More What If? Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been

by Robert Cowley (Editor)

'Marvellously entertaining as well as thought-provoking - the finest intellectual parlour-game around.' Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph More What If?, the sequel to the acclaimed What If? examines history's most fascinating what-might have-beens. More of the world's leading historians, including Geoffrey Parker, Theodore K Rabb, Cecilia Holland and Caleb Carr postulate on what might so easily have been. Concentrating on the crucial and the seemingly insignificant, What If? 2 is an entertaining and brilliantly provocative look at the way our world could easily have been.What if William hadn't conquered? What if the enigma code remained uncracked? And would this even matter if Lord Halifax had become Prime Minister rather than Churchill? This selection of alternative history is both provocative and stimulating and gives us a valuable insight into the way things could so easily have been.Praise for the What If? series

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Alternate History

427 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2003

About the author

Robert Cowley is an American military historian, who writes on topics in American and European military history ranging from the Civil War through World War II. He has held several senior positions in book and magazine publishing and is the founding editor of the award-winning MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History; Cowley has also written extensively and edited three collections of essays in counterfactual history known as What If?

As part of his research he has traveled the entire length of the Western Front, from the North Sea to the Swiss Border.

He currently lives in New York and Connecticut.

-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

More What If is a collection of essays, which generally follow the same formula. In each, a factual account is given of a major historical event. The author then deviates from what actually was to what might have been and discusses how history may have unfolded had events taken a different turn. For instance, what if Pilate had pardoned Jesus or Theodore Roosevelt had won the US Presidential Election of 1912 or Lenin had not returned to Russia shortly after the last Czar's removal. Each history/hypothetical is by a different author and their quality varies from well written and fascinating to too long and tedious. For students of history, the collection, as a whole, should prove quite interesting. Those not well versed in this discipline may have far less appreciation for this work.

[Lee Kofman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book really didn't live up to my expectations... I stopped reading 2/3 through. I loved the premise very much, that's why I bought it. But the editor, who has written a lot about military history, ended up soliciting essays that mostly focused on military history. Which is fine if this book was framed as such, but it wasn't.... So I ended up ploughing my way through countless minute descriptions of battles and weapons, while what I was hoping for was a much broader selection of events. Worse, the 'what if' part of the deal in most essays was very short and presented in broad brushstrokes - veery few truly interesting speculations. The majority of their words the featured historians spent on explaining how an alternative scenario (like someone's defeat in a battle) could have happened instead of the real one (someone's victory in a battle...). Lastly, the book disproportionately engaged with English and American history and left little room for other countries.

[Skyring · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one immensely. I'm almost certain that I've encountered this book and its striking cover image before, but perhaps not this copy.

The scenarios differ enormously in counterfactual speculation. One of them is pretty much a straightforward description of what happened, with only a few sentences of alternate history speculation. Others get right into the spirit of the thing.

Odddly enough, the one I enjoyed most was the article examining what might have happened if Pilate had spared Jesus. And the ones I skipped a lot involved recent US politics. Do I care if Wallace didn't get the Democratic nomination for VP in 1944? Not a lot.

But overall, a very enjoyable and thoughtful book. Ever since I read Winston Churchill speculating on what might have happened if Lee had not won at Gettysburg, I've loved these alternate history scenarios. History on a cusp, a metre to one side and the arrow doesn't hit the king in the eye, or Lord Halifax becomes PM instead of Churchill, or Hitler decides to fight on...

[Christopher Bashforth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall a reasonable and interesting read. One major problem with the book is that the contributors often “chicken out” when discussing their particular alternative historical scenario. They will provide all the background concerning the scenario but there will just be a couple of paragraphs on what could have happened differently. There are however, a couple of authors who are brave and give almost their whole piece to the alternative happenings – for example what if Jesus hadn’t been crucified – Christianity still results but in a different form (closer to Judaism) and if Anthony and Cleopatra had won the war against Augustus – a bipolar Mediterranean (a powerful Egypt) instead of just Rome? Definitely better than the first volume – less military focused.

[Teddy Dodger · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I had more time I'd write a shorter review. Apologies.

Overall a much better collection in my opinion than the first volume, with better editing, a slightly more interesting curation of essays (too much focus on WW2 for my taste but that's understandable) and the quality of writing massively improved. None of the essays felt like a chore to get through, even if I have quips and quarrells with some of the writers conclusions.
Have brief (or sometimes not so brief) thoughts about each of the essays in the collection below noted as I read it:

If Socrates died at Delium- Victor Davis Hanson- Far more disciplined essay than his essay in the previous anthology on Salamis- demonstrates that he would have survived, but in the plays of Aristophenes not in the dialogues of Plato or Xenophen. Western Philosophy would have profoundly changed had Socrates fled in a different direction at that Athenian defeat (though VDH takes for granted the internalist view of philosophical/scientific history, which can be critiqued though he lacks space in 20 page essay).

