Counterfactuals--what-if scenarios--fueled countless bull sessions in smoke-filled dorm rooms in the 1960s. What if Sitting Bull had had a machine gun at Little Big Horn? What if Attila the Hun had had a time machine? What if Columbus had landed in India after all? Some of those dorm-room speculators grew up to be historians, and their generation (along with a few younger and older scholars) makes a strong showing in this anthology of essays, in which the what-ifs are substantially more plausible. What if Hitler had not attacked Russia when he did? He might have moved into the Middle East and secured the oil supplies the Third Reich so badly needed, helping it retain its power in Europe. What if D-Day had been a failure? The Soviet Union might have controlled all of Europe. What if Sennacherib had pressed the siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C.? Then the nascent, monotheistic Jewish religion might never have taken hold among the people of Judah--and the daughter religions of Christianity and Islam would never have been born.

So suggest some of the many first-rate contributors to this collection, which grew from a special issue of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History. One of them is classicist Josiah Ober, who suggests that if Alexander the Great had died at the age of 21 instead of 32, Greece would have been swallowed up by Persia and Rome, and the modern Western world would have a much different sensibility--and probably little idea of democratic government. Still other contributors are Stephen E. Ambrose, Caleb Carr, John Keegan, David McCullough, and James McPherson, who examine a range of scenarios populated by dozens of historical figures, including Sir Walter Raleigh, Chiang Kai-shek, Robert E. Lee, Benito Mussolini, and Themistocles. The result is a fascinating exercise in historical speculation, one that emphasizes the importance of accident and of roads not taken in the evolution of human societies across time. --Gregory McNamee


From Publishers Weekly
CounterfactualsAconsiderations of alternate outcomesAmake up one of the main provinces of military history. This volume, for which an A&E companion TV documentary is scheduled in November, incorporates two dozen essays and a dozen sidebars on what might have happened by writers of diverse specialties, including generalist Lewis Lapham, novelist Cecelia Holland and historians John Keegan, David McCullough and Stephen Ambrose. Readers willing to be open-minded can consider Europe's fate had the Mongols continued their 13th-century course of conquest. They can speculate on the death in battle of Hern n Cort?s and the consequences of an Aztec Empire surviving to present times. Thanks to James McPherson, they can read of a battle of Gettysburg fought in 1862 (instead of 1963) and resulting in a Confederate victory, or the consequences of a Confederate defeat at Chancellorsville courtesy of Steven Sears. Ambrose suggests that Allied defeat on D-Day would have meant nuclear devastation for Germany in the summer of 1945. Arthur Waldron presents a China, and a world, that might have been far different had Chiang Kai-shek not taken the risk of invading Manchuria in 1946. Consistently well drawn, these scenarios open intellectual as well as imaginative doors for anyone willing to walk through them. Maps and photos not seen by PW. Audio rights to Simon & Schuster; foreign rights sold in the U.K. and Germany. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
What if George Washington hadn't escaped from Long Island? What if Lee's Special Order No. 191 hadn't been lost? How would history be different? Cowley, founding editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, calls on historians like Stephen Ambrose and John Keegan to reconsider history's little quirks. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, David Murray
This is fascinating and provocative stuff.


Entertainment Weekly, September 17, 1999
Since chance, error, and the weather deserve as much credit as humans for the mess known as history, its fair to ask historians for a retake. What If? Imagine the narrowly missed possibilities of a Muslim Europe, a Mongol Europe, a permanently Confederate South, a 20th century in which names Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao mean nothing, or a triumphant Nazi Reich or Japanese Empire. You'll have the vertigo-inducing sense that everything, you and me included, could have been very, very different. Grade: A.


From Booklist
The mysterious subtext of military history, counterfactual suppositions, here parades in full regalia. Among the speculating drum majors are the most popular contemporary names in the field (e.g., James McPherson and John Keegan), but fame should be no prerequisite for delving into the essays of all three dozen authors. They explore the trove of contingent events that could have transformed the Western world into something other than what it developed into. If not for Themistocles, the Athenian admiral who galvanized the Greeks at Salamis, the seed of Western civilization might never have germinated. An Islamic Europe might have evolved from a different result of the Battle of Tours, and had not the Mongols' Khan keeled over in 1242, everything to the Atlantic might have been destroyed, foreclosing capitalism, the Renaissance, and the Reformation. Nearer in time with better documentation, the revisions seem to hinge on tiny details--like Robert E. Lee's famous "lost order" that actually brought on the Battle of Antietam. Had Lee's courier been less careless, could Lee have induced and won a Battle of Gettysburg in 1862? The speculative scenario spun by historian James McPherson typifies these riveting excursions into the unknowable. For the armchair general musing on the ramifications of an Aztec victory at Tenochtitlan, Napoleon's at Waterloo, Japan's at Midway, or Germany's at Normandy, editor Cowley has assembled a war college faculty nonpareil. Gilbert Taylor


From Kirkus Reviews
Expanded from the tenth-anniversary issue of Military History Quarterly, this anthology gathers an all-star cast of 34 historians to answer the question ``what if?'' about a variety of events in world history that could have gone differently. Among the gems of counterfactual history (to use the currently trendy academic term) assembled by MHQ editor Cowley are: Josiah Ober's speculation on the results of an even more premature death for Alexander the Great (the ideals of the Greek city-state lost to a greater Persian influence on world civilization, as well as different lines of historical development for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam); Thomas Fleming's outstanding essay on 13 ways the colonies might have lost the American Revolution; