Customer Reviews

The Confederate States of America: What Might Have Been

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Roger Ransom has written one of the most provocative efforts in the field of counterfactual speculation which I have had the chance to read. Taking as his challenge the well-plowed ground of the American Civil War, Professor Ransom has managed to offer a series of genuinely innovative insights into the possible result of a Confederate victory. Rather than picking one "point of divergence," Ransom instead opts for what one might call a "semi-chaotic collage" of mutually reinforcing changes, resulting in a military stalemate in 1864 that in turn produces a collapse of the North's political will to continue the fight. The changes hypothesized are plausible, and their "snowballing" effect makes a good case for Ransom's basic thesis that the South's best chance for victory lay in an improved performance by the Confederacy's Western and Eastern forces, combined. The true strength of Ransom's work, however, does not lie in its narrative describing the battlefield course of (yet another) alternate American Civil War. Rather, it is in the analysis of the possible consequences of a Southern victory, and particularly the international consequences of a division of the North American Continent between two rival American Unions, where this alternate history truly excels. Professor Ransom describes how the ensuing rivalry between USA and CSA would have affected the relationships between the Great Powers of Europe, as they are drawn into the USA-CSA rivalry, and for reasons of their own vital interests. Ransom also directly tackles the feel good notion that North and South would have quickly shaken off the bad feelings of a successful "War for Southern Independence" and developed a friendly relationship, allowing the two American Unions to operate virtually as one, in confronting the challenges of the 20th Century. (MacKinlay Kantor's Civil War Centennial piece for LIFE magazine on the subject is perhaps the best-known of the "Panglossian" takes on a Confederate victory.) Ransom persuasively argues that the divisions between North and South which ruptured into inter-regional war in 1861 reflected profoundly different approaches to basic questions of socio-economic organization and political order, and that these differences would have driven the two American Unions even further apart as each in the wake of Southern independence worked to define itself in contradistinction to the other. Professor Ransom also grapples insightfully with economic issues that alternate history writers tend for some reason to avoid, and the resulting analysis adds a crucial and genuinely illuminating dimension to his work (e.g., he addresses the international economic factors that would have shaped the post-Secession prospects for a "King Cotton" not overthrown by Northern arms). I am a lawyer by trade who has tried his hand at alternate history, and the venerable AH subject of a Southern victory has always held a special fascination for me. I confess to sharing Professor Ransom's view that a Southern victory would have proven a setback, both domestic and international, for the cause of human progress. But whatever one's point of view on that question, any serious student of the American Civil War, even those who generally scorn "What if?" as nothing more than a silly parlor game, would benefit from reading Professor Ransom's fine effort.

When I first purchased this book I thought I was going to read yet another "what if" story of the South winning the American Civil War, maybe with some new idea but basically with the same pattern already seen in other such products.
Thus I was very satisfied when, page after page, I found solid facts in the first chapters concerning the "why" and the "how" the Civil War came to happen (together with a brief conduct of the real war itself), followed by the "story" of an alternate Civil War based on those same facts but ending with a Confederate victory. Most important, the author finally deals with the aftermath of a Confederate victory, both from a political and economical point of view (something not easily found in other such products) trying to draw conclusions based on various possible alternatives.
I found the presence of verifible figures and hard data very helpful to fully understand a chapter of American history that I, as an Italian reader, did not know but was eager to analyze.
I found the book very well written, easy to follow, and enough imaginative in the chapter concerning the "other war" to satisfy my anticipations, but most of all I found it indispensable to fill in my gaps about that part of world history that I could not study in Italy.
All in all a very good product, I would surely recommend it to all lovers of real and fictional history.

Roger Ransom has written an academic exercise showing how the South could had defeated the North during the Civil War (Stonewall Jackson surviving his wound and General Lee calling off Pickett's Charge, so that the war would be a stalemate for the 1864 elections).

The first half of the book is a basic primer on the background and events leading up to the Civil War. The more interesting section that follows is too short -- the alternative history of two nations (USA and CSA) co-existing in America up until 1918. For example, Mr. Ransom hypothesises that Woodrow Wilson of the CSA would have opposed Theodore Roosevelt of the USA during WW I.

