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For Want of a Nail: If Burgoyne Had Won at Saratoga
For Want of a Nail is an alternate history classic. The outcome of one battle in the American Revolution diverges from reality, and sparks an unstoppable chain of events which affects the history of the whole North American continent. In reality, the British general John Burgoyne, heavily outnumbered by American troops, surrendered his army to General Horatio Gates at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, a major turning-point of the Revolution. Robert Sobel takes a step sideways and presents the alternative version: reinforcements arrive at Saratoga, Gates' men flee, and Burgoyne is victorious. Rather than openly allying itself with the American rebels, France withdraws its support, as does Spain, and the colonies surrender. Those former rebels who refuse to live in the Confederation of North America established by the British leave their homes and settle in what becomes the United States of Mexico. From then on the two continental nations find themselves constant rivals, locked in military, political and economic conflict. Sobel provides a detailed, intricately documented insight into two warring powers that develop in such dramatically different ways from their shared origins.
442 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1973
13 people are currently reading
976 people want to read
About the author
Robert Sobel
86 books18 followersRobert Sobel was an American professor of history at Hofstra University, and a well-known and prolific writer of business histories. He was also a chess Master, who represented the United States at the 1957 and 1958 Student chess Olympiads; he defeated thirteen-year-old future World Champion Bobby Fischer at Montreal 1956.
Despite his prolific writings in business history, he is most famous for his single novel, For Want of a Nail, an alternate history of the United States.
Despite his prolific writings in business history, he is most famous for his single novel, For Want of a Nail, an alternate history of the United States.
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October 24, 2022
It's hard to decide whether to give this book four or five stars. I think it is sort of a flawed masterpiece. It's a history of North America from the middle of the 18th century to the then-present day (1971), but from an alternate timeline where the American Revolution failed. It details the history of the two major nations North America eventually spawned from this point of divergence, in the form of a relatively dry, scholarly popular history or textbook. It's very, very unusual. I kind of love it, but it does have issues.
The book is extremely detailed; there is a tremendous labor of imagination put into constructing this plausible alternate world. There are lots of footnotes in the text, all citations to nonexistent books or newspapers from this alternate timeline, each with a fictional author, year of publication, and city of publication; almost all of them are collected in a bibliography at the end of the book. There are lots of tables of statistics and election results, all of course fictional and cited from fictional publications. There's an index. The book proper ends with a scathing critique of the book by a (fictional) historian from this alternate timeline (who has work cited in the bibliography), who has biases and inclinations diametrically opposed to the book's author, who has the name of the real-world author Robert Sobel, but is otherwise totally different; it points up potential alternate readings of the history of this alternate timeline, and is also funny simply as a parody of brutal academic put-down reviews. Basically, everything that can be done is, to give the impression that this is an unremarkable text that's fallen into our universe from an alternate one.
This means that the book reads very oddly for a work of fiction. It's not a novel or a romance; the fictitious narrative is conveyed in the way academic histories are, with the author supposedly drawing on a body of scholarship, picking which details to emphasize or ignore, focusing on salient events and figures, etc. This is a mode Sobel was familiar with, in that he was by training and profession a writer of business histories, and he keeps the facade up very well. It's interesting as a curious stylistic exercise for this reason. It also means the book is very dry, and sometimes frankly dull- but that's part of the game; and if it were consistently exciting, it wouldn't be very believable as a scholarly history of the sort Sobel seeks to replicate.
There are some facets of the book that don't necessarily have a bearing on the quality of the work, but make the circumstances of its creation more evident. Probably because of the author's background as a professional business historian, one of the three major powers whose history the book ends up covering is a fictional mega-corporation. It's sort of interesting in that this predates cyberpunk by a decade or so, but posits a business as potentially a major independent player in world affairs; unlike most later fiction, however, this fictional company (Kramer Associates) is not depicted as particularly evil or corrupt; even when it's working to subvert democratic norms it's depicted as being essentially benign, and working for the good- although the critique at the end of the book calls out the author for being overly sympathetic to Kramer, showing Sobel was aware of this point. Maybe because of when it was written, right in the middle of the real-world Cold War, the fictional history ends in what is basically a fictionalized Cold War, with a stalemate between major powers and a nascent concept and reality of Mutually Assured Destruction enforced by nuclear weapons. "Cold wars" have happened more than once in history, of course; but the idea of an essentially bipolar world, with two superpowers wielding nuclear weapons, isn't an inevitable outcome, and that Sobel chose it as an outcome reflects his real-world experiences and concerns as a man living during the Cold War.
It's interesting what Sobel tries to do with his alternate history thematically- he isn't just making all this up for the joy of invention, though that's definitely part of it. The book has things to say about American political culture, and more distantly about the Civil War (which doesn't happen in this timeline), race relations, and American imperialism and isolationism.
The Confederation of North America- which is ultimately more or less the 13 Colonies + Florida + Canada + the Louisiana Purchase- is the state formed by royalists and moderates, after the failure of the American Revolution and the execution or exile of its leaders. It ends up being, broadly, the USA but slightly better in most ways, though not devoid of failures- its political culture is generally more sedate than the US's, with the states comprising it being weaker relative to the federal government (despite what the name implies), and sectional firebrands being marginalized. The CNA ceases to expand territorially after 1799 (when it acquires continental America up to the Rockies), but the Native Americans of the CNA don't do much better than in our timeline. Economic development is somewhat faster than in real life. Slavery ends earlier than in our timeline (1840), dying peacefully in compensated manumission- but part of the compensation keeps freed slaves bound to the land they were enslaved on for up to two generations, sort of recreating the sharecropper economy of the USA. While not quite as overtly racist as the real-world USA, the CNA ultimately fails to integrate its freed slaves, and Black Americans end up only achieving substantial representation and political power once they migrate en masse to Southern Vandalia (roughly Missouri-Arkansas-Oklahoma) and become a majority there. The CNA also fails to integrate Quebec, with its divergent culture and language, and Quebec ends up peacefully seceding, to be an autonomous state under the CNA's protection. Lacking the USA's imperialism or expansionism, the CNA is broadly isolationist, and stays out of this timeline's equivalent of the World Wars, though guilt and backlash to this inaction leads it to start taking a more active role by the time of the book's writing.
Meanwhile, the United States of Mexico, founded by the exiled rump of the revolutionaries and associated dissidents, sort of exemplifies a lot of the worst things about American political culture. The USM inherits the American traditions of demagoguery, imperialism, and the imperial presidency, with founding father Andrew Jackson exhibiting all three. Its founders start out by squatting in Texas, then conquering Mexico, and eventually expanding by conquest to encompass North America west of the Rockies (including Alaska), and Hawaii. Central America and bits of South America are made Mexican puppet states. The presidency is over-powerful, and more than once the nation lapses into dictatorship, either constitutional or otherwise. The USM is extremely racist, with the minority Anglos slotting themselves into the top of the Spanish colonial casta system; Blacks and native Mexicans are impoverished and disenfranchised. The USM holds onto chattel slavery long past the time it becomes uneconomical, despite its being the preserve of a privileged few; it only ends via presidential effort in the 1920s.
The ultimate picture is very ambiguous. The CNA seems to do just fine without the firebrand revolutionaries who, in our timeline, injected populism and demagoguery into American political culture; Sobel also seems basically aware of the link between democracy and populism and imperialism and expansionism. But things aren't unilaterally better for everyone. The history of the rest of the world is barely touched on, and only viewed in glimpses. Without the successful example of the American Revolution, republicanism is apparently stillborn in Europe, and reaction carries the day well into the 20th century. Without imperialist interests driving the CNA, it sits out the Global War- but that leaves Imperial Germany the master of Europe and the Middle East. Without the moderating influence of the men who founded the CNA, the USM ends up being even more grotesquely unjust and inequal than the USA was. Is this alternate timeline better or worse? Overall, one can't really say it's either.
The book doesn't explicitly detail any of this, of course- this is all metatextual, and dependent on the reader's awareness of real-world history. But this subtext can't be accidental or coincidental; the themes are too deliberately handled.
Not everything is perfect. There are a lot of errors in the book. Not errors about the history of this fictionalized world, of course, because that's impossible, but internal errors, like certain chapters giving incorrect dates for events of earlier chapters; inconsistencies about geography- eg, St Louis is at one point referred to as if it were on the opposite bank of the Mississippi as it is in our world, although it was founded pre-divergence point; errors of terminology- the monarch of the Ottoman Empire is referred to as "Shah" rather than the "Sultan;" and simple typos, especially in non-English names- Guatemala is referred to as "Guatamala," Chapultepec is "Chapultapec." (Maybe you could argue that spellings were regularized differently in this timeline, but that feels like special pleading; "Guatemala" and "Chapultepec" are the Spanish spellings, and there's no reason they'd enter English differently in this timeline.) Later tables of Mexican election results all seem inexplicably to omit the state of Mexico del Norte. Population numbers become increasingly unrealistically inflated as the book goes on; Sobel seems to have been just making them up on the fly without reference to real-world population trends, such that North America ends up more densely populated than in real life, with no particular reason this should be so. Broadly, Sobel- the real Sobel, but also the fictionalized one- seems to have been very knowledgeable about the American Revolution, and about business histories, but sadly deficient in specific knowledge outside these areas, and may have just been too busy to do all the research necessary to make the illusion complete.
There aren't enough maps. The original 1973 book contained in the front matter a map of the alternate-history North America as of 1971, but with substantial errors in the map relative to the text. The modern edition of the book, or at least the 2002 softcover edition, omits even this map, despite claiming to be "complete and unabridged." It'd be preferable to have several maps of America at various points in the history, but to have none at all is nearly unforgiveable.
(As a side note, tangential to the quality of the book: even though it's good that the book got reprinted at all, the reprint is disappointing. It was reprinted in hardcover in 1997, when Sobel (the real-world one) was still alive, and it's unfortunate that the publishers did not take the opportunity to fix some of the errors I mentioned above. Perhaps Sobel was too old or ill to supervise any changes- he died two years later- but even so, there are problems that could've been fixed without adding or changing anything substantive. The reprint uses the exact same typesetting as the 1973 original, including typos, and including several typesetting errors: in one chapter, a footnote number is skipped; in another chapter, the numbers of two footnotes are swapped, so that footnote 30 comes before footnote 29. The dates for several presidencies/governorships given in the tables at the end of the book contradict the text of the book. These problems, plus the map thing, are very disappointing.)
