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27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Road Not Taken, November 27, 2003
This review is from: What Ifs? of American History: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (Hardcover)
History is often written as if outcomes were inevitable, as if the colonies were ordained to win the American Revolution or the Union to prevail in the Civil War. But history is contingent, and the only way to fully appreciate the significance of a given event is to think about what might have happened if things had turned out differently. At first, I was a little put off by the "What If?" series of books, thinking the essays were probably more like works of science fiction than reliable articles about history. For the most part, I was mistaken, and I recommend this book and its prequels ("What If?" and "What If2?") to anyone seeking a better understanding of some of history's conspicuous turning points. The essays generally fall into three categories. The first, which I enjoy the most, explain the historical context of a given occurrence and then engage in limited (but very illuminating) speculation about what might have happened if that event hadn't turned out the way it did. Examples of this type include Theodore Rabb's "Might the Mayflower Not Have Sailed" and John Lukac's "No Pearl Harbor?: FDR Delays the War." Other essays also offer up the historical context but move on to engage in much bolder speculation. An example is Caleb Carr's "William Pitt the Elder and the Avoidance of the American Revolution," which explores a cascade of assumptions about how the 19th and 20th Century would have been different if Britain had kept the 13 colonies (the intriguing conclusion being that the world might have been better off). The problem with this approach is that it assumes that events in the rest of the world would have stayed on more or less the same path notwithstanding a dramatic change in the outcome of the American revolution. This enables Carr to speculate, for example, on a 19th century summit between Disraeli and Bismarck, but I wonder if either of those two persons would have played the same role in history had the events of the late 18th century been dramatically different than what they actually were. The final type of essay dives right into the counterfactual world without clearly setting out the historical context. Examples are Andrew Roberts "The Whale and the Wolf, " which immediately launches into a history of a hypothetical Anglo-American War of 1896 and Ted Morgan's "Joe McCarthy's Secret Life," a tongue-in-cheek speculation that McCarthy was really a Soviet spy. For my tastes, the problem with these essays is that they spend very little time distinguishing between what did and didn't actually happen, which means that the reader is less likely to learn about history than about the author's speculations. On the whole, "What Ifs? of American History" is a very entertaining and readable book. If you enjoy it, consider getting the other two "What If" books, as well as Victor David Hanson's "Ripples of Battle" (which shares many features with the "What If?" series).
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Treasure Trove of What If's in Alternate American History, September 22, 2004
This review is from: What Ifs? of American History: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (Hardcover)
Robert Cowley has done it again!
After two first-rate "what if" books covering alternative endings of major events in World History, Cowley and his distinguished coterie of authors (James McPherson, Jay Winik, Caleb Carr, Cecilia Holland, et. al.,) have taken on the major events of American History and have provided a fresh view and sometimes not too pleasant alternative endings to them.
Consider this: Jay Winik's "John Wilkes Booth's Wildest Dream" - a Union angered by the assassination of Lincoln enacting retribution on Southern leaders, with the South in turn resorting to widespread guerrilla warfare, which by the time Grant takes office, is practically uncontrollable. Winik had already alluded to the possible horror of guerrilla warfare had Lee NOT surrendered at Appomattox; here he elaborates on it.
In another essay, Anthony Beevor writes an intriguing "what if" Eisenhower had given the "green light" for American forces to seize Berlin ahead of the advancing Red Army in the spring of 1945, and the probable consequences of such an order. We now know that Stalin was prepared to order Red Army commanders to open fire if the U.S. 9th Army had entered the city.
Or a Nuclear Holocaust where the United States, having experienced a Soviet tactical nuclear response in Cuba, and several strikes on the United States itself, resulting in the deaths of both JFK and Lyndon Johnson, resorts to a massive Nuclear assault on the Soviet Union? A quarter of a million Americans are killed, but that is nothing compared to the virtual obliteration of the old USSR, where only a tenth of the population survive the American air and sea bomber and missile assaults - and the world is so revulsed by this overkill that America is ostracized for the next three decades. Wow!
And that is just the tip of the alternative history iceberg...consider a Nixon Presidency that survived Watergate, or an America wracked by Labor Strife in 1877!
About the only faults that I can find in this remarkable work is the regurgitation of James McPherson's brilliant essay on an alternative Antietam which turned in a Lee victory at Gettysburg, an "event" already visited in the first "What If" volume. Also no alternative 9/11 or war on terror essay, as this book ends with Nixon and Vietnam. It also might have been fascinating to see alternative endings to Little Big Horn, where Custer was victorious over Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, or a turn of events in the Spanish-American War. Hope Mr. Cowley and his associates will take on these and other events next time around.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
American History that Might Have Been, February 9, 2004
This review is from: What Ifs? of American History: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (Hardcover)
This is the third collection in the superb "What If" series, and the first to focus exclusively on American History. The first caveat I would give to anyone thinking of making a purchase is that two of these essays (by David McCullough and James McPherson) are repeats from the first volume in the series. I would secondly note that the quality of the essays included here vary wildy. Some, like the speculation on John Tyler's ascendency from Vice-President to President upon the death of William Henry Harrison, and the possible outcome of a third U.S. war with Britain (circa 1896) are quite informative. At least one, a telling of the Cuban Missle Crisis as if it precipated World War III, is quite chilling. Others, however, are less engaging. Anthony Beevor's recounting of Eisenhower's decision at the end of World War II not to march on Berlin, for example, adds little to the controversy that wasn't already there. Overall, a worthwhile collection for those who love counterfactual historical speculation, with the above reservations.
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