alternative history

plural alternative histories

1. uncountableusuallyCounterfactual history, a form of scientific speculation used by historians.

   One of the many criticisms that can be directed at alternative historians is their failure to think historically. For alternative history, the past is not a ‘foreign country’, but rather a country that closely resembles the Russian Empire of recent times.

   2014 May 28, Konstantin Sheiko, Stephen Brown, History as Therapy: Alternative History and Nationalist Imaginings in Russia

   Synonyms: alternate history, allohistory

2. uncountableusuallyfictionA genre of fiction based around or involving ahistorical events (often occurring after a fixed point of divergence from real history).