My book arrived today. I had put my work zip code but my home address on the shipping address page on Amazon, and as a result, my book took a detour. It arrived in St Paul, MN on Friday. Monday it went to Eden Prairie, the zip code on the address. Tuesday it went back to St Paul, and late that night, over to Minneapolis. Wednesday it finally made it up to Plymouth and was waiting on my doorstep.
I’m prepared to call in sick tomorrow, because I fully expect to be up all night reading this.
[ul][]Socrates dies at Delium in 424 B.C. - Victor Davis Hanson[]Octavian is defeated at Actium in 31 B.C. - Josiah Ober[]Pontius Pilate spares Jesus - Carlos M N Eire[]William the Conquerer is repulsed - Cecilia Holland[]The Chinese discover the Americas in the 15th century - Theodore F Cook, Jr[]Martin Luther is burned as a heretic - Geoffrey Parker[]English Civil War is averted - Theodore K Rabb[]Napoleon invades North America - Thomas Fleming[]Lincoln does not issue the Emancipation Proclamation - Tom Wicker[]France does not go to war with Prussia - Alistair Horne[]Theodore Roosevelt is elected in 1912 - John Lukacs[]Germany begins unrestricted submarine warfare in 1915 - Robert L O’Connell[]A Russian Revolution without Lenin - George Feifer[]FDR fails on the road to the presidency - Geoffrey C Ward[]Chamberlain fails to appease Hitler in 1938 - Williamson Murray[]Great Britian makes peace in 1940 - Andrew Roberts[]Australia falls in 1942 - James Bradley[]Allies fail to crack Enigma - David Kahn[]Pius XII protests the Holocaust - Robert Katz[]Patton and Montgomery are unleashed in late 1944 - Caleb Carr[]Hitler captured in Berlin - Roger Spiller[]US opts against atomic weapons and invades Japan - Richard B Frank[]Henry Wallace becomes president - James Chace[]America without Nixon, Johnson, and Kennedy - Lance MorrowAnd finally, a world without potatoes - William H McNeill[/ul]I think I just came.
What If? was an amazing book and I’ve lent it to many, many people, most of whom went to buy their own copy. I’m wondering who might possibly loan me his copy of the sequel.
Is it time for sad kitten eyes?
lno:Chamberlain fails to appease Hitler in 1938 - Williamson Murray
[/QUOTE]
Uh, I thought that’s the way it really happened.
And I’m surprised someone has written a “What if Clinton weren’t impeached” analysis. For one thing, not enough time has passed for us to properly assess the impact of Clinton’s impeachment.
For another, this still strikes me as rather a minor event of the 90s. Clinton was a second-term lame duck with an opposition Congress when he was impeached. Just how many of his accomplishments were hindered by his impeachment?
Meaning, war is declared, rather than it being delayed until 1939.
I agree. I haven’t yet read that, but it has the potential to be rabid left- or right-wing preaching. “The impeachment prevented him from being a great president” to “The impeachment kept him from killing off more than Vince Foster”.
Yawn. The telegraph would have been popularized by someone else, likely within a few years AT MOST from when Morse came out with his version of the telegraph. There were MANY other inventors working on the telegraph, as early as the last quarter of the 18th Century.
Wheatstone and Cooke in Britain invented a workable telegraph (IIRC, it was easier to use, too – needles that pointed at the letters!) in 1837. Morse got the telegraph franchise from Congress, and strung up the famous “first” Baltimore-Washington line, in 1844.
Many thanks to Ino, who emailed me quickly with info about the author of What If? When I then did a search on a couple of booksites I found this intriguing item, listed as being on audio cassettes. It was by Robert Cowley as Well, and titled What If? 3 Ancient Wars That Shaped Ou It looks as if they ran out of space on the title, may have ended Our World. It didn’t seem to be in book format. Is this a real third volume? Is it a condensation from the other two? I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. I truly enjoy alternate history. Ino, I don’t want to hijack your thread, so I thik I will start a new one where folks can recommend their own favorites in the alternate history field, fiction and non-fiction.
This reminds me of an article written about 10-15 years ago for the American Economic Review. There had been an article purporting that even without the advent of the railroad the economic progress of the US would hav not been hindered much. So someone wrote a tongue-in-cheek article proving that the world would not be different if Columbus had not discovered America. The funny thing was it used Topology and all sorts of fancy math mumbo-jumbo to prove it. It was pretty funny.
I will have to try and find both of these What if?…don’t know if I can wait for Amazon, maybe a Border’s run is in order.
Or I’ll put down my crack and realize that it’s not in this book but in Little Nemo’s recommendation.
Baker, it looks like Amazon/Audible has What If? Volume 3: Ancient Wars that Shaped Our World available as a downloadable audio file for $15.95. It’s dated 1999, and I don’t see Cowley’s name associated with it, so I’ll assume it’s just coincidence. (Yet strangely, they also have an audiobook of What If? Volume 2, dated 2000, which has similar topics as the book that inspired this thread, but not all of the same. Go figure.)
No problem, she would’ve made a great living as a mute porn star.
Seriously, I’ve been an alternate history buff for a long time. This book sounds real interesting to me as I just got finished with the last book of Harry Turtledove’s series on The Great War, which was an alternative outcome of the Civil War, and how it affected world events into the 20th Century.
Have to get on Amazon and check this one out. Thanks Ino.
I’m guessing Tally including the Clinton impeachment so that he’d be able to bring his book up to the near past. If people want specific details about the outcomes Tally invents from this and his other divergences, I’ll summarize and post them, but I’ll do so under a seperate spoiler warning thread so it won’t ruin the book for Ino or others.
