Alternative History: Post Alternative Theories Here

Research began with Lincoln's preparation of a 1972 BBC documentary on a 19th century French priest, Berenger Sauniere. The cleric reputedly amassed great wealth after discovering and deciphering four parchments hidden in a hollow pillar of his church at Rennes-le-Chateau, a hilltop village in the south of France.

The authors say they have discovered those parchments, or facsimiles, still exist and disclose the existence of a secret society called the Prieure de Sion, founded in the 11th century at the start of the Crusades. Its aim was to guard the Holy Grail - according to medieval legend, the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper.

The authors claim the society remains active, and that its adherents over the years included Isaac Newton, Andre Malraux, Victor Hugo, Claude Debussy and Charles de Gaulle.

According to the authors, the words "Holy Grail" are a mistranslation of early French words for "royal blood," and the true purpose of Prieure de Sion is to protect alleged royal descendants of Jesus and prepare the way for their accession to world power.

To bolster their description of the society, they provide several chapters of scholarly references from legends, romances, paintings, documents and the Bible.

All this is controversial enough, but author Leigh said it led the three to reexamine the conventional interpretations of the New Testament. That study led them to propound a "hypothesis" that:

-Jesus literally had a claim to being "king of the Jews" and was descended from the royal house of the Israelite King David.
-He married Mary Magdalene and had at least one child by her.
-He and sympathizers staged his Crucifixion and Resurrection and he survived into old age somewhere outside the Holy Land.
-Mary Magdalene and her offspring made their way to southern France - then Roman ruled Gaul.
-Jesus' bloodline mixed with that of the Franks and started the Merovingian dynasty of the early Middle Ages.
-The Merovingian line extends into the modern noble houses of Europe, so Jesus' descendants are alive today.

The historical treatises that Dan Brown used as background for DaVinci Code and Lost Symbol are an example.

There actually is a fringe discipline known as "alternative history." The historical treatises that Dan Brown used as background for DaVinci Code and Lost Symbol are an example.

When I hear the term "alternative history," I think of those "what if?" books -- like "what if Napoleon had a B-52 bomber at Waterloo?" It's fiction informed by history, but it's fiction nonetheless.

When I hear the term "alternative history," I think of those "what if?" books -- like "what if Napoleon had a B-52 bomber at Waterloo?" It's fiction informed by history, but it's fiction nonetheless.

But that's quite a bit different from writing the history of that counterfactual situation. That sounds like a subtle distinction, but it's not.

The writers that pursue theories of historical events that are "outside of the mainstream" refer to their field as "alternative history."

Claims about probable American lives lost are based on the projections for casualties in invading the Japanese "home islands," and to that extent are reasonable. Imagining B-52 bombers in Belgium in 1815 is not at all reasonable. Anyone incapable of distinguishing between the two has no business judging the merits of historical synthesis.

How about the claim that it wouldn't have mattered if the South had won the Civil warm, because slavery was on its way out of American history anyway? It seems like a valid, if debatable, claim a historian might make. It is also the point that seems to underlie Harry Turtledove's alternate-history book Guns of the South. (Admittedly I didn't read the book. I found it through Joefromchicago's link to Turtledove's Wikipedia page, and I'm going by Wikipedia's summary of its content.)