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The earliest example of alternate history appears to be Book IX, sections 17-19, of the Livy's History of Rome from Its Foundation. He contemplates the possibility of Alexander the Great expanding his father's empire westward instead of east, and attacking Rome in the 4th century BC. (Wikipedia contains spoilers: Livy was a patriotic Roman -- Alexander loses.) Many people one would not consider sci-fi authors have written alternate history. In "The Forfeited Birthright of the Abortive Far Western Christian Civilization," Arnold Toynbee describes a world in which the Franks lost to the Muslims at the [Battle of Tours]? in 732. Winston Churchill wrote an essay entitled "If Lee Had Not Won the Battle of Gettysburg" that considers what sort of world would have resulted if the North had won the American Civil War -- from the point of view of a historian in a world where the Confederacy had won. |
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