Here's my interpretation of the world of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, the book-within-a-book from The Man in the High Castle.
It's my favorite thing about the novel because it rally shows just how culturally and historically different and disconnected the Axis victory world is from our own. For anyone who doesn't know, the novel, written by the titular man in the high castle, Hawthorne Abendsen, is about a world where the allies won World War II...only told from the perspective of people who've lived and grown up fed the fascist and racist propaganda the Axis live by.
In this timeline, Roosevelt isn't assassinated by Joe Zangara (who killed him in the MITHC universe) in 1933 and goes on to serve two terms as president. The New Deal pulls America out of the Great Depression, America re-arms, and implements anti-nazi policies while helping supply Britain and the Soviets. These are continued by his successor Rexford Tugwell, who sees America through World War II. Not only does this help splinter German-Japanese relations, he also pulls the U.S. fleet out of Pearl Harbor before the inevitable bombing attack. With its battleships intact, the U.S. manages to prevent Japan from taking the Philippines and Australia. Eventually, the islands themselves are invaded and occupied.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the Germans fail to take Malta and so Churchill remains in power. British forces go on to defeat Rommel's in North Africa and later move up through Turkey and the Caucasus to link up with the Russian army in Stalingrad. The deciding factor, however, is Italy's decision to switch sides, which opens up the "soft underbelly of Europe." Thanks to this, Berlin eventually falls to the British. With that, World War II ends. Hitler is captured, tried, and hanged in Munich. His final words are "'
Deutsche, hier steh' Ich."
After the war, the world becomes divided between American and British hegemony. Russia (seen by the people of the MITHC world as backward land of inferior peasant slavs and thus had no chance of becoming a world power) is divided between both sides (just as America is in the novel proper). Europe falls under a British-led Union, where all use the same currency, language, and flag. Africa, the Middle East, India, and Burma remain firmly in the hands of the British Empire. America sends food, education, and new technology to the people of Asia, such as one-dollar television kits. Chiang Kai-shek leads Nationalist China, who industrializes far quicker. While Japan and China are not officially occupied by the U.S., the two are undoubtedly part of the American bloc. America even goes so far to abolish all racist and segregationist policies by 1950, reaching a new level of prosperity never seen before.
Things, unfortunately, go down the drain after about ten years. In Singapore and the Malay States, Churchill (who still remains in power) begins to suspect the U.S. is undermining their rule by appealing to the Chinese populations in the regions. While America has reversed its racial policies, Britain's stance on white supremacy has only intensified: not only are the darker races excluded from many public facilities, but they begin opening up concentration camps to deal with the Chinese in South Asia. Churchill gradually becomes more and more autocratic and ruthless as he ages.
Afterward, details get fuzzier. As this is a novel from an Axis-dominated world, America is seen as economically strong but lacking in spirituality, due to being a "racially bastardized" plutocracy. Britain is as well, but with their increasing emphasis on Anglo-Saxon purity, they seem destined to win this version of the Cold War.
Naturally, all of this purely implausible, but it's really the core of The Man in the High Castle. How much ideology can change the way people look at history.
