily among the Roman Catholic population. The pre-eminent Irish political figure after the Union was Daniel O'Connell . He was elected as Member of Parliament for Ennis in a surprise result and despite being unable to take his seat as a Roman Catholic . O'Connell spearheaded a vigorous campaign that was taken up by the Prime Minister, the Irish-born soldier and statesman,

23800-439: The scheme was constructed in the 8th century to justify the status of powerful political groupings by projecting the origins of their rule into the remote past. All of the Irish kingdoms had their own kings but were nominally subject to the high king. The high king was drawn from the ranks of the provincial kings and ruled also the royal kingdom of Meath , with a ceremonial capital at the Hill of Tara . The concept did not become

23970-408: The six counties of Ulster, which later became Northern Ireland. Before it could be implemented, however, the Act was suspended for the duration of the First World War . The Irish Volunteers split into two groups. The majority, approximately 175,000 in number, under John Redmond , took the name National Volunteers and supported Irish involvement in the war. A minority, approximately 13,000, retained

24140-400: The slaughter of the innocent thus entailed, remaining solely in the timeline where the country is saved. The cross-time theme was further developed in the 1960s by Keith Laumer in the first three volumes of his Imperium sequence, which would be completed in Zone Yellow (1990). Piper's politically more sophisticated variant was adopted and adapted by Michael Kurland and Jack Chalker in

24310-418: The task of writing the play that will motivate the Britons to rise up against their Spanish conquerors. He also co-authored a book with actor Richard Dreyfuss , The Two Georges , in which the United Kingdom retained the American colonies, with George Washington and King George III making peace. He did a two-volume series in which the Japanese not only bombed Pearl Harbor but also invaded and occupied

24480-423: The title "Master of Alternate History" by some. His books include those of Timeline 191 (a.k.a. Southern Victory, also known as TL-191), in which, while the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War , the Union and Imperial Germany defeat the Entente Powers in the two "Great War"s of the 1910s and 1940s (with a Nazi-esque Confederate government attempting to exterminate its black population), and

24650-505: The topic of this dispute. For they say: If, as you assert, God is omnipotent in all things, can he manage this, that things that have been made were not made? He can certainly destroy all things that have been made, so that they do not exist now. But it cannot be seen how he can bring it about that things that have been made were not made. To be sure, it can come about that from now on and hereafter Rome does not exist; for it can be destroyed. But no opinion can grasp how it can come about that it

24820-445: The total number of worlds with each type of outcome is infinite, it is still possible to assign a different measure to different infinite sets). The physicist David Deutsch , a strong advocate of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, has argued along these lines, saying that "By making good choices, doing the right thing, we thicken the stack of universes in which versions of us live reasonable lives. When you succeed, all

24990-428: The treaty, led by Éamon de Valera . The civil war officially ended in May 1923 when de Valera issued a cease-fire order. During its first decade, the newly formed Irish Free State was governed by the victors of the civil war. When de Valera achieved power, he took advantage of the Statute of Westminster and political circumstances to build upon inroads to greater sovereignty made by the previous government. The oath

25160-512: The two alterations of the title. Insight into this world is offered during Anvil's abortive escape from church authorities, with references to alternative world versions of known political and cultural figures. Hubert's mother carries on an illicit affair with the family chaplain, and his brother, Anthony, is a liberal dissident from repressive church policies. In this timeline, there are two pivotal divergences from known history. Arthur Tudor and Catherine of Aragon 's short-lived union produced

25330-429: The unwitting creators of new time branches. These communities are transported from the present (or the near-future) to the past or to another timeline via a natural disaster, the action of technologically advanced aliens, or a human experiment gone wrong. S. M. Stirling wrote the Island in the Sea of Time trilogy, in which Nantucket Island and all its modern inhabitants are transported to Bronze Age times to become

25500-449: The war ends within weeks. While World War II has been a common point of divergence in alternate history literature, several works have been based on other points of divergence. For example, Martin Cruz Smith , in his first novel, posited an independent American Indian nation following the defeat of Custer in The Indians Won (1970). Beginning with The Probability Broach in 1980, L. Neil Smith wrote several novels that postulated

25670-401: The war. A further 50,000 were sent into indentured servitude in the West Indies . Physician-general William Petty estimated that 504,000 Catholic Irish and 112,000 Protestant settlers died, and 100,000 people were transported, as a result of the war. If a prewar population of 1.5 million is assumed, this would mean that the population was reduced by almost half. The religious struggles of

25840-421: The world's Jews instead live in a small strip of Alaska set aside by the US government for Jewish settlement. The story follows a Jewish detective solving a murder case in the Yiddish-speaking semi-autonomous city state of Sitka . Stylistically, Chabon borrows heavily from the noir and detective fiction genres, while exploring social issues related to Jewish history and culture. Apart from the alternate history of

26010-404: The world's first superpower. In Eric Flint 's 1632 series , a small town in West Virginia is transported to 17th century central Europe and drastically changes the course of the Thirty Years' War , which was then underway. John Birmingham 's Axis of Time trilogy deals with the culture shock when a United Nations naval task force from 2021 finds itself back in 1942 helping the Allies against

26180-408: The world, without people being aware of it. Poul Anderson 's Time Patrol stories feature conflicts between forces intent on changing history and the Patrol who work to preserve it. One story, Delenda Est , describes a world in which Carthage triumphed over the Roman Republic. The Big Time , by Fritz Leiber , describes a Change War ranging across all of history. Keith Laumer's Worlds of