If Athony won Actium- Josiah Ober- Well disciplined, good at demonstrating affects, though the bit on Jesus is iffy.

Jesus is spared- Carloc Eire- This is a tough one as for a Christian the events of Jesus's life were ordained, and there is no room for Pilate to spare Jesus. Assuming Christianity to be false, and Pilate spares the historical Jesus, then I think his counterfactual account of a different form of Judaism taking over the Empire is plausible.

William loses Hastings- Cecelia Holland- Good.

China discovers new world- Theo Cook- Good, I think this is more plausible than commonly assumed (without going full Gavin Menzies and arguing it acc happened).

Martin Luther burned at sake- Geoffrey Parker- Spent too much time on the 'what' and only a page
on the 'what if'. Good case study in significance of an individual

Charles I+ sons die of plague in 1641- Theo Rabb- Good. Another 'individuals matter' case study, but in this case we have no civil war but a Germanic occupation of the throne 73 years before it took place (As Elisabeth of Bohemia and her German brood accede). So a full-pivot back to how things would have been, minus the philosophy produced by Hobbes+Locke in response to the civil war (Rabb takes for granted the externalist view of philosophical/scientific history, which can be critiqued though he lacks space in 15 page essay also discussing the Civil War).

Napoleon invades North America- Thomas Fleming- A few technical faults (Jefferson became President in 1801, not 1800, and had cooled on the French Revolution under the Directory, not Napoleon) but still a good essay in 'diseases matter'. Tad reaching that Napoleons invasion of North America in 1802 would bifurcate the country, end slavery and racial animosity sixty years early and all sorts of other things.

Lincoln doesn't free slaves- Tom Wicker. Not convinced the Europeans would have intervened in the Civil War had the Emancipation Proclomaton been issued, there was more going on there. Obviously a monumental text in American racial history, whose absence would have widespreading affects.

Napoleon III doesn't declare war- Alastair Horne- Come across this essay thinking, based on his behaviour with the Elms telegram, Bizzy would have manipulated the situation at some point anyway, esp if Napoleon III died in 1873 and France became even weaker. Not sure Napoleon III is the 'individual' who matters. But Horne does paint a good picture of an alternative history in which doves gain ascendancy in both Paris+Berlin, Bavaria allies with Austria and thus German unification is permannently forstaled. Not so sure about Grant getting involved in all this.

TR wins in 1912- John Luckas- Same domestic policies as Wilson, and a similiar foreign policy of strength in the western hemisphere, and late entry to WW1 in 1917. But millitary buildup from 1914, not from 1917, makes the US a stronger partner which causes the war to end in May 1917 (Germany and Russia remain constitutional monarchies).TR dies in 1919, and Theodorian realpolitik is replaced by Wilsonian idealism through the backdoor anyway by Herbert Hoover(??) and 36 (???) years of Republican rule is broken in 1932 by FDR. Luckas writes well as a 2nd order counterfactual, but am not convinced by some of the details. But he is apt at pointing out the weakness of the US in this time, a point which reinforces Robert O'Connell's essay on what could have happened if the Germans had continued unrestricted submarine warfare after the Lusitania Incident (German victory).

George Feifer- No Lenin. Measured essay, concluding that if the Germans denied Lenin passage in 1917, or if he'd been arrested after the July Days 'that Russia would still be a mess, but a different kind of mess'.

FDR essay- Geoff Ward- Despite the detrimental tone, ends up making me wish Garner (FDR's VP) had become president instead

War of 1938- Williamson Murray. Doubt it's a definitive interpretation, and more could have been said about the strategic reality of the USSR and Germany being de-facto on the same side.

PM Halifax- Andrew Roberts. Did not realise how plausible this what if was, and how it would have led to a dramatically different world (assuming Halifax then makes peace towards the end of May and leaves the whole of Europe to the USSR).

Bradley on Australia, Kahn on Enigma, Katz on Pius XII, Frank on no atomic bombs dropped (i.e. mass Allied/Japanese casualties), Spiller on Hitler living- All good.

Caleb Carr on VE Day 1944- Teases out good indirect epistimological point that just because the Allies won, doesn't mean they couldn't have won sooner, but our heuristics can obscure asking questions along these lines after the fact. Good thing to discuss when the historians inevitibly look at 2020-2021 vaccine rollout.