Overall, despite the (mainly technical) issues with the writing, I think that this book is brilliant, and totally unique. There really wasn't anything quite like it when it was published, and even now it's unusual. There are other works presented as authoritative histories of alternate timelines, but they are almost all produced by amateurs and hobbyists (that is, not trained historians), and almost none of them are professionally published in a physical format. It's a trailblazing work of alternate-history, and even now in 2018, after there's been sort of a boom of alt-history fiction over the past 30 or so years, it's remarkable for its thoroughness, imagination, and depth. It's great.
The book is extremely detailed; there is a tremendous labor of imagination put into constructing this plausible alternate world. There are lots of footnotes in the text, all citations to nonexistent books or newspapers from this alternate timeline, each with a fictional author, year of publication, and city of publication; almost all of them are collected in a bibliography at the end of the book. There are lots of tables of statistics and election results, all of course fictional and cited from fictional publications. There's an index. The book proper ends with a scathing critique of the book by a (fictional) historian from this alternate timeline (who has work cited in the bibliography), who has biases and inclinations diametrically opposed to the book's author, who has the name of the real-world author Robert Sobel, but is otherwise totally different; it points up potential alternate readings of the history of this alternate timeline, and is also funny simply as a parody of brutal academic put-down reviews. Basically, everything that can be done is, to give the impression that this is an unremarkable text that's fallen into our universe from an alternate one.
This means that the book reads very oddly for a work of fiction. It's not a novel or a romance; the fictitious narrative is conveyed in the way academic histories are, with the author supposedly drawing on a body of scholarship, picking which details to emphasize or ignore, focusing on salient events and figures, etc. This is a mode Sobel was familiar with, in that he was by training and profession a writer of business histories, and he keeps the facade up very well. It's interesting as a curious stylistic exercise for this reason. It also means the book is very dry, and sometimes frankly dull- but that's part of the game; and if it were consistently exciting, it wouldn't be very believable as a scholarly history of the sort Sobel seeks to replicate.
There are some facets of the book that don't necessarily have a bearing on the quality of the work, but make the circumstances of its creation more evident. Probably because of the author's background as a professional business historian, one of the three major powers whose history the book ends up covering is a fictional mega-corporation. It's sort of interesting in that this predates cyberpunk by a decade or so, but posits a business as potentially a major independent player in world affairs; unlike most later fiction, however, this fictional company (Kramer Associates) is not depicted as particularly evil or corrupt; even when it's working to subvert democratic norms it's depicted as being essentially benign, and working for the good- although the critique at the end of the book calls out the author for being overly sympathetic to Kramer, showing Sobel was aware of this point. Maybe because of when it was written, right in the middle of the real-world Cold War, the fictional history ends in what is basically a fictionalized Cold War, with a stalemate between major powers and a nascent concept and reality of Mutually Assured Destruction enforced by nuclear weapons. "Cold wars" have happened more than once in history, of course; but the idea of an essentially bipolar world, with two superpowers wielding nuclear weapons, isn't an inevitable outcome, and that Sobel chose it as an outcome reflects his real-world experiences and concerns as a man living during the Cold War.
It's interesting what Sobel tries to do with his alternate history thematically- he isn't just making all this up for the joy of invention, though that's definitely part of it. The book has things to say about American political culture, and more distantly about the Civil War (which doesn't happen in this timeline), race relations, and American imperialism and isolationism.
The Confederation of North America- which is ultimately more or less the 13 Colonies + Florida + Canada + the Louisiana Purchase- is the state formed by royalists and moderates, after the failure of the American Revolution and the execution or exile of its leaders. It ends up being, broadly, the USA but slightly better in most ways, though not devoid of failures- its political culture is generally more sedate than the US's, with the states comprising it being weaker relative to the federal government (despite what the name implies), and sectional firebrands being marginalized. The CNA ceases to expand territorially after 1799 (when it acquires continental America up to the Rockies), but the Native Americans of the CNA don't do much better than in our timeline. Economic development is somewhat faster than in real life. Slavery ends earlier than in our timeline (1840), dying peacefully in compensated manumission- but part of the compensation keeps freed slaves bound to the land they were enslaved on for up to two generations, sort of recreating the sharecropper economy of the USA. While not quite as overtly racist as the real-world USA, the CNA ultimately fails to integrate its freed slaves, and Black Americans end up only achieving substantial representation and political power once they migrate en masse to Southern Vandalia (roughly Missouri-Arkansas-Oklahoma) and become a majority there. The CNA also fails to integrate Quebec, with its divergent culture and language, and Quebec ends up peacefully seceding, to be an autonomous state under the CNA's protection. Lacking the USA's imperialism or expansionism, the CNA is broadly isolationist, and stays out of this timeline's equivalent of the World Wars, though guilt and backlash to this inaction leads it to start taking a more active role by the time of the book's writing.
Meanwhile, the United States of Mexico, founded by the exiled rump of the revolutionaries and associated dissidents, sort of exemplifies a lot of the worst things about American political culture. The USM inherits the American traditions of demagoguery, imperialism, and the imperial presidency, with founding father Andrew Jackson exhibiting all three. Its founders start out by squatting in Texas, then conquering Mexico, and eventually expanding by conquest to encompass North America west of the Rockies (including Alaska), and Hawaii. Central America and bits of South America are made Mexican puppet states. The presidency is over-powerful, and more than once the nation lapses into dictatorship, either constitutional or otherwise. The USM is extremely racist, with the minority Anglos slotting themselves into the top of the Spanish colonial casta system; Blacks and native Mexicans are impoverished and disenfranchised. The USM holds onto chattel slavery long past the time it becomes uneconomical, despite its being the preserve of a privileged few; it only ends via presidential effort in the 1920s.
