Customer Reviews

More What If?

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

What If? 2 continues the work of What If? 1 by offering interesting looks at alternatives to known history (counterfactuals) written by well known historians. What If? 2 is even better than its predecessor because it does not stick to military issues, but examines a wide range of cultural and biological possibilities. For example, the most intriguing chapter is a look at what would have happened had Jesus not been crucified, but lived to an advanced age. The postulated result is a true Judeo-Christianity imposed on the world by an apparently permanent Roman Empire. Another remarkable chapter describes the probable impact of a Ming Chinese trans-Pacific voyage of discovery in the 15th century. Military affairs are not entirely neglected, as there are discussions of alternate endings for the Battle of Hastings, the Franco-Prussian War, and World War I, among others. Finally, there is a fine examination of the role of the potato in history. I hope there is a What If? 3, 4, etc.

Great book with many fascinating questions. However, be warned. You cant tell cause you cant look inside this book, but from the comments from the other reviewers, it sounds as if this book is just What If 2 but with another name, the same content with a new title. If so this should be advertised clearly to avoid ripping off consumers. Beware.

I had high hopes for this book. The idea of "alternative history" is one that fascinates me. And the lineup of "what if" scenarios in this book is certainly intriguing - What if the Chinese navy had been allowed to discover the new world? What if Hitler had survived to go on trial? What if the Allies had not cracked the German code in WWII? What if Lincoln had not freed the slaves?

In each case, the chosen author does a fine job of building up the excitement, relating the background and context that led up to the pivotal "either - or" event. They also construct good arguments to convince you that history could indeed have easily gone the other way.

Armed with this knowledge, the book promises to "imagine...what might have been." This is where I feel it falls short. Few meaningful, concrete statements are made about what would have happened. In fact, some of the authors spend more time explaining the difficulties in forecasting the consequences, than they spend in actually trying to do so.

General statements about the Cold War probably being "different", or musings that things might have turned out the same (e.g., Nixon without Hiss might have still made it to the presidency), left me disappointed, even exasperated.

So I give the book 3 stars for raising interesting questions and teaching me more about history, but no more than 3 stars, because I was left waiting for payoffs that didn't come.

This is the sequel to the excellent first volume of counter factual history that was presented in the original, "What If ?". The possibilities of how history may have unfolded if the path that did take place was altered are literally endless. Not all the scenarios are as entertaining or thought provoking as others, and in general the first of these two books was more consistent in both subject matter and presentation. The majority of the alternate histories that are presented are very worthwhile for contemplation, however there are some exceptions that make an otherwise worthy continuation, place second among the two books readers have been offered.

The first book was largely based on military what if scenarios. This second volume tries to take a broader look at events, however conflict of one sort or another is usually a factor. The book opens with one of the better and most far reaching counter factual scenarios. The death of a single individual that can modify a portion of history is less scarce than one whose death could arguably change history fundamentally. The first scenario asks what if there was a single death at Delium in 424 B.C., and the life lost in battle had been that of Socrates? In the broadest sense no less than the Western intellectual tradition that flowed from this man would have been replaced by a very different set of criteria. If there were no Socrates, then who would have taught Plato, would he even have aspired as he did? This initial foray into what if is excellent.

The Chinese traveled widely by sea, in ships that were up to 400 feet in length and 150 feet wide. Their ability to have "discovered" the world that Columbus eventually stumbled upon was not only within their capabilities, it is again an alternative historical outcome that holds fantastic variables. The Pontificate of Pope Pius The XII is a controversial one. Whether one studies his behavior prior to becoming Pope, The Vatican Concordat signed with Germany in 1933, or his inaction as Pope to use his influence during the war, the decisions he made were epic even as he believed his decisions to do very little were equally important. The world will never know what a Pontiff who used his authority before Hitler began his onslaught on humanity might have accomplished, what lives he may have saved. I believe it is reasonable to say that had he been an aggressive defender of humanity without regard for sectarian beliefs there would certainly be more people that would have lived through the war.

