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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very interesting premise, but...., September 6, 2000
I have been a big fan of the alternate history genre for years, and this probably comes from the fact that I love history and have the kind of mind that always asks "what if?" The premise of this book is an excellent and plausible one - Britain and the United States going to war in 1862 following the "Trent Affair". However, as I read along in the book I was disappointed by how improbable some of the twists and turns in thestory are. - Would the British have dared to mount an invasion of the US from Canada when they had only a few thousand troops whereas the US could send tens of thousands and still have plenty to face the Confederates (even if they had to go on the defensive vs. the CSA)? - If the British had accidentally attacked a Confederate fort and gone on to sack the town nearby, wouln't they have tried to patch up relations with the CSA who were, after all, their allies. Even if they were overly confident, it is extremely improbable that they would have just thrown up their hands & said "what the heck, we'll just go to war against the CSA too!" - The USA and CSA would not have been able to resolve their differences so quickly, even if they were up against a common enemy. This is the most improbable point in the book. Having a common enemy does not necessarily make nations (or people) friendly toward each other. Also, the Confederacy agreeing to give up slavery so readily - not likely! Harris seems to think that all the US needed to solve its sectional and racial hostilities was a good foreign enemy for everyone to fight! Its never been that easy. - Even if US ironclads like Monitor had better armor and could beat anything in the Royal Navy, the Union only had 1 or 2 of them at the time (same for the CSA and its ironclads). Furthermore, these ironclads could only operate in coastal waters. In any deep water, the US had only wooden ships which were greatly outnumbered & outgunned by the British. The US got a couple of deep ocean ironclads by the end of the Civil War, but that would take quite a while to build and by the time they were finished the British could have built better oceangoing ironclads to match the US. - Would French/Quebecois in Canada rise up in favor of an invading US army? They didn't much care for the British but they hadn't shown any interest in supporting the US cause in the American Revolution or War of 1812, so why would it suddenly be different? The English speaking Canadians would certainly have been against the US, considering that many of them were descended from Loyalists in the American Revolution who had all their property in the US confiscated for supporting the British cause. I don't think that the author is anti-British in the sense of being against the whole British people, but he definitely has a hstrong hostility to the elite aristocracy. He portrays them almost universally as extremely arrogant, overconfident, anti-American, and completely ignorant of the technological changes going on in warfare. No doubt there were quite a few who matched the above description (all you have to do is read a little about the Crimean War!), but not every officer/gentleman in the British army was a pompous, drooling moron. The USA and CSA had their share of officers who were ignorant and owed their commission to social background & political influence too. In short, the premise is fascinating and certain parts but the direction the story takes is too improbable and too slanted against the British to make this a really good work of alternate history.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
This is the only really dreadful thing Harrison has ever written, June 20, 2006
I enjoyed everything else I have read from Harry Harrison, and am fascinated by alternative history, so I expected to like this book. I didn't. I think it does credit to the American reviewers who have criticised this book that it went down nearly as badly with them as it did with Brits. They have demonstrated that one comment by a British reviewer - that this book provides an insight into the American mind - is unfair to most Americans. The starting premise - Britain blundering into war with the North in the American civil war - is horrifying plausible, which is not surprising as this very nearly happened. The first part of the book, up to that stage, is well done. However, the author then abandons any attempt at either a realistic attempt to work through what might have happened, or to look sympathically at how the situation might have developed from the viewpoint of all sides. Instead, looking for a way to turn both the USA and CSA into heroes, he casts the Brits as utterly incompetent and evil cretins who both sides can unite against. Although it isn't a positive for me to read a book in which my country is shown in a bad light, this doesn't usually make it impossible for me to enjoy a work of fiction. Heaven only knows Britain has had it's share of reverses and like every other country in the world has been responsible for some stupid or wicked mistakes. However, the increasingly implausible idiocy through which this book has the British blundering into war against both parties in the American civil war is way over the top. The idea that a Commander in Chief of any civilised nation could simultaneously be moronic enough to commit the acts attributed to the Duke of Cambridge in this book, and clever enough to prevent his own government finding out what he had done and sacking him, is ludicrous beyond belief. Harry Harrison is almost the last writer on earth I would have expected to prostitute his enormous talents with such chauvinistic rubbish. One-sided nationalism is not usually his style at all, and he has written another book about a set of events which might have changed the course of the US Civil War/War between the States - "Rebel in Time" - which is far superior to this. The market for this book is people who like America, hate the British, and are not too bothered about historical plausibility. So it may sell some copies in the USA, and probably a few in Ireland (though as I'm married to an Irish catholic girl I think I'm qualified to say that not everyone in Ireland falls into these categories.) In the rest of the world most of those who don't like the Brits don't like the USA either, and would be even less sympathetic to the CSA. For anyone who is looking for a good account of how the American Civil war might have gone wrong, try Harry Turtledove's "The Guns of the South," or "How Few Remain" and the "Great War" and "American Empire" trilogies which follow it. Or indeed Harry Harrison's "Rebel in Time".
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
America fights a modern war in 1862 against the British, June 13, 2001
Harry Harrison's alternate history novel "Stars & Stripes Forever" begins by contending that following the removal of two Confederate commissioners from the British steam packet Trent in November 1861, war between the United States and Great Britain over the incident was averted because Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria, toned down the language of the dispatch sent to the American government. By having Prince Albert stricken by his terminal illness a little bit earlier, Harrison sets the two nations on the path to war. However, this one slight alteration is not enough for Harrison. He is not alone in pointing out that the Civil War was the first "modern" war, and can point to numerous military advantages invented during that time (ships built of iron, breech loading cannons, observation balloons, etc.) to support his claim. Ultimately, Harrison wants to show the Americans taking full advantage of all such new technology to wage full out war against the British. For this reason Harrison manipulates events a bit further (e.g., the general who delayed mass production of the Sharps rifle conveniently dies) to ensure the American army and navy are truly formidable entities. All this is well and good, and certainly great fun when it comes to "what if" speculations, something I have always enjoyed ever since SNL did their "What if Napoleon had a B-52 at the Battle of Waterloo" skit. But where Harrison goes a bit too far is the little twist of fate he comes up with to reunite the North and South. Things progress to the point where the British invade New York from Canada and launch another attack on the Gulf Coast. However, the British confuse Biloxi Mississippi with Mobile Bay, mistake the Stars & Bars for the Stars & Stripes, and end up attacking the Confederates instead. But that is not enough for Harrison, who then has the British troops get drunk and start... all the women. Because of this outrage General Beauregard asks for an armistice with General Sherman (Grant has gone with most of the Army of Tennessee to repel the British Invasion from the North), who decides to send a Federal regiment with the Confederates to avenge Biloxi. This becomes the catalyst for reunion, along with a lesson in economics from John Stuart Mill and other interesting events. By this point we have certainly gone far a field from Harrison's initial premise. The political reunification of the country is even more fanciful than the military maneuvers, which at least have the charm of being grounded in the technology of the time. His characterization of the political and military figures of the time do not ring especially true (I never got used to Lincoln and Davis calling each other Abraham and Jefferson, or Lee calling Sherman "Cump"), the British are a collection of egotistical idiots, and in the end you get the feeling that this would have worked better as an essay rather than a novel. All the salient points could be sketched out just fine without needing to be presented in narrative form. This story continues in "Stars & Stripes in Peril" where General Lee proposes to free Ireland to get the British to stop trying to invade the United States, which has the same strengths and weaknesses as this volume. A provocative ideal, but not a compelling novel.
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