The ultimate picture is very ambiguous. The CNA seems to do just fine without the firebrand revolutionaries who, in our timeline, injected populism and demagoguery into American political culture; Sobel also seems basically aware of the link between democracy and populism and imperialism and expansionism. But things aren't unilaterally better for everyone. The history of the rest of the world is barely touched on, and only viewed in glimpses. Without the successful example of the American Revolution, republicanism is apparently stillborn in Europe, and reaction carries the day well into the 20th century. Without imperialist interests driving the CNA, it sits out the Global War- but that leaves Imperial Germany the master of Europe and the Middle East. Without the moderating influence of the men who founded the CNA, the USM ends up being even more grotesquely unjust and inequal than the USA was. Is this alternate timeline better or worse? Overall, one can't really say it's either.
The book doesn't explicitly detail any of this, of course- this is all metatextual, and dependent on the reader's awareness of real-world history. But this subtext can't be accidental or coincidental; the themes are too deliberately handled.
Not everything is perfect. There are a lot of errors in the book. Not errors about the history of this fictionalized world, of course, because that's impossible, but internal errors, like certain chapters giving incorrect dates for events of earlier chapters; inconsistencies about geography- eg, St Louis is at one point referred to as if it were on the opposite bank of the Mississippi as it is in our world, although it was founded pre-divergence point; errors of terminology- the monarch of the Ottoman Empire is referred to as "Shah" rather than the "Sultan;" and simple typos, especially in non-English names- Guatemala is referred to as "Guatamala," Chapultepec is "Chapultapec." (Maybe you could argue that spellings were regularized differently in this timeline, but that feels like special pleading; "Guatemala" and "Chapultepec" are the Spanish spellings, and there's no reason they'd enter English differently in this timeline.) Later tables of Mexican election results all seem inexplicably to omit the state of Mexico del Norte. Population numbers become increasingly unrealistically inflated as the book goes on; Sobel seems to have been just making them up on the fly without reference to real-world population trends, such that North America ends up more densely populated than in real life, with no particular reason this should be so. Broadly, Sobel- the real Sobel, but also the fictionalized one- seems to have been very knowledgeable about the American Revolution, and about business histories, but sadly deficient in specific knowledge outside these areas, and may have just been too busy to do all the research necessary to make the illusion complete.
There aren't enough maps. The original 1973 book contained in the front matter a map of the alternate-history North America as of 1971, but with substantial errors in the map relative to the text. The modern edition of the book, or at least the 2002 softcover edition, omits even this map, despite claiming to be "complete and unabridged." It'd be preferable to have several maps of America at various points in the history, but to have none at all is nearly unforgiveable.
(As a side note, tangential to the quality of the book: even though it's good that the book got reprinted at all, the reprint is disappointing. It was reprinted in hardcover in 1997, when Sobel (the real-world one) was still alive, and it's unfortunate that the publishers did not take the opportunity to fix some of the errors I mentioned above. Perhaps Sobel was too old or ill to supervise any changes- he died two years later- but even so, there are problems that could've been fixed without adding or changing anything substantive. The reprint uses the exact same typesetting as the 1973 original, including typos, and including several typesetting errors: in one chapter, a footnote number is skipped; in another chapter, the numbers of two footnotes are swapped, so that footnote 30 comes before footnote 29. The dates for several presidencies/governorships given in the tables at the end of the book contradict the text of the book. These problems, plus the map thing, are very disappointing.)
Overall, despite the (mainly technical) issues with the writing, I think that this book is brilliant, and totally unique. There really wasn't anything quite like it when it was published, and even now it's unusual. There are other works presented as authoritative histories of alternate timelines, but they are almost all produced by amateurs and hobbyists (that is, not trained historians), and almost none of them are professionally published in a physical format. It's a trailblazing work of alternate-history, and even now in 2018, after there's been sort of a boom of alt-history fiction over the past 30 or so years, it's remarkable for its thoroughness, imagination, and depth. It's great.
December 7, 2023
"Are you completely loyal to the United States...of Mexico?". This is an alternate history of North America with a vengeance! Robert Sobel has written a novel in the form of a history book, complete with footnotes and a bibliography (all fake, of course) on the turns of American history if the British had won the Revolutionary War. I don't want to provide too many spoilers but: after hanging Washington, Jefferson, and the two Adamses, the English pursued a conciliatory policy towards the colonies, now reorganized into the CONFEDERATION OF NORTH AMERICA, including Quebec. Dissidents from the CNA made a Great Trek west and founded the Republic of Jefferson, which later merged with its southern neighbor to become the United States of Mexico (USM) and a bitter rival to the CNA. Sobel takes the counterfactual history to World War II and beyond. Page-turning stuff, for history buffs and all lovers of what might have been.
