American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold [Hardcover]

Harry Turtledove (Author)

Book Description

Series: [American empire | Publication Date: June 25, 2002

AMERICAN EMPIRE: BOOK TWO

In this spectacular, thought-provoking epic of alternate history, Harry Turtledove has created an unparalleled vision of social upheaval, war, and cutthroat politics in a world very much like our own—but with dramatic differences.

It is 1924—a time of rebuilding, from the slow reconstruction of Washington’s most honored monuments to the reclamation of devastated cities in Europe and Canada. In the United States, the Socialist Party, led by Hosea Blackford, battles Calvin Coolidge to hold on to the Powell House in Philadelphia. And it seems as if the Socialists can do no wrong, for the stock market soars and America enjoys prosperity unknown in a half century. But as old names like Custer and Roosevelt fade into history, a new generation faces new uncertainties.

The Confederate States, victorious in the War of Secession and in the Second Mexican War but at last tasting defeat in the Great War, suffer poverty and natural calamity. The Freedom Party promises new strength and pride. But if its chief seizes the reins of power, he may prove a dangerous enemy for the hated U.S.A. Yet the United States take little note. Sharing world domination with Germany, they consider events in the Confederacy of little consequence.

As the 1920s end, calamity casts a pall across the continent. With civil war raging in Mexico, terrorist uprisings threatening U.S. control in Canada, and an explosion of violence in Utah, the United States are rocked by uncertainty.

In a world of occupiers and the occupied, of simmering hatreds, shattered lives, and pent-up violence, the center can no longer hold. And for a powerful nation, the ultimate shock will come when a fleet of foreign aircraft rain death and destruction upon one of the great cities of the United States. . . .

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At its best, alternate history holds a mirror to our society, allowing us to understand our own past by examining hypothetical responses to similar but altered conditions in real or imagined worlds. In the latest installment of his retelling of the world wars, American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold, Harry Turtledove demonstrates convincingly how a native fascist ideology could spring up in a defeated Confederacy, as well as how economic conditions can develop independent of government policies.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

As Jake Featherston campaigns his way across the Confederate States of America (CSA) in the name of his militant Freedom Party, other forces in the world are preparing to move against the CSA's northern neighbor, the hated United States. Set in a North American continent divided into two American nations and an occupied Canada, the sequel to American Empire: Blood & Iron continues an American history that might have happened. Turtledove never tires of exploring the paths not taken, bringing to his storytelling a prodigious knowledge of his subject and a profound understanding of human sensibilities and motivations. For most libraries. [For more alternative history, see Worlds That Weren't, a collection of novellas by Turtledove and others, reviewed on p. 127. - Ed.]
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; 1st edition (June 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345444213
• ISBN-13: 978-0345444219
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #490,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Harry Turtledove is the award-winning author of the alternate-history works The Man with the Iron Heart; The Guns of the South; How Few Remain (winner of the Sidewise Award for Best Novel); the Worldwar saga: In the Balance, Tilting the Balance, Upsetting the Balance, and Striking the Balance; the Colonization books: Second Contact, Down to Earth, and Aftershocks; the Great War epics: American Front, Walk in Hell, and Breakthroughs; the American Empire novels: Blood & Iron, The Center Cannot Hold, and Victorious Opposition; and the Settling Accounts series: Return Engagement, Drive to the East, The Grapple, and In at the Death. Turtledove is married to fellow novelist Laura Frankos. They have three daughters: Alison, Rachel, and Rebecca.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Stumbling into war, August 26, 2002

By 

David Roy (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold (Hardcover)

This is the second book in the American Empire series. It is also a much better one than the first. It does, however, have many of the previous book's faults.

The improvement between this book and the first in the series is very noticeable. However, it is difficult to quantify. One of my main complaints against the first book was that the "alternate" part of this history was too reminiscent of real history: the Freedom Party was a poor man's Nazi Party, the massive inflation that hit the Confederacy was exactly the way it happened in real-world Germany after the First World War. The Center Cannot Hold does a much better job of making things different and interesting. There is a rebellion in Canada, tensions start flaring up between the Japanese and the United States. A civil war erupts in Mexico. All of this is wonderful news to the alternate history fan. This is what we like. Sure, some events are still the same (the Freedom Party is still the Nazi party, the Depression happens just like it did in reality), but there are enough differences this time to make it harder to guess what's going to happen.

With all that being said, there are still numerous faults in this book, which makes it so that I have to qualify my recommendation. The writing is still very bland and boring at times. Turtledove still has an annoying habit of emphasizing things by repeating them. Every time we see Nellie Jacobs, there is some reference to her having killed the father or her oldest daughter in the previous series. There is always a reference to how she really distrusts men, with the occasional reference to how this isn't quite always the case with her current husband, but still is most of the time. It gets really old, really fast. It gets even older if you've been reading the series since the beginning and getting this every time Nellie appears in the book. The constant re-introduction of Turtledove's characters is his main writing fault, I believe. I know that there are a lot of characters to keep track of, but either he should trust the reader to be able to keep track or lessen the number of characters in the book.

Secondly, some of the characters are still beyond useless and very uninteresting in the bargain. I'll go back to Nellie again. I have no idea where her storyline is going, but her entire family has to be the most annoying and boring characters around. Their story doesn't seem to have anything to do with the ongoing story in the book. This wouldn't be so bad if they were intriguing in some way, but they aren't. They're just there, and they bring the book to a screeching halt every time they appear. There is some sign at the end of the book that they may finally play some small part in the next book. I hope that's true, as maybe they might finally get interesting.

