Abstract: This dissertation examines the unexpected relations between recent work in academic historiography in Medieval Studies and the mass-market genre of nonfiction historical accounts known as 'alternative histories.' While authors in these respective fields employ different methods of analysis and argumentation, they share a common desire to reconstruct the marginalized histories and censored voices of the past, as well as an abiding preoccupation with the ethics of historical interpretation and the uncertainty of history's narratives. The first part of this project analyzes some of the repressed ethical commitments of academic historiography and traces the boundaries of alternative history as a genre, while the second section explores the links between these scholarly and popular intellectual formations. The first chapter, 'Rhetoric's Work,' examines an early ritual murder accusation, Thomas of Monmouth's Life and Miracles of William of Norwich , and draws on evidence within the text to reconstruct the arguments of twelfth-century skeptics who disputed Thomas's claim that the local Jewish community was responsible for the death of a Christian child. The second chapter, 'Interpretation's Work,' analyzes the critical reception of this inflammatory narrative. Scholars' encounters with Thomas's Life of William have been influenced by a teleological model of medieval Jewish history that emphasizes patterns of mourning and repetition. The interpretive ethics underpinning such analyses exist on a continuum of rhetorical positions that also includes the possibility of alternative history. 'Memory's Work' opens the second section of the dissertation by examining the points of contact between the academic account Writing and Rebellion (Steven Justice) and the alternative history Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Michael Baigent, Henry Lincoln, Richard Leigh). The genre of alternative history fulfills the repressed desires of new historicism, positing the existence of the radically free historical subjects that academic accounts desire to find in the margins of dominant narratives. Finally, 'Time's Work' describes how the academic study The Corruption of Angels (Mark Pegg) and the alternative history The Templar Revelation (Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince) emphasize the role of ethical identification in historical understanding even as they advance very different claims about historical patterns and the work of interpretation.