July is when America celebrates its independence from Britain and the start of the country’s unique history. However, within living memory of 1776, writers were already imagining how things might have been different. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the first alternate American history story in 1845. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill even pondered what would have happened if the Confederacy had won the Civil War.
Today, we’re looking at the best modern alternative American histories available for streaming. Each imagines how America might be different if key moments had gone another way.
‘The Man in the High Castle’
Aside from the Union Army losing the Civil War, the most common alternative American history story involves the United States falling to the Axis powers in World War II. Based on Philip K. Dick’s novel, “The Man in the High Castle” is a bone-chilling look at that possibility. Ridley Scott (“Alien”) executive produced the series, which has San Francisco as the capital of a new Japanese Pacific States.
Alexa Davalos stars as Juliana Crane, a young white woman who’s living under Japanese control. She eventually starts fighting back and discovers she can move between realities. The series ran for four seasons and tackled issues like what the Vietnam War would have looked like with America under German and Japanese control. Warning: It ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, but history usually does.
Watch it:Streaming on Prime Video.
‘Hello, Tomorrow!’
It’s hard to overstate how hopeful the American 1950s looked in fiction and advertising of the day. Personal jet packs and robot maids seemed right around the corner. “Hello, Tomorrow!” is an underrated retro-futurist gem that explores how, even if that were true, it probably wouldn’t have been as utopian as envisioned.
Jack Billings (Billy Crudup) is a door-to-door salesman offering timeshares, except instead of Las Vegas, he’s sending people to the moon. Crudup plays the role with an almost painful optimism, believing that the future is impossibly bright. Over the course of the show, Billings slowly sees the cracks in the hyper-consumerist world, even if marvels really are for sale on every corner.
Watch it:Streaming on Apple TV+.
‘The Plot Against America’
It’s comforting to think fascism was defeated when Hitler died, but America has always had its own homegrown and uncomfortably mainstream fascism movement. That’s what the alternate history miniseries “The Plot Against America,” based on the book by Philip Roth, explores.
Ben Cole (“Sense8”) plays a version of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh who, in this reality, rode a wave of isolationism and anti-Jewish bigotry to defeat Franklin Roosevelt for president in 1940. It’s a terrifying series that puts a very American spin on fascist ideology, such as the forced re-homing of Jewish children with gentile families, aided by an accommodationist rabbi (John Turturro). Showrunners David Simon and Ed Burns keep the show extremely tense right up until the end, hammering home how fragile democracy can be.
Watch it:Streaming on Max.
‘For All Mankind’
When it comes to fully chronicling an alternate history, no series does it better than “For All Mankind.” In this universe, the Soviet Union beat the United States to the moon in 1969, prolonging the space race. The stakes are increased when the Russians embarrass America by also having female astronauts, leading to America offering more opportunities in space to marginalized people.
Each season jumps forward a decade, so all the distant ripples from throwing this particular rock in history’s pond get screen time. The collapse of manned space exploration following the end of the Cold War never happens thanks to NASA becoming militarized, and humanity is on its way to Mars by the 1990s. While the show definitely has political thriller moments, overall it focuses on the inherent hope of the stars and humanity’s journey to them.
Watch it:Streaming on Apple TV+.
‘Counterpart’
While most alternate history shows commit to the bit, “Counterpart” takes a more meta approach. Created by Justin Marks (“Top Gun: Maverick”), it focused on an uneasy nonaggression pact between two alternate Americas that were created in 1987 by an East German lab accident. J.K. Simmons (“Spider-man: No Way Home”) plays Howard Silk, a low-level government employee who doesn’t know that he is overseeing communications between his “Alpha” America and the “Prime” one.
在美国,流感大流行hundre死亡ds of millions of people in 1996, leading to a radically different present day. Alpha Silk is unaware of this until reality-hopping assassins infiltrate his America. Simmons gives an incredible performance as both mild-mannered Silk and his more ruthless Prime counterpart. Both are caught between their governments’ wants and their desire to protect their loved ones. The show was an enormous hit with critics but failed to find a big enough audience to net a third season. While that means the ending is a bit unsatisfying, it’s still a riveting science fiction story worth checking out.
Watch it:Available to buy on Prime Video.
Jef Rouner is a freelance writer.