Customer Reviews

Almost America: From the Colonists to Clinton: a "What If" History of the U.S.

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Talk about a timely book. Tally takes a "What if?" approach to pivotal moments in American history and helped me understand the significance of people, politics, and cultural movements in a way that left me longing for more. He leads up to a particular moment by setting you down in the midst of the historic context and its key players and chronicles what lead up to that watershed moment. He then counter poses the question, What if the outcome had been different? And then explores how our national character or world history might have been altered if a decision or circumstance had gone the other way.

One of my favorite college football teams is headed for the Rose Bowl in January, and here Tally discusses how Teddy Roosevelt nearly used the bully pulpit of the presidency to abolish that sport. What is even more fascinating is considering how influential college athletics have been in making the University accessible and hence supported by lots of people who might have otherwise cared less.

In today's political climate of close elections and missed presidential opportunities, Tally has some wonderful chapters on what might have happened if Tilden who had won the popular vote had defeated Hayes, if Dewey really had defeated Truman, and if Nixon had not resigned but had been impeached. Each chapter seems so timely, and yet opens a chapter of American history that most of us have overlooked or forgotten.

There is the usual stuff about military defeats that might have been victories or victories that were almost defeats--the kind of stuff you used to hear vigorously debated at the barber shop. And even though I eat this stuff up like candy, you wonder, What's the point? But Tally takes it a step further and helps the reader explore the larger consequences for the future of our nation, not just the outcome of a battle or war.

What I appreciate most about this book was the diversity of subject material. It's not just politics and battle but also culture, sports, ideas, and technology. All of it is grist for Tally's thorough research and nimble imagination.

My one disappointment with the book comes when I am just getting into the life and times of person and decision, e.g. Andrew Carnegie and his decision to sell off his Steel Company, when--before I know it--the chapter is done. I look back, and yes, I've been reading for some time, but the way it's brought to life makes me want to continue my reading. It would have been helpful if Tally had a selected bibliography of where I could go to go to find more information on a particular historic hingepoint. I want to know where I can go to find other authors, who like Steve Tally, can make history accessible, enjoyable AND meaningful.

This is a book that would make a great Christmas gift (I've already recommended it to friends), but it would also be a wonderful text for high school American history classes. It would help them see that history doesn't have to be boring in order to teach us about our past and point us to our future.

This book is in a slightly different class than most recent alternate history (or "counterfactual history," as the author calls it). The book is an anthology, but all the stories were written by the same author, Steve Tally. From his writing, I would have guessed that Mr. Tally is a history professor, and a pretty lively one, but he is in fact a professional writer whose credits include as much hard science as history. Nevertheless, his grasp of American history is impressive, and enhances his book's quality.

The book takes twenty-eight "what if" scenarios and plays them out: What if the early United States had kept the Articles of Confederation? What if President T. Roosevelt had carried out his threat of outlawing the fledgling sport of American football? What if Nixon had fought his impeachment until the bitter end? What if IBM had written its early personal-computer code in-house instead of hiring Microsoft? The answers are fascinating, but plausible. As the author's introductory note explains, "I tried to make the counterfactual scenarios plausible. Adolf Hitler doesn't step into a time machine to join Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg . . . . [T]he counterfactuals are based on the decisions of human beings, not on acts of God. . . . Focusing on decisions allows us to second-guess those decisions, and second-guessing is always good sport." Looking past the implicit dig at "The Guns of the South" by Harry Turtledove (a very good book, in my opinion), Mr. Tally lives up to his promise of plausibility: each chapter opens with an actual history lesson that sets the stage for the alternate-history story, then closes with a discussion of the sources and historical analogies that were used in constructing the story. For example, the chapter about the early United States keeping the Articles of Confederation, "America Scraps Its Constitution," plays out an interesting storyline whose facts are partly drawn (as the chapter later explains) from the Confederate States' experiment with a decentralized national government in the 1860s.

It may be a drawback for some readers that the stories tend to be a little dry and academic, as if the book was a real history textbook rather than a novel. For me, however, the academic tone gives the book a certain charm that only enhances its interest. The stories actually engaged me as I tried drawing on my own knowledge of history to figure out where they were heading. For those readers who are seriously interested in second-guessing Mr. Tally's second guesses, he recently (Feb. 2001) set up a website for such a discussion, which he mentions in his introductory note.

This book got me thinking, it educated me, and it was fun.

Some of these are really thought-provoking and well thought out. I especially enjoyed the one concerning Teddy Roosevelt following through with his plan to ban college football unless they did something to curb the extreme violence (23 young men died in the 1905 season). The consequences were interesting and I thought very plausible.

The book is marred by a few factual errors. They really are not terribly important to the outcome of the author's alternate histories but show a sloppiness in editing. Some examples are placing the Revolutionary War fort of Kaskaskia in present-day Kentucky when it is actually in Illinois and saying that people blamed Lincoln's assassination on people who were wanting to revive the Union cause (obviously the Union cause was in great shape by the point of the war - I assume his editors did not catch it and he meant to say Confederate).

Despite the errors, the book is still a fun read.

The author has a website for the book at www.almostamerica.com with a couple of his alternate histories if you want to get a feel for the book.

"Almost America" by Steve Tally is an excellent idea: take the recent craze in alternate history, and apply it to familiar (and unfamiliar) events from American history. In part, it is a success; Tally has identified many notable potential turning points, from areas of the American experience. Rather than focusing solely on military or political what-ifs, he considers sports, entertainment and business as well. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Tally has identified some of the most genuinely fascinating potential alternate histories I have ever encountered in the genre. In particular, his discussions of the battle for Fort Sackville, Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle", and IBM's relationship with Microsoft, are both original and no less important for being somewhat obscure.

