More What If?: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been [Paperback]

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.

The vast majority of all the essays in this book is actually simply factual accounts. The Hastings essay, for example, describes the battle in detail and the events leading up to Williams invasion-in that unchronological order! In between this there is about a page slighly dabbling in "what if" with a few thoughts about Britian as a Norse, rather than Latin, nation.

This book is, mostly, a history book. The main body of each essay concentrates on historical details. The "what if" part is actually rather limited (usually just a couple of pages) and based heavily on factual knowledge, such as how other powers in that situation behaved. As such don't buy it expecting wild and fantastical theories about how the world might have been!

This book also presumes the reader to have some historical knowledge already, and as such is best suited for people who have studied history at A level and beyond (or who are keen readers). Most people will probably find several essays to be simply a repeat of things already stuided- but there is more than enough scope in this book for people to find something new.

This is a nicely put together book- excellent for people who enjoy history to dip into time and time again.