This "what if" concept was done first and better by Harry Turtledove in his 8 volume series that currently stretches from 1862-1942 (begining with "How Few Remain"). Many of his historical assumptions seemed to be borrowed from the previous creations of Mr. Turtledove. The reader is also referred to "Dixie Victorious" edited by Peter Tsouras with ten essays by different authors on possible turning points for a Southern victory in the Civil War.

This is a solid, well-thought out "what might have been" study that goes beyond the sensational or the mythical. Here the reader is treated to the political history of the Confederate States of America as it might evolve. Almost 50 years ago McKinley Kantor penned one of the best pioneering works on the question "what if the South won in 1865?" (he has the North and South reunited by 1915 in the face of WWI and the growing threat to both side-by-side Americas); it also was an excellent political and military "first cut" to a fascinating subject not only for Civil War buffs but any one interested in "Alternative History".

Ransom's book is plausible in its projections based on the facts of the early formation and struggle by the CSA to become independent. He provides controversial thinking on what might happen if the CSA were successful, but his line of reasoning is what makes the book engaging and thoughtful. Ransom writes a good read, and the scholarship is of the quality to be quoted in other similar, high-quality studies.

Joseph Richard Goldman

What if the South had won the Civil War, and what would the world be like today? Many historians have considered this scenario and plenty of science fiction collections have been constructed around stories of such - but THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA uses real facts and analysis to blend historical plausibility and realistic scenarios to show how a Confederate-run America would change not only this country, but the world. Even economics are explored, along with international relationships changed by such events. An intriguing survey any collection strong in Civil War history will want: it offers more scholarship and seasoned, rational reasoning than most approaches.

If you are a reader of Turtledove please tread with caution - this might not be what you think it is. While 'proper' alternate history is written as if it really did happen, Ransom has very delicately made his own approach to alternate history. In the history after the Civil War, he takes an approach to alternate history by discussing the parallels between reality and possibility, issues the world may confront, options available to them and consequences in a "Well if A happens then B arises then we will have a C" etc. Roger constantly ducks in and out of reality and plunging back down into fiction, taking some of our assumptions, knowledge of the period and some imagination with him. This is all good if you want a professional, delicate, step-by-step analysis if how the Confederacy may have evolved and its impact on the world. As before this IS NOT the style of 'proper' alternate history, more that of a serious, in-depth-investigation parlor game.
Another query is the length of Roger's point of divergence, which is sometimes bordering on the edge of credibilty and yet is full of imagination. Finally, by looking through Roger's notes and opinions of other alternate history works, one can easily tell that this writer is heavily influenced by Harry Turtledove's version of a Confederate world. It is a pity that Roger pulled out the 'Great War' card in which the two nations find themselves on conflicting sides in 1914 and the demise of the weaker American - no matter how well written. To see a more extended analysis of a Confederate timeline further into the 20th century would have made me feel more confident of this book, yet that is just my opinion.
Nevertheless a good, scientific investigation of a Confederacy that has ended alot of arguements and is mostly untouched by the somewhat radical views of Turledove.

Two thirds of the book revisits the American Civil War and indicates how the South might have survived. In the West, Albert Sidney Johnston, wounded rather than killed at Shiloh, battles Grant to a draw. In the East, Lee attacks Cemetery Hill on the first day and wins the battle of Gettysburg. The military stalemate in 1864 costs Lincoln the election, and the Democrats end the war by granting the South its independence. So far, so familiar. In the last part of the book, Professor Ransom is more creative by examining the economic trends of the real post-war world to predict what, in very broad terms, the history of the early Confederacy might have been. Post 1865, Europe in our world developed alternate sources of cotton in Egypt and India, breaking the near-monopoly that the ante-bellum South had held. Also, he assumes that the pre-war exhaustion of the soil would have continued, and would have required the application of costly chemical fertilizers. Both factors would have led to a plateauing if not a decline in the cotton-derived income of the Confederacy, leading in turn to a drop in the price of slaves. The Confederacy, he contends, could not have emulated the North in industrial development because its capital was tied up in land and slaves and because it had no large urban markets to sell to, unlike the North. Therefore, he predicts that within a few decades, the largest slaveowners would press their government for compensated manumission, i.e. that the government should buy their slaves before the latter's value sank even further. Combined with international pressure, this would force the Confederate government to abolish slavery but then replace it by social controls like the Jim Crow statutes of our world's South. This last chapter, schematic and undetailed as it is, was the most interesting part of the book to me, as it emphasized the likely supremacy of economic factors over ideological ones.