May 13, 2012
The concept of this book is staggering. I've read many alternate histories, and they are basically novels, where history takes a different line, but the same people appear, and event are similar. This alternate history is rather a history than a novel. It is written as a classic survey history. The premise is that Burgoyne wins at the Battle of Saratoga, and thus the American Revolution collapses. As the history moves, it becomes more and more divergent from what really happened. If you are a lover of history, I cannot recommend this book more highly. If you want a good story, look elsewhere.
July 25, 2010
This is the best alternative history I have ever read. Its like a textbook for a different time line. Very creative and plauable.
July 28, 2010
For Want of a Nail is a singular work in published alternate history. Unlike the masses of fictional works set in alternate worlds, and the occasional description of an alternate history for the purposes of overt what-if questions and roleplaying sourcebooks, its format is of a nonfiction book from an alternate world. Specifically, a history book written just like a real history book, but detailing the history of an alternate timeline. The writer, Robert Sobel, is a business historian and he has written a book that (other than the fact that the events it describe never happened), is distinguishable from a real history only by the copyright page and the subtitle "If Burgoyne had Won at Saratoga". It comes complete with footnotes (and rather interesting ones), a bibliography consisting of fictional books and some very old but real works, an introductory map, and a critique by another historian (fictional, one assumes, though it may be one of Sobel's real-world colleagues in disguise). As suggested by its format, For Want of a Nail reads like a history book (one focusing on political and economic history primarily, with occasional references to social and military history). It is thus a bit dry if you don't like reading history books, but personally I found the attention to even the smallest colorful details fascinating, while the book as a whole moved along at a good clip - it's about 400 pages of actual text, in the format of a survey history of an alternate North America. It covers 200 years, from the American Revolution to the time when Sobel actually wrote the book (1971). If it were a real history book, it would be considered a fairly interesting one. My opinion is pretty easy to sum up - I consider For Want of a Nail to be the greatest work of alternate history that I have ever read, bar none.
October 1, 2014
Most (in fact, all the ones I can think of off the top of my head) alternate history books are novels; This book instead reads like a history textbook, complete with copious fake footnotes. I found this approach to be quite refreshing. (It helps that Sobel is very committed to this format, going so far as to include a very critical essay from a fake historian at the end and pages and pages of made-up books in the bibliography.)
The departure point is (checks title) if Burgoyne had won at Saratoga, which is plausible; for me, the factor that really seemed like it must be from another earth is the reasonableness and practicality of the British government in the immediate aftermath. Once over that hump, Sobel spins a very interesting if dry tale, and my only complaint here is that the book would have really benefited from a few maps; I was never quite sure where Southern Vandalia and Jefferson were located. Probably for history nerds only, but if you can deal with the dryness, an easy recommendation.
The departure point is (checks title) if Burgoyne had won at Saratoga, which is plausible; for me, the factor that really seemed like it must be from another earth is the reasonableness and practicality of the British government in the immediate aftermath. Once over that hump, Sobel spins a very interesting if dry tale, and my only complaint here is that the book would have really benefited from a few maps; I was never quite sure where Southern Vandalia and Jefferson were located. Probably for history nerds only, but if you can deal with the dryness, an easy recommendation.
August 28, 2018
A fascinating book. I had to remind myself that this was a work that ended in 1971 on several occasions - this was mainly to come to terms with my disappointment that conclusions were already being referred to in the 1950s of this book's timeline.
Still, I enjoyed it. It's a slog to get through because it rewards attention to detail - but the effort is worth it.
All in all, it's a great premise, executed brilliantly.
Still, I enjoyed it. It's a slog to get through because it rewards attention to detail - but the effort is worth it.
All in all, it's a great premise, executed brilliantly.
March 14, 2017
I am not even halfway through "For Want of a Nail" and already I have decided that the book is the best alternative history I have read by far. I finished 1776 by David McCullough and could not help but wondering what if? The success of the American Revolution was just a close run thing. It could so easily have turned out differently. It should have turned out differently. So I decided to finally take "For Want of a Nail" off my shelf. I have not been disappointed. Robert Sobel does a masterful job of transporting the reader into his alternative history of what might have happened had the American Revolution been lost, in this case at Saratoga. A masterful job. Five stars no doubt about it.
Want to read
February 12, 2016This is a book I truly hope to read someday. Robert Sobel's For Want of a Nail is apparently considered one of the godfathers of the alternate history genre.
For science fiction fans, also, it is perhaps an ideal example of a 'butterfly effect' novel with a richly detailed alternate world flowing from the crucible moment.
However, from what I gather, it's a book which requires the reader to have more than a passing knowledge of the history of the American Revolution. And that's why I've been hesitating to read it.
With this alternate history novel, Sobel examines a what-if scenario: What if British General John Burgoyne's invasion army actually prevails over the American counterforce at Saratoga, New York, in Sep-Oct 1777, leading to the collapse of the American independence movement?
From that point, the novel loosely follows the diaspora of American independence leaders, and it outlines what the North American continent might have looked like in the wake of an American defeat. It is a very different North America from that which we are familiar.
It's an absolutely fascinating scenario and a great idea for a book, even though it's clearly not mainstream stuff. Sobel writes this exactly like a history book, replete with detailed footnotes of fictional source material. There's even a postscript in which a fictional peer reviewer (from the novel's alternate history) critiques Sobel's work!
