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alternative history

The Long View: A New Dynasty

This is a fine essay of alternative history by John Reilly, regarding an early twentieth century China in which someone managed to cobble together enough Confucian orthodoxy to proclaim themselves Emperor, of a sort, sparing China Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution. In a fascinating aside, John gets at what

Hope Reborn and Conqueror Book Review

Hope Reborn by David Drake and S. M. Stirling Contains the Forge and the Hammer Baen Publishing Enterprises, 2013 586 Pages, US$13.00 ISBN 978-1-4516-3877-6 Conqueror by David Drake and S. M. Stirling Contains the Anvil, the Steel, and the Sword Baen Publishing Enterprises, 2003 633 Pages, US$25.

The Long View: Time on My Hands

In this last of three posts on the Spanish Civil War, John ties together history, alternate history, and the strange bedfellows that politics makes. I've mentioned before that John wasn't really a fan of Ronald Reagan. He lays out his case for that here. Yet for

The Long View: If the Loyalists Had Won the Spanish Civil War

Here the first of three essays by John on the Spanish Civil War, covering both the history, and the alternative history of an in-edifying episode in a terrible century. That war was was the trial run for World War II, and perhaps in a way even the Cold War. In

The Long View: If Jesus Had Never Been Born

Another early bit of alternative history from John, written nineteen years ago. This one seems appropriate for Lent, when the Aliens and Hitler Channel invariably runs a documentary on how aliens wrote the Bible, or some such nonsense. This is another one of my favorite pieces by John, where he

The Long View: The Irish Empire

One of John's original compositions, an imaginative bit of alternative history that puts Ireland in the place of Britain as the exporter of European civilization. This story features one of John's stranger ideas, homo sapiens who are not human, and also one of his funnier ones,

The Long View: President H. P. Lovecraft

The Long View: President H. P. Lovecraft

Since I just watched Amazon's pilot episode of the Man in the High Castle, I'm in an alternative history mood. Why vote for the lesser evil? Don't blame me, I voted for Cthulhu. I would like to thank the many kind people from several