The author analyzes the factors involved in the American Civil War and investigates what might have happened if certain events had been different or certain specific decisions in battle or politics had been different. The book proposes "counterfactual" history, based on an analysis and criticism of received wisdom about causes and trends.

The work represents the historical science of "cliometrics," the practice of measuring history. Cliometrics uses mathematical analysis to objectify trends in history.

One approach to this analysis is to write a counterfactual history. this provides a basis for comparative analysis of factors and trends to see what possible effect a change at some point might have made in the outcome, and how different that would have made our world today.

The first two chapters of Ransom's book analyze the actual situation leading up to the Civil War. Then the counterfactual scenario is compared at each point with details of traditional to yield a cliometric analysis of the real situation.

Ransom develops very many details and insights into the historical and economic situation worldwide in the 1900s. One surprising conclusion is that his analysis indicates that the USA and CSA would find themselves on opposite sides of the Great War (WWI). He sees Woodrow Wilson as the leader of the CSA opposed to Theodore Roosevelt leading the USA. The USA becomes the ally of Germany, while the southern nation allies with Britain and the Allies!

This is feasible, given the documented support of the New York financial establishment for Hitler, despite the Jewish opposition. Much would depend on the level of animosity and rivalry that continued after the Civil War in to the 20th century. This is an important area of Ransom's work where surmise and imagination play the biggest part.

Aside from the ultimate outcome, this work probes the history of the Civil War in such a way as to provide valuable insight on how the war was prosecuted, how discussions in the political sphere of both the USA and the CSA and affected the conduct of the war.

This is an interesting book to read by Roger L. Ransom. Roger Ransom is a professor of history and economics at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of many books. This book is a "Counter-factual" history of the American Civil War. Its a book of "What if's".
If you like American History, Civil War History, or American South History, I think you'll like this book. I enjoyed reading it!!!

This book explores the following issues:

What if Robert E. Lee had withdrawn his forces at Gettysburg rather than sending Pickett's division into the teeth of the Union Lines?

What if a costly military statemate had developed in the eastern and western theaters?

What if antidraft riots and growing anti-war sentiment had led to President Lincoln's defeat in the 1864 election?

What if Great Britain had recognized the Confederacy and pushed for a Peace Agreement?

How would a Conferate States of America have worked politically and economically?

What would have been the fate of slavery? Could the demise of slavery have come peacefully throught economic change?

What would have been the Global consequences of an Independent Confederate States of American? Would the United States have ascended to global power in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries?

On the issue of General Lee's invasion of Gettysburg, this book addresses this issue. The motivation given for this was, if the Confederacy had won a major battle, in the "North", then Great Britain would have likely recognized and provided aid to the "South". So, it was a "gamble" General Lee & the Confederacy were willing to take.

On the issue of slavery, this book explores how the "South" would have eliminated slavery on its own, without any coersion and without a "Civil War", or even if it had won the Civil War. Afterall, the "South" had already passed laws prohibiting the importation of any more new slaves. Also, according to this book, the "South" offered slaves their freedom, if they would fight for the Confederacy. So, the book concludes, the "South" was willing to eliminate slavery on its own. The "South" or the Confederacy just wanted the freedom to solve their "slavery" issue on its on terms, instead of having to be coered, or interfered with by the "North".

Afterall, the book gives several examples of how slavery had been voluntarily eliminated, in an orderly manner, without coersion, or interference from others.
The first example is the Northeastern States, such as New York, they voluntarily eliminated slavery on their on terms, through a phase-out period, duirng the late 1700's. Also, Great Britain had voluntarily eliminated slavery, without coersion or interference during the 1830's.
Also, Brazil, a huge slave country, eliminated slavery on its own, without coersion or interference, during the 1880's.

This book proposes that the Confederacy, if it had won the Civil War, probably would have voluntarily ended slavery, peacefully, in an orderly manner, on its on, by the 1880's.

So, it's fair to conclude the Confederates were indeed fighting for a "just" cause. They were fighting for their rights to end slavery on their on terms, in an orderly manner, just like the above examples happened. Why, did the North have to interfere, and start a war over this? The end of Slavery, and the aftermath, could have been a lot more peaceful, if the "South" would have won the Civil War, and won the freedom to eliminate slavery on its own, in an orderly manner.