26350-483: The worst year since records began (although earnings by foreign-owned businesses continued to grow). The state has since experienced deep recession, with unemployment, which doubled during 2009, remaining above 14% in 2012. Northern Ireland resulted from the division of the United Kingdom by the Government of Ireland Act 1920 , and until 1972 was a self-governing jurisdiction within the United Kingdom with its own parliament and prime minister. Northern Ireland, as part of

26520-451: The writer explicitly maintains that all possible decisions are made in all possible ways, one possible conclusion is that the characters were neither brave, nor clever, nor skilled, but simply lucky enough to happen on the universe in which they did not choose the cowardly route, take the stupid action, fumble the crucial activity, etc.; few writers focus on this idea, although it has been explored in stories such as Larry Niven 's story All

26690-435: The writer uses human decisions, every decision that could be made differently would result in a different timeline. A writer's fictional multiverse may, in fact, preclude some decisions as humanly impossible, as when, in Night Watch , Terry Pratchett depicts a character informing Vimes that while anything that can happen, has happened, nevertheless there is no history whatsoever in which Vimes has ever murdered his wife. When

26860-442: Was Churchill's "If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg", written from the viewpoint of a historian in a world in which the Confederacy had won the American Civil War . The entry considers what would have happened if the North had been victorious (in other words, a character from an alternate world imagines a world more like the real one we live in, although it is not identical in every detail). Speculative work that narrates from

27030-399: Was a combination of a new sense of initiative and the entry of American corporations. He concludes the chief factors were low taxation, pro-business regulatory policies, and a young, tech-savvy workforce. For many multinationals, the decision to do business in Ireland was made easier still by generous incentives from the Industrial Development Authority . In addition European Union membership

27200-400: Was abolished and in 1937 a new constitution was adopted. This completed a process of gradual separation from the British Empire that governments had pursued since independence. However, it was not until 1949 that the state was declared, officially, to be the Republic of Ireland . The state was neutral during World War II , but offered clandestine assistance to the Allies , particularly in

27370-414: Was again dominant. English Crown control remained relatively unshaken in an amorphous foothold around Dublin known as The Pale , and under the provisions of Poynings' Law of 1494, Irish Parliamentary legislation was subject to the approval of the English Privy Council . The title of King of Ireland was re-created in 1542 by Henry VIII , the then King of England , of the Tudor dynasty . English rule

27540-497: Was an acclaimed general who died at the moment of his victory over the combined forces of Louisiana and Mexico in the war of 1848–1850. We learn towards the end of the book that this Protestant state also has unpleasant features, such as practising apartheid towards Native Americans and a harsh penal system. England dominates the British Isles with Ireland being called "West-England" and Scotland being annexed to England as "North-England". Instead of parliamentary democracy ,

27710-442: Was completely separated from Great Britain. Later, around 6,100 BC, Great Britain became separated from continental Europe. Until recently, the earliest evidence of human activity in Ireland was dated at 12,500 years ago, demonstrated by a butchered bear bone found in a cave in County Clare . Since 2021, the earliest evidence of human activity in Ireland is dated to 33,000 years ago. By about 8,000 BC, more sustained occupation of

27880-475: Was helpful, giving the country lucrative access to markets that it had previously reached only through the United Kingdom, and pumping huge subsidies and investment capital into the Irish economy. Modernisation brought secularisation in its wake. The traditionally high levels of religiosity have sharply declined. Foster points to three factors: First, Irish feminism, largely imported from America with liberal stances on contraception, abortion and divorce, undermined

28050-412: Was in a magisterium of celibate men. The main character, ten-year-old Hubert Anvil, is a chorister at St George's Basilica, Coverley (real world Cowley ), for whom tragedy beckons when his teachers and the Church hierarchy, all the way up to the Pope himself, decree that the boy's superb voice is too precious to sacrifice to puberty . Despite his own misgivings, he must undergo castration , one of

28220-487: Was led by Richard de Clare , known as 'Strongbow' owing to his prowess as an archer. The invasion, which coincided with a period of renewed Norman expansion, was at the invitation of Dermot Mac Murrough , King of Leinster . In 1166, Mac Murrough had fled to Anjou , France, following a war involving Tighearnán Ua Ruairc , of Breifne , and sought the assistance of the Angevin King Henry II , in recapturing his kingdom. In 1171, Henry arrived in Ireland in order to review

28390-425: Was not founded long ago... One early work of fiction detailing an alternate history is Joanot Martorell 's 1490 epic romance Tirant lo Blanch , which was written when the fall of Constantinople to the Turks was still a recent and traumatic memory for Christian Europe . It tells the story of the knight Tirant the White from Brittany who travels to the embattled remnants of the Byzantine Empire . He becomes

28560-450: Was quickly followed by Murray Leinster 's " Sidewise in Time " (1934). While earlier alternate histories examined reasonably-straightforward divergences, Leinster attempted something completely different. In his "World gone mad", pieces of Earth traded places with their analogs from different timelines. The story follows Professor Minott and his students from a fictitious Robinson College as they wander through analogues of worlds that followed

28730-424: Was reinforced and expanded in Ireland during the latter part of the 16th century, leading to the Tudor conquest of Ireland . A near-complete conquest was achieved by the turn of the 17th century, following the Nine Years' War and the Flight of the Earls . This control was consolidated during the wars and conflicts of the 17th century, including the English and Scottish colonisation in the Plantations of Ireland ,

28900-420: Was then a new Y-chromosome R1b marker, believed to have originated in Iberia about 2,500 BC. The prevalence amongst modern Irish men of this mutation is a remarkable 84%, the highest in the world, and closely matched in other populations along the Atlantic fringes down to Spain. A similar genetic replacement happened with lineages in mitochondrial DNA. This conclusion is supported by recent research carried out by

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