Weekly Update #220! Why People Can't Stop Making WWII Alternate Histories and More.

Editor's Note

Last month was the best month in terms of page views for Alternate History Weekly Update. The final count is 27,751 page views. Thanks to everyone for reading and contributing. I look forward to breaking that record again in the near future.

So life has been extremely busy lately. It has really cut into the time I need to not only record videos, but to write scripts for them as well. I do plan to have something come out before 2/15/16 discussing the plausibility of the alternate history in Stephen King's 11/22/63 since the premier date for the Hulu adaptation is fast approaching, but not sure when exactly that will be out. I can tell you that this Wednesday, instead of a new video I will be posting the Top 5 Post from January 2015, so you will have that to look forward to.

And now the news...

Check out Amos Barshad's "Why We Can’t Stop Thinking About What Life Would Be Like If Hitler Won" on The Fader

Back in November I wrote a short editorial discussing all the reasons for why there are so many WWII alternate histories. Last week, Amos Barshad of The Fader added his two cents to that debate and gave a brief history of the phenomenon from the 1930s to the present. Its not a bad article and it includes quotes from everyone's favorite counterfactual historian, Gavriel Rosenfeld of The Counterfactual History Review. I recommend checking it out to see Amos' reason for WWII's popularity in alternate history and then come back to see my commentary.

There are a couple of comments I want to make in regards to the article. First, Amos does give a lot of credit to Amazon's The Man in the High Castle in making WWII alternate histories "go pop". To be fair you can argue Robert Harris' Fatherland almost did the same thing since it was later adapted into a movie for HBO, but it certainly didn't have the same success as the new series.

Also, holy crap, how the hell did I miss the Hitler Getting Punched blog?!?! Amos linked to it in the article and I'm so happy he did. It is literally a blog dedicated to all of the times Hitler got punched in pop culture. Sadly it hasn't been updated since 2013, but there is still a lot of fun images for everyone to check out (I thought the one I used in today's article is not only appropriate, but timely). Go click on the link and enjoy some time wasting.

Finally, I am kind of disappointed Amos didn't talk more about the online community. The closest he comes is an "anonymous bloggers" comment while listing the different types of people who create alternate history. I am not sure who he is specifically referring to as most of authors of the active alternate history blogs use their own names. Still it is disheartening to think that Amos could have looked around at what the online community had to offer and simply summed it up as "anonymous bloggers".

So what are your thoughts on the article?

You should also check out...

• The announcement that Time After Time is becoming a TV show thanks to the person behind Vampire Diaries. (via io9)
• This review of United States of Japan by Peter Tieryas from Strange Currencies.
• These 5 untrue facts about WWII from War History Online.
• This review of Hulu's 11/22/63 from The Hollywood Reporter.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.