Looking forward to this! It's very rare to see California-centered alternate histories and ones with relatively unique technological paths with a late 18th Century POD
The UP never won a majority in either the 1970 Presidential election (which was sent to Congress and Allende got elected thanks to Christian Democratic backing whose support he eventually lost) or the 1973 Congressional election.
What would have happened if Augusto Pinochet and other Chilean military officers had launched the September 11th 1973 coup that overthrow Salvador Allende but had relinquished power relatively quickly and allowed (at least mostly) free elections within a few months or at most a year? While I...
A workable POD might be worse economic conditions for sometime after World War II. Its hard to prevent something like an economic boom when you are the only intact major economy on Earth but perhaps you could have an extended postwar recession and then another downturn in the 50s (earlier oil...
This depends on the political situation and coalitions of an independent Confederacy. The planter elites were relatively "cosmopolitan" and at least tolerated Catholics and even Jews (see Judah P Benjamin) as fellow whites so if an independent CSA remains dominated by them, they would welcome...
With an unorthodox candidate like Perot succeeding in winning an election, there'd be a push within both the Democratic and Republican parties to run similar "celebrity" candidates. Colin Powell would be the obvious choice for the Republican Party and he may win if he does indeed run. Donald...
A stronger parallel imo is OTL Portugal which saw a military coup to overthrow the authoritarian regime that had been established by Salazar but abandoned any political involvement once the transition to liberal democracy had been completed. New England was a stable, prosperous liberal democracy...
This would almost certainly provoke a mass civil disobedience campaign by the German left including large-scale protests as well as a general strike by labour unions. Even if the West German junta offers the most benign agenda, Willy Brandt and the like will resist another 1933 to the last...
More plausible is an indigenous majority (and identifying) state breaking away from the Spanish Empire later on and then industrializing. Say Tupac Amaru's revolt in colonial Peru succeeds in 1781. Alternatively, have at least some of the Latin American states that break away in the 1810s wars...
Out of boredom I wrote an outline of an AH within an AH in the vein of Grasshopper Lies of Heavy called "Generations of Grief", which is an alternate history based on the premise that Thomas Jefferson doesn't die in 1809 and New England stays within the Union from the perspective of someone...
I finally was able to read through the entirety of the Decades of Darkness in the past few weeks, though I knew about the broad outline of the TL and had skimmed significant portions of it before. It is truly a monumental work and one of the most elaborate fictional universes ever created.
Some...
Suppose that due to cultural blindspots regarding keyboard layout and typing education that it is no more efficient for the vast majority of people to type on a typewriter than to write by hand despite typewriters being invented. This cultural blindspot continues for generation even when and if...