I'm a proud decendant of a Confederate Soilder, who died fighting for freedom for the "South" to resolve it's own problems, on its on terms. Afterall, the North was allowed that freedom, Great Britian was allowed that freedom, and Brazil was allowed that freedom. Why not the "South"???

This is a great book, and I highly recommend it. Thanks, and may God Bless!!!

Although I don't agree with almost every one of this book's outcomes in the alternative history that resulted in a successful Confederate States of America, I still liked the book for its attempts. The author seems to know the material well, particularly regarding the military aspects of the Civil War. However, I don't feel that the book emphasizes enough the prevalent thoughts in Southern politics, such as Thomas Jefferson's abhorrence of alliances with foreign powers, the necessity of the slave regime to expand into new territories (which it had done and planned to do before and after the Civil War, respectively), and general outright racism. Here are some of the points where I can't agree with the author:

1) Near the end of the book, the author has the Confederate States ally with the British Empire and France, while the United States allies with the German Empire. The author seems to avoid specifically calling it an alliance, but that's what it is. In reality, the United States did not enter into a peacetime alliance agreement until it joined NATO after World War 2. So why assume that either of the American nations would be willing to do so in the 1870s? This destroys the author's conclusion to the book.

2) The author hypothesizes that the only territorial expansion that the Confederates would obtain after the Civil War is Cuba. Clearly, the author is ignoring the burning desire for Manifest Destiny in Southern politics. It is almost certain that if the Confederacy were established, it would have eventually tried to conquer Mexico in order to create new sprawling plantations. The author doesn't touch this issue at all. His vision of the independent South is one that is content with just expanding into a tiny island, which flies in the face of any look into the rhetoric of Southern politicians in the 1840s and 1850s. I would have loved to see how the author would have handled a Confederate-Mexican War, and the unresolved issue of what to do with the inhabitants of the newly acquired territory by a racist slave aristocracy. Unfortunately, none of that will be found here.

3) The author hypothesizes that slavery would be abolished in the Confederate States by the 1880s. How can one take this theory seriously, when just fifteen years before the South fought a war for their institution, and their Constitution is full of protections for slavery? Even if economic conditions after the war favored the abolition of slavery (which I doubt - Sparta, the ideal model for such a society, maintained its slave caste for centuries without any eagerness to change), popular opinion would have been against it. Besides, Southern whites were absolutely paranoid that freed slaves would kill their former masters. That alone would keep them from freeing slaves and letting them stay in the South. The author could have came up with the idea to push the freed slaves out into Arizona and New Mexico, or out of the country altogether (such as the Back to Africa movement), but he did not do so.

4) The author believes that the Civil War was inevitable. I cannot accept this. He defends the decisions of the inept politicians of the 1850s and 1860s as "what had to be done," as if there is no such thing as free will in a free country. Another thing, the author neglects the option to remove key figures from the scenario -- for instance, if Abraham Lincoln died in adolescence and a weak-willed president were elected in 1860, would there have been a Civil War, or would the president have felt powerless to stop the states from seceding (as the author admits that Buchanan did)? Luckily, the last few chapters of the book will play out pretty much the same whether or not the war took place, so whether or not one agrees that the Civil War was inevitable, the imaginary outcome would be the same.

Despite all this criticism, there are some things that I agree with the author on. For instance, the map he draws of the boundary lines between north and south at the war's end is exactly the one I would have drawn. His estimation of settling disputes about trade on the Mississippi, and the likelihood of the Pacific Northwest and California breaking away thereafter are dead on, in my view. I also agree that slavery would eventually be abolished in the Confederate states for economic reasons, despite disagreeing on the timing of it.

I would very much like to have seen a "what might have been" book that follows a pathway where the Confederate States seceded peacefully and the animosity between the two nations died down over the years, and where the Confederacy had the same insatiable hunger for new lands that the Old South did, among other Southern political views. I would also have liked to see a greater discussion on the issue of how the South could have emancipated the slaves, since that was such a tremendously difficult debate among Southerners up until the end of the Civil War. These might be just my own personal tastes, though, and I still respect what this author's own personal views have led him to create in an alternative history. What is contained in this book is an interesting fiction of what could have happened that is reasonably based on historical facts, and it made for a quick and fascinating read.