As an exercise in putting together an alternate history written with scholarly structure, there are probably very few peers to this book, if any. Accordingly, I expect this will be very dry and daunting, like a real history book, as Sobel meant it to be.
At this point, I know I'm not ready to tackle this book until I read at least one good account of the Battle of Saratoga and its aftermath, so I can know exactly where Sobel's novel diverges from the historical record and takes flight. I think a general understanding of America's transformation in the 19th century would also be beneficial--then I could follow the continuing divergence into the 19th and 20th centuries. Without it, I expect the divergence will appear increasingly muddled and confusing, and ultimately unsatisfying.
It is a groundbreaking novel, and I'm proud to have a copy for my eventual reading, but I know it is not a novel for the casual reader of history. I suspect it would be a serious challenge to the average reader of alternate fiction, too. I wish there were more authors brave enough to write books like this.
For science fiction fans, also, it is perhaps an ideal example of a 'butterfly effect' novel with a richly detailed alternate world flowing from the crucible moment.
However, from what I gather, it's a book which requires the reader to have more than a passing knowledge of the history of the American Revolution. And that's why I've been hesitating to read it.
With this alternate history novel, Sobel examines a what-if scenario: What if British General John Burgoyne's invasion army actually prevails over the American counterforce at Saratoga, New York, in Sep-Oct 1777, leading to the collapse of the American independence movement?
From that point, the novel loosely follows the diaspora of American independence leaders, and it outlines what the North American continent might have looked like in the wake of an American defeat. It is a very different North America from that which we are familiar.
It's an absolutely fascinating scenario and a great idea for a book, even though it's clearly not mainstream stuff. Sobel writes this exactly like a history book, replete with detailed footnotes of fictional source material. There's even a postscript in which a fictional peer reviewer (from the novel's alternate history) critiques Sobel's work!
As an exercise in putting together an alternate history written with scholarly structure, there are probably very few peers to this book, if any. Accordingly, I expect this will be very dry and daunting, like a real history book, as Sobel meant it to be.
At this point, I know I'm not ready to tackle this book until I read at least one good account of the Battle of Saratoga and its aftermath, so I can know exactly where Sobel's novel diverges from the historical record and takes flight. I think a general understanding of America's transformation in the 19th century would also be beneficial--then I could follow the continuing divergence into the 19th and 20th centuries. Without it, I expect the divergence will appear increasingly muddled and confusing, and ultimately unsatisfying.
It is a groundbreaking novel, and I'm proud to have a copy for my eventual reading, but I know it is not a novel for the casual reader of history. I suspect it would be a serious challenge to the average reader of alternate fiction, too. I wish there were more authors brave enough to write books like this.
March 28, 2018
Over the past few decades, alternate history has emerged as an increasingly popular sub-genre of science fiction. Through it, an ever-growing number of authors and fans have postulated the different turns that history might have taken, often because of relatively minor circumstances. Most writers use this to establish a divergent setting for fictional works, in which characters come to terms with the very different worlds that emerged as a result.
In this respect Robert Sobel offers something different. Rather than develop an alternate history setting for a work of fiction, he created something far more elaborate – a thoroughly articulated timeline of events resulting from a British victory in the Battle of Saratoga. From it, he envisages an American Revolution that ends in a British victory and the emergence of two different countries – the British-spawned Confederation of North America and a separate state founded by the surviving revolutionaries that evolves into the United States of Mexico.
In developing his alternate world, Sobel presents it in the form of a “nonfiction” text rather than that of a novel. This is a considerable undertaking; instead of simply drafting a setting, he has to develop an increasingly intricate sequence of events, all of which must be plausible in explaining broader developments that took place over the following two centuries. Adding to the challenge is that he does this within the context of a narrative “history” without the benefit of the novelist’s devices of character and dialogue to maintain the reader’s interest.
All of this makes Sobel’s achievement an impressive one. Not only does he present a plausible and fully realized alternative to the history with which readers will be familiar, he does so in a way that can keep a reader’s attention. In many respects, it reads as a satire of a true nonfiction work, complete with footnotes citing nonexistent books and fake disputes between academics who never lived. It serves as just one more strata of a richly-layered work, one that may not be as exciting of a read as the works of authors like Harry Turtledove but one that can envelop the reader in a way that few other works of the genre are able.
In this respect Robert Sobel offers something different. Rather than develop an alternate history setting for a work of fiction, he created something far more elaborate – a thoroughly articulated timeline of events resulting from a British victory in the Battle of Saratoga. From it, he envisages an American Revolution that ends in a British victory and the emergence of two different countries – the British-spawned Confederation of North America and a separate state founded by the surviving revolutionaries that evolves into the United States of Mexico.
In developing his alternate world, Sobel presents it in the form of a “nonfiction” text rather than that of a novel. This is a considerable undertaking; instead of simply drafting a setting, he has to develop an increasingly intricate sequence of events, all of which must be plausible in explaining broader developments that took place over the following two centuries. Adding to the challenge is that he does this within the context of a narrative “history” without the benefit of the novelist’s devices of character and dialogue to maintain the reader’s interest.
All of this makes Sobel’s achievement an impressive one. Not only does he present a plausible and fully realized alternative to the history with which readers will be familiar, he does so in a way that can keep a reader’s attention. In many respects, it reads as a satire of a true nonfiction work, complete with footnotes citing nonexistent books and fake disputes between academics who never lived. It serves as just one more strata of a richly-layered work, one that may not be as exciting of a read as the works of authors like Harry Turtledove but one that can envelop the reader in a way that few other works of the genre are able.