There are a total of 25 scenarios for the reader to choose favorites from. Pontius Pilate decides not to condemn Christ to death is a major historical shift, however the presentation does not rise to the gravity of the issue. Others are not unfamiliar, such as what if England had been lead by a Prime Minister named Halifax instead of Churchill? The hour would have happened, would we still recall it as "their finest hour"?

An essay on the potato may seem trite, however it is as meaningful as most other discussions you will read. If this spud had not been found in Peru by noted explorers and was not spread around the world, how different would history be, the answer may surprise you.

This second, in what I hope will be a continuing series, is not as strong as the first. With few notable exceptions, both the scenarios proffered, and the manners they are examined are very worthwhile. There are some writers included that are not up to the task they chose, but overall the book is well worth a reader's time.

After the huge success of the 1999's "What If?", a superb foray into the speculation of hardly inevitable military events, there comes this book. It does not focus completely on military history, like it's predecessor...

The main problem of the book is this: the bad essays (and there are many) are way too long, and many potentially good ones (Cecilia Holland's on the Battle of Hastings, which does not explore the possibilities of a victory by Harold at all) are too short. The opening chapter on the possible death of Socrates in battle is very heady and not rewarding. The next scenario, on a possible victory by Antony and Cleopatra, is more intriguing; but the chapter on the survival of Jesus Christ is (in my opinion) surprisingly vague about the worldwide aspects of this event.

And so on and so on. Only a few essays even approach those in the original: "Napoleon Invades America" (which has the interesting mix of fascinating facts and equally interesting counterfactual speculations that made the original so worthwhile), "The Fuhrer In The Dock", "The Great War Torpedoed", "No Bomb, No End", and "The Luck of Franklin Roosevelt" are the best. The rest are at best mediocre, and don't come close to those essays' precedents.

The worst essay, perhaps, is the one by Alistair Horne (who wrote arguably the best essay in the original, "Ruler of the World") on what would've happened if the Franco-Prussian War had never happened. So far, so good. But when we get into the explanation, WHY is it avoided? Because Napoleon III visits a medium, and the spirits of Napoleon and Minister De Talleyrand advise him. What the **bleep** kinda garbage is that? The essays on Socrates, Theodore Roosevelt's presidency, and Lenin not being sent to Finland Station are close.

Bottom line: "What If? 2" is readable, but not even close to the superb original...

When I first found out that there was going to be a "What If? 2" and that it wasn't going to focus exclusively on military matters, I was very excited. As much as I am a fan of military history, I was very interested to see how historians of other disciplines might predict how our world could be different today. Unfortunately, having finished the book, I am rather disappointed. That's not to say that the quality of the writing, or the turning points are sub-par, they're not. In fact, in terms of composition and selection of historical turning points, this book is actually more original and uniform than its predecessor.

That's what makes this book so disappointing: there is great potential, but it never lives up to its self-proclaiming goal of telling the reader "what if?" The background research is solid, and the authors in almost every instance make a cogent, educated case as to why history turned on a given moment or person. Unfortunately, in almost every instance they fail to follow up with any meaningful speculation. In fact, there are very few alternate scenarios that extend for more than a few paragraphs.

Considering how successful the first volume was in regards to alternate histories, this volume's lack of them is inexcusable. What else can the reader expect in a series entitled "What If?" than a detailed exploration of how our world could be different today. The only explanation I can think of is that counter-factual history is an immensely useful tool in political-military history, but it is less so (or at least less utilized) in social history. It therefore seems probable that many of the writers in this edition were unsure as to how to weave a different world after having identified their turning point.

At any rate, this isn't a terrible book, but it is pretty disappointing. As I have mentioned above, the research and writing are excellent. Furthermore the points of departure for are some of the most unique I've come across in alternate history. Unfortunately, the "what if" scenarios never really pan out, and as a result the book never lives up to its title. This book will get you thinking about some overlooked episodes in history, but it will, for the most part, be up to your imagination to supply the counterfactual.

