What Ifs? Of American History |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Hurricanes > Item 205
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What Ifs? Of American History
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by Robert Cowley
Sales Rank: 385131
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List Price: $14.95
$10.17
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on 9-15-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 320 pages
Published by: Berkley Trade September 7, 2004
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0425198189
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0425198186
Book Dimensions:
8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
Weighs: 12 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
The 18 contributors to this latest installment of the What If? series are indeed eminent: they include David McCullough, Tom Fleming and Robert Dallek (though series editor Cowley might have found more than one lady for his roster). For historians whose works are bound by facts, there must have been pleasure in letting their imaginations engage instead in speculation, though the "shadow universe" presented here is still rooted in the historical record and reflects back on it. In "Might the Mayflower not have sailed?", for example, Theodore K. Rabb enumerates a series of "strokes of luck" that enabled the Pilgrims to come to America, including Sir Edwin Sandys's propitious takeover of the Virginia Company. And in "What if Watergate Was Still Just an Upscale Address?", Lawrence Malkin and John Stacks wonder what would have happened Nixon hadn't been forced to resign the presidency. Americans would be less cynical, they speculate, and, more surprisingly, the U.S. might have had a national health insurance plan. Other essays ask fascinating questions about the the Civil War and the Cuban missile crisis. A pleasure for history buffs longing to engage in some footloose imagination, this book drives home the fact that even momentous political events can hinge on a few uncontrollable events. Maps and b&w photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Did Eisenhower avoid a showdown with Stalin by not taking Berlin before the Soviets? What might have happened if JFK hadn't been assassinated? This new volume in the widely praised series presents fascinating "what if" scenarios by such prominent historians as: Robert Dallek, Caleb Carr, Antony Beevor, John Lukacs, Jay Winick, Thomas Fleming, Tom Wicker, Theodore Rabb, Victor David Hansen, Cecelia Holland, Andrew Roberts, Ted Morgan, George Feifer, Robert L. O'Connell, Lawrence Malkin, and John F. Stacks.
Included are two essential bonus essays reprinted from the original New York Times bestseller What If?(tm)-David McCullough imagines Washington's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Long Island, and James McPherson envisions Lee's successful invasion of the North in 1862.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: What If?s of American History (What If? (G.P. Putnam's Sons)) (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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What Ifs? Of American History
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