May 21, 2008
The book that basically kick-started the modern alternate-history movement (and by a business economist, no less, which is probably why he has a big corporation end up with the A-bomb). This thing is really well-researched and fun as hell, but almost painfully detailed and actually quite bizarre.
July 6, 2020
For want of a Nail is a largely economic history textbook from another timeline.
Primarily focusing on the North American continent from the P.o.D in the titular victory at Saratoga, through the founding of two of the three primary actors of the text; The CNA and USM, across the tumult of an alternate timeline introducing the final actor Kramer and Associates, eventually crossing a singular global war and landing in the 'present' 1971.
The style is consistent throughout with clever use of footnotes to add the voice of the author and sprinkle further references to the changed world. I would say the book is rather at dry times, but is very upfront about that and the tone fits consistently with the themes the book chooses to cover in detail.
It is probably the most fully realised alternate history I have read, as it keeps the scope very tightly focused on North America with only brief flashes of the rest of the world.
There are a few oddities such as impeachment proceedings in a parliamentary system against the head of government and the touting of republican values in a monarchical CNA which could have scanned perhaps more fittingly as democratic values. The only big issue I found was that KA seemed to have been projected as an unstoppable force (the East India Company on steroids), constantly being the smartest and all round best player on the world stage. This apparent bias is to a degree called out in the rebuttal at the end of the book, so perhaps that is intentional, but even so comes off as a little Mary sue (ltd).
All round a very enjoyable timeline, well presented, especially as the only work of fiction from the author.
Primarily focusing on the North American continent from the P.o.D in the titular victory at Saratoga, through the founding of two of the three primary actors of the text; The CNA and USM, across the tumult of an alternate timeline introducing the final actor Kramer and Associates, eventually crossing a singular global war and landing in the 'present' 1971.
The style is consistent throughout with clever use of footnotes to add the voice of the author and sprinkle further references to the changed world. I would say the book is rather at dry times, but is very upfront about that and the tone fits consistently with the themes the book chooses to cover in detail.
It is probably the most fully realised alternate history I have read, as it keeps the scope very tightly focused on North America with only brief flashes of the rest of the world.
There are a few oddities such as impeachment proceedings in a parliamentary system against the head of government and the touting of republican values in a monarchical CNA which could have scanned perhaps more fittingly as democratic values. The only big issue I found was that KA seemed to have been projected as an unstoppable force (the East India Company on steroids), constantly being the smartest and all round best player on the world stage. This apparent bias is to a degree called out in the rebuttal at the end of the book, so perhaps that is intentional, but even so comes off as a little Mary sue (ltd).
All round a very enjoyable timeline, well presented, especially as the only work of fiction from the author.
February 17, 2023
This book is not a work of alternative history: no dashing heroes in a time where because of the intervention of aliens / visitors from the future / work of magic ... the world changed. No this is a work of - to borrow a title from Niall Ferguson - virtual history. A battle was lost, or won - depending on the POV.
And since in this book Saratoga was won by the British the American Revolution in fact ends but history continues. Only somewhat different ... The book tells the history of the 200 years following in this changed world. Some things never change, but for others the old proverb that is the title of this book seems true.
The only problem I have with it is that it is too ambitious - wanting to tell a world history with emphasis on North America in some detail - and therefore needing 450 pages! After some time it becomes tiresome.
The best works of alternative history keep the virtual history, the background of their novels, short but insert it as by-the-way tales once so often. One of the best examples for that is „The Two Georges". This book is virtual history pure. Very interesting and entertaining for someone knowledgeable in actual history. But a bore or worse for someone who is not.
And since in this book Saratoga was won by the British the American Revolution in fact ends but history continues. Only somewhat different ... The book tells the history of the 200 years following in this changed world. Some things never change, but for others the old proverb that is the title of this book seems true.
The only problem I have with it is that it is too ambitious - wanting to tell a world history with emphasis on North America in some detail - and therefore needing 450 pages! After some time it becomes tiresome.
The best works of alternative history keep the virtual history, the background of their novels, short but insert it as by-the-way tales once so often. One of the best examples for that is „The Two Georges". This book is virtual history pure. Very interesting and entertaining for someone knowledgeable in actual history. But a bore or worse for someone who is not.
June 6, 2018
In this book the American revolution never happened - it started then fizzled out. In turn this caused a ripple effect felt globally. No World war 1, World war 2 was started much later and it was not fought over race but oil in the middle east. The great ruling families in Europe were not removed from their thrones - the French revolution would eventually happen but it would be 60 years later and on a much smaller less violent scale, the czars kept power and there was no people's revolution and there fore, Communism didn't spread around the world. Don't get me wrong the world wasn't a rosy place North America still had issues - they were just different ones, there was no Civil war, the Federal government bought the slaves their freedom. North America had several more depressions and recessions as we were more business dependant in the book than in real life. This book ends in about 1960, it would be wonderful if it was re-released updated. A great book if you've ever wondered what could have been accomplished if Canada and the United States had remained one nation.