Thankfully, most of the other characters have developed some sort of interesting story. The intention seems to be to illustrate various aspects of life during this time period, and a reaction to the national events that happen. Chester Martin, for example, is the everyman who has to deal with the Depression on the ground. There are a couple of black characters who seem to be in the book mainly to give a black perspective to the rise of the Freedom Party. At least they are interesting characters as well. Turtledove is not afraid to kill some of his characters off, so you're never sure exactly what's going to happen to them. One of the deaths, in fact, is so out of the blue that I initially wondered if Turtledove just couldn't find anything to do with him. I then realized that it illustrated something about what was going on, and I admired Turtledove a lot more for it. While he kills some of his characters off, he also introduces some new ones. So far, these seem better then some of his original characters.

The final problem, and I have a feeling it's going to be a problem in the next book as well (it was a big one in the previous book) is that it covers such a long period of time that it seems very disjointed. This book covers events from 1924 to 1933. A lot of events happen offstage and we only see a reaction to them in hindsight. Thus, there is no real flow to the book. A clear indication of this is the last few chapters. These chapters all take place in 1932-33 and talk about the coming election in the Confederacy, and the United States' reaction to it. These chapters are gripping, even as you know what's going to happen. There's a pace to them, a tension that makes you want to finish them. This is missing from the earlier chapters, and definitely indicates the problem.

Thus, I must qualify my recommendation for this book. It's much better than the first. However, if you don't have an interest in alternate history (or even history in general, as I think this series would be of interest to the historian), then the writing of this book will really turn you off. As it is, you have to almost ignore it because you want to know what's going to happen next. This series seems to be doing almost nothing but setting up the coming Second World War. Thus, you go through it feeling almost like you're running in place, waiting for something to happen. I feel that I like this series a lot more than I should just because I like where the destination is. Unfortunately, the journey is kind of a long, dry one, almost an endurance test. Keep that in mind if you pick up this series.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Center holding all right", January 22, 2003

By 

John Faerseth (Norway) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold (Hardcover)

The second part of Turtledove's yet unfinished American Empire trilogy is a distinct upturn from the last one, Blood and Iron. It continues the saga of begun in How Few Remain and continued in the Great War trilogy, and we continue to follow some of the characters into the 20's and 30's.

For new readers, this is an ongoing chronicle of an alternative world in which the Confederate States of America managed to gain independence from the US, later to join with Britain and France against Germany and the United States in World War I.

Blood and Iron, its predecessor, consentrated on too many characters over too long time and as a result became a bit too patchy at times. The Center Cannot Hold continues this trend in the first half, leading up to the Great Depression, from which the book changes greatly in style and quality. It focuses from there on the Freedom Party's quick rise to power in the CSA, closely following that of Hitler in our own world. We view this process both from the top, as seen through the eyes of chairman Jake Featherstone, and from the literally bottom, as experienced by Hippolyto Rodriguez, a poor peasant from the backward Confederate region of Sonora who gradually becomes enticed by the party's message of "getting even".

Unlike Blood and Iron, which left me rather disappointed, The Center Cannot Hold has left me truly looking forward to the next chapter of this saga.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Easily the worst of the series, July 1, 2002

By 

Mike Culp (Des Moines, IA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold (Hardcover)

Harry Turtledove's Great War-American Empire series is a masterwork of alternate history, and although I was only moderately impressed with Blood and Iron, I still rushed to buy The Center Cannot Hold. Although the timeline is fascinating, the novel itself is uneven. Certain sections are a great read, such as Jake Featherston's reemergence as a political force in Confederate politics, and Chester Martin's continuing portrayal of the Yankee proletarian. However, now that the war is over, most of the book's length is devoted to each character from the Great War going to work, getting married, having babies, or dropping dead. The way the books jump around from character to character, combined with this book's tendency to jump from year to year, makes each person's life a blur of non-importance that the reader cannot associate with. The reader's past involvement with these characters in life-and-death situations contributes further to the grinding mundanity of the characters' post-war lives.

Turtledove rushes through the politics of each election to the point where nothing at all surprises the reader. The U.S.-Japanese war comes across as a half-assed scheme to knock some Great War-style excitement into the book halfway through, but the chronological mandate of the story compels Turtledove to zip through any combat between the two powers in order to fit in more and more elections.

A few bright spots: Turtledove does go into further detail regarding the worldwide effect of the German-U.S. victory in Europe and Asia. The demise of one of my favorite Confederates at the hands of some Freedom Party yokels was really touching. Without giving too much away, let me just say it makes a powerful statement about life and death. I was very glad to see Hiplito Rodriguez return, this time as a full-fledged character and not a Latino stereotype. In the same vain, I was glad to learn more about the social and political situation in Sonora and Chihuahua. One more minor note: I was very impressed by Turtledove's ability to make a reference to one of his own previous books from an entirely different series. I will leave it to the hardcore Turtledove fans to discover, but let me hint by saying that Mutt Daniels from the Worldwar series and Irving Morrell in this book have the exact same reaction to hearing the same bad news about two different men with the same last name. Hopefully what I just said will make sense when you read the books.

In summation, this book is very disappointing for fans of the series and is worthwhile to read only if you have read all the previous books and are looking forward to the eventual re-match between the U.S.A. and the C.S.A. It definitely has its bright spots, but the nature of the interwar period makes telling its story pretty boring. I wish Turtledove would have followed in his own footsteps, jumping to the late 1930's just as the Worldwar-Colonization series jumped from the 1940's to the 1960's, and The Great War series picked up with the war itself, and back-filled the story between the Second Mexican War and the Great War. Hopefully Settling Accounts will have more meat to it. Despite the uneven performance of this book, I'm still looking forward to seeing what happens next.