Following the vast success of the first What If collection, editor Cowley returns with another collection with a slightly different subtitle. Instead of "The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been" we now have "Eminent Historians." This is presumably to underscore the presence of nonmilitary essays and not a commentary on a decline in the quality of the contributors. It's worth noting that there's a startling lack of women in the two volumes-historical novelist Ceceila Holland appears in both, but apparently counterfactualism is overwhelmingly the brief of male historians. In any event, the twenty-five essays proceed in chronological order, and are supported by outstanding maps.

As with the earlier volume, I generally enjoyed the essays that concentrated on the older events more, perhaps because they are more removed from time and consciousness and thus are more plausible. While the essays are all entirely accessible, the are somewhat uneven in quality and on the whole seem a little short. In fact, one criticism is that in many cases, an excellent contextual setup trails off into very little counterfactual speculation. Still, each essay is useful as a minor history lesson if nothing else. A more minor annoyance is editor Cowley's one page introduction to each essay, which summarizes it and gives away the main points.

While some of my favorite essays were those which speculated on Pontius Pilate's sparing of Jesus, the continued exploration embarked upon in the 15th century by a massive Chinese navy, Napoleon's invasion of North American, and an examination of how WWII might have proceeded had the Allies not cracked the Enigma code machine-others that looked at the effects of small bureaucratic or political shifts were equally intriguing. For example, Robert O'Connell's fascinating look at how bureaucratic interference "torpedoed" WWI Germany's exploitation of its massive and potentially devastating submarine warfare "gap." James Chace's essay on Henry Wallace's political career, and a presidency following FDR's death that could have been, is so interesting in its own right, that the counterfactual implications are almost incidental to one's enjoyment. Other essays are more clumsily conceived, such as one positing American without Nixon, Johnson, and Kennedy, and one on Adolf Hitler being tried at Nuremberg. While these have interesting historical nuggets, they aren't as imaginative or interesting as most of the collection. Consider if Martin Luther had been burned as a heretic, or if a ragtag Australian unit hadn't held off an overwhelming Japanese force in New Guinea bent on securing the airfield from which to launch an invasion of Australia, or if WWII had started a year earlier. Had Cowley cut the five weakest essays and given the space to expand the remaining essays, it would have been a stronger collection-however, it's still well worth reading.

Back in 1997 Niall Ferguson edited a collection of essays called Virtual History, which offered some scholarly discussion of counterfactuals. That book had a tory tinge to it (Could have we avoided Cromwell, the first world war, and that nasty business with the colonies in 1776? Why yes! Could we have avoided the cold war, created a United Ireland, and under the presidency of a living JFK solved the problems of the sixties. Nope, sorry, out of luck), but it was scrupulous and based on a solid understanding of both the scholarly literature and what actually happened.

This collection of essays is not of the same standard. Some of the historians aren't even historians, such as Lance Morrow on Johnson, Kennedy and Nixon in 1948, and the understanding is considerably less rigorous and thorough. Take, for a start an essay on whether the great Ming expeditions of the 1400s could have discovered America? This undoubtedly would have made a difference to world history had they found America first. But as Jack Goldstone pointed out last year it's not at all surprising that the expeditions were cancelled. There was very little on the East Coast of Africa (let alone the West coast) to justify the expense of continuing them. There is also an anachronistic tendency to read into the past what we know about today. I remember a counterfactual written in the People's Almanac during the seventies, which dealt with the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and it included the utterly unbelievable plot twist of having Solzhenitsyn raise a successful rebellion against Stalin. The same flaw occurs in John Lukacs' essay on Theodore Roosevelt winning the first world war a year early, which has Roosevelt preventing Trotsky's return to Russia at a time when the real Roosevelt would not have known who he was.

Consider also the essay on what would have happened if Jesus had not been crucified. The author speculates that if Jesus had not died the Roman Empire would have been so interested in its message of giving Caesar his due, they would have protected and sponsored it after Jesus inevitable death so that it would last long enough for Constantine to make it the official religion. The result is that Europe would still be Christian, indeed it might even be more Christian. But clearly the author has subordinated a historical understanding of what happened to a cheaply ironic result. First off, we do not fully know whether Jesus' teachings were as sympathetic to the authorities as they are presented in the gospels. There is, after all, a gap of thirty to sixty years between the events they describe and their creation. Secondly, and more important, as G.E.M. de Ste Croix pointed out in his classic The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, the most striking thing about Jesus was his isolation from the larger Hellenic-Roman world. What is often viewed as a betrayal or a declension of Christianity, was actually St. Paul's tranfer of this isolated rural and peasant view to a more commercial and cosmopolitan world. Had Jesus lived, there is no reason to believe that anyone outside of Palestine would have any interest in what he thought.