James Chace on Wallace becoming prez- Measured conclusion that the Cold War would have happened anyway, in a different form. The presidency, even after FDR, is not all-powerful as some may imagine it.

Morrow- JFK//LBJ/Nixon- Good, doesn't go too far in considering the implications of their non-presidencies, just pointing out that all three faced pivotal moments in 1948.

And a good essay to conclude on POTATOES.

[C.L. Spillard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now then.

It appears I was 'a bit previous' in my review of the first 'What If' volume of alternative historical possibilities, giving it 4 rather than 5 stars for, among other reasons, lack of my favourite 'what-if' of all history. I find the sequel has, as its first line of back page blurb,

"What if, on 14th October 1066, William the Conqueror had lost the Battle of Hastings?"

No spoilers here, but a 'fun fact' - which I hadn't known until my research, during the writing of 'The Evening Lands', on the Battle of Fulford (the first of the three 1066 battles, and which happened just down the road from where I live) - is that Harold Godwinson owed his religious allegiance to Constantinople - not Rome. The England invaded by William was, technically, an Orthodox Christian contry, and part of a sweep of civilisation extending not just through Viking Scandinavia ("As every schoolkid knows") but also as far east as Kyiv and Novgorod - the latter at that time building an intelligent effort to "Seek a prince who may rule over us and judge us according to law." What might have happened if that sweep of Northern civilisation, rather than the Rome-based one of southern Europe, had held sway over the Middle Ages?

Uh, so, right - this is a book review not a soap-box. To horse!

A wider range of 'What if's are covered here, not just the military. The effect upon Western philosophy of Socrates dying in battle (yes, he had to do National Service); Pilate sparing Jesus (so no crosses on necklaces); Ming Dynasty Chinese navigator Zheng He making it all the way round the Cape of Good Hope in his giant ships instead of being called back home...

'More What If' lacks the short-and-sweet inter-chapter essays of the first volume, jewels which included some of the most extreme, rapid, and breathtaking turning points. But it lives up to its name even better than the first volume in that there is a little less concentration on the minutiae of battle and more on the speculation of the wider results.

Like the first 'What If' it is quite information-dense - worth a pause after reading each chapter especially if, like me, you're not an historian. Both books are also a pretty good way of understanding what actually did happen on all the world-turning occasions they describe.

So it's getting more stars than volume 1 - and not just because of Hastings.

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Little counterfactuals involving single decisions in single lives that would (probably) have had vast effects on the present world. Needed this book because, at my school, the big historical cliches - Hastings - were divorced from their effects. Had Socrates died before meeting Plato, two thousand years of persuasive anti-democratic thought might have been prevented; had Zheng He just kept going, a Confucian America without a divine mandate to convert and subjugate, and an overwhelmed, boxed-in and thus united pre-colonial Europe might have resulted.

It may be coincidental, but it is suggestive nonetheless that the interest among serious historians in counterfactual analysis basically corresponds with the rise of a dramatically new way of looking at the physics of complex systems, known popularly as chaos theory.

They are also just great stories, cf. Adam Gopnik's

It is the aim of all academic historians in our time to drain as much drama from history as is consistent with the facts; and it is the goal of popular historians to add as much drama to history as is consistent with the facts, or can be made to seem so.

This is the former people doing the latter work. Damn good fun, and maybe valuable in the absence of proper modelling.

[Mike Futcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent collection of counterfactual historical essays edited by Robert Cowley. All are well-written and well-argued (some, naturally, more than others); the topics are all well-chosen and the book is certainly not a waste of your time. Counterfactual history exercises are often sniffed at, but Cowley successfully argues for the legitimacy of the approach: "There is no better way of understanding what did happen in history than to contemplate what very well might have happened. Counterfactual history has a way of making the stakes of a confrontation stand out in relief" (pg. xvii).

By mapping out contrary routes, the historians here shatter the complacency regarding what "we have come to accept as the natural course of world history" (pg. 102) and, in doing so, throw into sharp emphasis just how important certain factors were to a certain event, and how important a certain event was to historical developments. The counterfactual scenarios are all thought-provoking and some are scarily real and immediate. Anything that challenges complacency about the inevitability of things – not least the Disneyland moral that good always triumphs over evil just because – is very welcome in our worrying times. The readability and high scholarship of the book is just a massive bonus to this timely reminder.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the sections were interesting historically, but the major sell of the book, the "what if," was light in almost all the chapters.

[Suvi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Päätäsekoittavaa ajatella, että asiat olisivat voineet mennä toisinkin. Valinnoilla on aina seuraus.