Unfortunately, this is where Tally stumbles. While his training as a historian allowed him to select and intelligently discuss a variety of events, his alternate histories are sorely lacking in creativity and consequence. More often than not, Tally writes a history that is almost completely convergent with actual history, which undermines the significance of his selection. Moreover, for someone who has a firm foundation in history, he posits some extremely unlikely events. For example, in his alternate history where Bastogne fell to the Germans, he has them pressing the attack all the way to Antwerp on the supply of 4 million gallons of gas captured in Spa. Even if the Americans had been utterly routed, it would have been a simple and certain procedure to destroy those stocks, which is precisely why the German offensive was doomed from the get go.

Finally, there are frequent, blatant typos that distract from both the flow and the credibility of the book. One in particular that jumped off the page was that the U2 looked down on the Soviet Union from "seventy thousand miles up"! If that was the case, it is even more impressive that the Soviets were able to shoot it down, as it was one-third of the way to the moon.

In the end, Tally has done an admirable job of illuminating some forgotten, or unappreciated, episodes in American history, and for that reason alone, "Almost America" makes for interesting reading. Unfortunately, his alternate histories are more often than not, clunky and uninteresting. If he were to partner with a novelist, I think there is some great potential to be found in this book, but as things stand now, it is only a half realized project.

Steve Tally is a great humor writer with a one-of-a-kind perspective on American politics. That's why his latest book, Almost America, should appeal to anyone with an interest in humor, history or politics. The beauty of this book is that it's not just amusing; it's informative, too. When it comes to the well-known historical events, Almost America is a wonderful refresher course. When Tally deals with the more obscure events in history, he doles out some fascinating trivia. How often do you get to laugh out loud while studying American politics? Almost America is a great read!

"Almost America" is one of those books which may be overlooked and that would be a shame. Unlike many books in this area which assume that the reader is already familiar with "what really happened," the background is given by Tally which makes it easier to appreciate how things could have turned out differently. It's the kind of book which encourages one not just to read the book itself, but to dig deeper. I highly recommend this book.

The sense I got when I read the "might have beens" in this book was that God seemed to be watching over the development of America--the securing of our independence in the eighteenth century and that we didn't self-destruct or fragment in the nineteenth. That thirteen colonies on the Eastern Seaboard could break from Britain was deemed highly improbable, and it took a lot of providence to bring it about.

The one scenario that I thought was WAY off base was the 1992 election--there is no way that Bush would have beaten Clinton if he had dropped Dan Quayle from the ticket in favor of Colin Powell.

All in all, an enjoyable read, and a reason to be thankful that things didn't turn out as badly for America as they might have.

Almost America is lively written. Its stories are very personalized - having us following the main characters thoughts at supposedly crucial points in time when they might have acted differently and thereby changed the course of society.

Alternate histories need good factual understanding, a convincing point of divergence, and a well-linked chain of events following from that point of divergence. Unfortunately, in my opinion Almost America fails to meet the standards in those regards.

First, the facts are sometimes off. Countries or persons are mixed up repeatedly (As a brief example: Belgium signed Versailles, while the Netherlands held Maastricht as well as territories in South-East Asia, not the other way around). Sometimes time tables, public opinion or aims are simply changed.

Second, the point of divergence is not always convincing. In the stories that strictly focus on American internal politics, Tally succeeds rather nicely in convincing us about the point of divergence. However, the international chapters succeed less well. Without spoiling the chapters: pulls from public opinion (isolationist tendencies, which were a problem in December '41, let alone in June '40) are forgotten.

Third, the alternate chain of events is somewhat haphazard. Mind you, they are fun to read, but again too often unconvincing. Aims and demands of other belligerents (Germany in WW I; Japan in WW II) are simply adapted for a clean causal scheme.

All in all, I was disappointed with this book. Even though I am a big alternate history fan, and the author takes his time describing the general circumstances from which he diverges, the divergences themselves are flawed.

This book is great as a source of true history but of what could have happened. I have read most of the What If type books and found this one to be one of the best.

And ironically perhaps because it is the least fictional. This reads like a history text, but the most fun history imaginable. Tally makes it clear from the beginning that he doesn't want to engage in flights of fancy or acts of God. This is alternative history based on reasonable differences of decision made by individuals. Everything not only could have happened, it very nearly did happen. Tally exquisitely researched all of the different scenarios to find moments of great indescision by great men of history- and then replays the scenario.

Through this procedure we get to see how very possible an alternate reality could be. More clearly than I've ever seen before, it is the great men of history who make the changes. (At least in part- a storm blowing a flotilla of Old World ships off course or the Vikings not giving lactose-intolerant war-like Native Americans milk can also change the course of history.) I appreciate how Tally spends a large portion of each chapter explaining the details of true history first. Too often alternative history texts assume a wide understanding of history by the audience on obscure events, leaving the reader with a large "Huh?" Then Tally engages in his alternate reality, inserting very believable dialouge for different historic individuals. He doesn't give away the ending- we know what happened historically, but not why it was so pivotal. The alternate recaps are short, but they covincingly make their point known. Lastly Tally finishes with a recap of what did happen, but tells us what was so important about these events.

If you read this, you might learn a good deal of history. And you might really enjoy yourself a lot in the bargain.