Especially unconvincing is George Feiffer's essay on what would have happened if Lenin had not been able to get back into Russia on the sealed train. The answer, Feiffer says, is that there would have been no revolution and Russia would have happily lived ever after, under the Democratic rule of the Constituent Assembly. I strongly disagree. First off, it is clear by July 1917 at the latest that Russia faced a military defeat, which would have a devastating effect on both the legitimacy of any government and on the economy. Second, it is clear, as one can see from the work of William Rosenberg and Lars T. Lih, that the Russian economy faced by 1917 a severe economic crisis that not simply made the government unpopular, but clearly unravelled the links between the state and the larger society. Third, it is clear from the works of Wildman, Rosenberg, Koenker, Mandel, Figes and many others that the outbursts of peasant, worker and soldier protest were not something that could simply be turned off by stopping the Bolsheviks. In fact, it is clear that the Bolsheviks benefited from a wave of spontaneous protest, and that this radicalism benefited Lenin's position against his more moderate colleagues. After all, for most of the four months before the Revolution Lenin was in hiding, yet the state still fell apart without his direct assistance. Fourth, Oliver Radkey pointed out decades ago that the Constituent Assembly lacked a stable majority and that had it not been summarily dismissed by Lenin, the Socialist Revolutionary Party (a rural populist party) would have split into its left, right, and Ukrainian wings. Fifth, Russia would still have been torn apart by national conflict, while representatives of the old order would still have tried to overthrow a socialist government, no matter how moderate it was.

So if you really want to look at a good counterfactual about the civil war, try reading Steven Hahn's 1990 article in the American Historical review. Likewise there are better books one could read on the possibilities of the cold war than the uninspiring essay on Henry Wallace written by the uninspiring biographer of Acheson, James Chace. Fundamentally, this is a book of counterfactuals, which doesn't take the historiography seriously.

Speculation about what might have happened -- instead of what happened -- is endlessly fascinating and the editor has brought together twenty-five people, mostly historians, to use their informed imaginations about important events. The essays vary in quality from very good to fair -- the least interesting telling us more about what did happen than what might have happened.

A moderately mind-bending essay is "Pontius Pilate Spares Jesus: Christianity without the Crucifixion." The best essay in the book is "No bomb, no end" a persuasive speculation on how World War II would have ended if the US had not dropped an atomic bomb on Japan. One of the most interesting is "The Boys Who Saved Australia, 1942," the tale of a few Australian soldiers stopping the all victorious Japanese army on New Guinea early in WW II. This was an event, obscure to Americans, the importance of which I had never fully recognized.

A lot of authors seem to loose their nerve and their conclusions are weak and tentative. Perhaps science fiction writers rather than historians would present bolder and more imaginative scenarios. However, the historians all presented plausible scenarios for the future, and thus lived up their craft.

Does history really hinge on the flip of a coin or "the want of a nail?" I think it often does, especially in war, in which the luck of the draw or a few determined people -- sometimes only one -- can make a difference that reverberates down through the centuries. We are all leaves blown by the wind. This kind of book is worth reading to open up your mind to the way things might have been.

Smallchief

After reading both What If? 1 and What if? 2, I came looking for What If? 3. But instead I found More What If?, which I thought to be a third installment in the series; and thinking so, I placed it in my wish list. I'm glad I did that and did not buy the book because as one of the reviewers here says, it sounds a lot like What If? 2. It sure does - like every one of the reviews that cite an essay in More What If? is citing the same thing that is in WI2. I give this book 5 stars, but I am actually giving WI2 the stars - it is excellent, just as WI1 was. And now I am going into my wish list to delete my most recent wish. Wow, What If? I had bought it, huh? Buyer Beware!