March 24, 2017
This book was incredibly neat, if only because it was written in a way that science fiction and alternate history never are, but in which I wish they were. Specifically, it’s written as a non-fiction work about the world it’s set in.
Since I’m often as interested or more interested in the development of a world than in the development of characters, I wish more books were written this way–but then, I’m someone who reads history books for fun.
For Want of a Nail is a history of North America from a failed American Revolution through the mid-Twentieth Century. And, unlike Turtledove’s innumerable books about the aftermath of a successful War of Southern Secession, it doesn’t just follow the lives of a few people, most of whom are famous in our timeline, but instead attempts to outline the overall history of the continent.
Since I’m often as interested or more interested in the development of a world than in the development of characters, I wish more books were written this way–but then, I’m someone who reads history books for fun.
For Want of a Nail is a history of North America from a failed American Revolution through the mid-Twentieth Century. And, unlike Turtledove’s innumerable books about the aftermath of a successful War of Southern Secession, it doesn’t just follow the lives of a few people, most of whom are famous in our timeline, but instead attempts to outline the overall history of the continent.
June 21, 2021
I love Alternate History as a literary genre, and the theme of the American Revolution being unsuccessful is not unique to this book. This one is well written and well thought out. My problem is that I prefer them when they are written as novels, with characters, plots, dialogues. etc. This one is written as a history textbook.
So my two-star rating isnt because it's a bad book. It's because I didnt enjoy reading it.
So my two-star rating isnt because it's a bad book. It's because I didnt enjoy reading it.
January 17, 2020
Absolutely fascinating alternate history. Rather than a narrative, this is presented as a scholarly work from the then-present of the world described. A historic textbook of a history that didn't actually happen.
November 2, 2022
Fake history book, with footnotes, about an alternate history of North America. Dry, lots of politics, elections, economy, statistics. Over 400 pages, but still readable. Not exciting, no message, a bit dull.
November 21, 2025
I expected a novel and got a history book instead. I would liked to have had a few maps, just to get an eye view of the changing boarders. A lot of good work went into this and i think it was very well done. I am glad this is not true history. Recommend
March 24, 2018
Excellent alternate history. Different than others I have read...
February 20, 2022
A dry economic history textbook from a totally different world. Just jam this right into my veins.
April 19, 2023
Well worthy of the title of alternate history classic, the best of what the genre can be.
December 3, 2025
Good, but very dry and dense
October 12, 2012
This book was a unique reading experience. I'm glad I read it, but I never really got into it.
As a work of fiction it was too dry. As a work of non-fiction it was very weak on technology and geography - both of which I consider to be heavy players in history.
Then there were the footnotes. The carefully formatted footnotes are the defining part of this book. They made me want to "suspend disbelief" but their persistent use broke up my reading rhythm. Worse than that: knowing that they were fiction, it made me question every other footnote in every other textbook I've ever read, leaving me feeling uneasy.
As a work of fiction it was too dry. As a work of non-fiction it was very weak on technology and geography - both of which I consider to be heavy players in history.
Then there were the footnotes. The carefully formatted footnotes are the defining part of this book. They made me want to "suspend disbelief" but their persistent use broke up my reading rhythm. Worse than that: knowing that they were fiction, it made me question every other footnote in every other textbook I've ever read, leaving me feeling uneasy.
September 13, 2010
As Alternative Histories go, this one is intiguing but ultimately unsuccessful. Sobel carries a supposed timeline from Saratoga in 1778 to the 1970s and writes in the form of a textbook. Sobel is an economist, and it shows. The stuff is dry, packed tight with imaginary economic and political statistics. But as importantly, good alternative history requires real people and Sobel's treatment is top heavy with imaginary characters, especially after the last real one disappears in the alternate 1840s. This one has been forgotten since it came out in the 1970s, and it's just as well.
November 2, 2015
A beautifully rendered alternate history book, written as a text book in a complete "in universe" style (with footnotes, alternative analysis and more of the trappings of academic history) which marvelously, in its plodding this-led-to-this whiggish way, demonstrates how what is history is always contested ("many have crossed the Rubicon, why do we only remember Caesar?").
And it ends with a private corporation becoming a nuclear world power, with its own island-state (Taiwan) to itself. Chilling.
And it ends with a private corporation becoming a nuclear world power, with its own island-state (Taiwan) to itself. Chilling.
August 10, 2012
I'm amazed at how this fictional (written in textbook style) alternate history book from over 40 years ago can relate to some of the problems we are seeing now. I think some of the premises are far-fetched, but hey, isn't that what alternate history is supposed to be? Read it (if you can find it) and see if there aren't things that our current politicians and talking heads are going on about.
August 2, 2013
best, most detailed alternative history I've ever read, basically the Loyalists "win" the American Revolution and most of the "Radicals" (the people you'd recognize as the Founding Fathers) split off from the colonies and end up founding "The United States of Mexico". It reads like a historical textbook. Great stuff!
June 20, 2015
I heard that this was the "Citizen Kane" of alternative histories, that was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and gave it a read. This was a wonderful, thought provoking, book. It is like you went in a dimensional travel machine and grabbed a text book and brought it back to this world. I couldn't stop reading it.
December 18, 2011
The concept of non-fiction alternate history is still seeking justification in my frontal lobe, despite my having got through the book. This one's plausible, even interesting, but may give you the distinct feeling you're wasting your time.
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