My New Washington Post Piece on the "New Golden Age of Alternate History"

I am posting a link HERE to my new Washington Post piece on the reasons why alternate history has assumed an increasing presence in contemporary culture. 

I call it a "new Golden Age" for the genre and offer several possible explanations for why we are currently experiencing it, the most relevant being that counterfactual speculation thrives in periods of crisis.  

I've mentioned in previous posts that I'm currently writing a massive study surveying the origins and evolution of counterfactual thought from Antiquity to Modernity.  Well, this piece draws a bit on my findings so far.  

For those of you who are interested, I am currently writing about the Early Modern Period and dealing with "what ifs" explored by writers during the Renaissance, Reformation, and Age of Discovery.  They include Petrarch, Villani, Bruni, Salutati, Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Vasari, Luther, Cortest, and many more....

I'm not sure how long it will be before I actually complete this study, but I'm hoping that once it appears, it will help put to rest the longstanding canard that historians (at least good ones) don't employ counterfactuals.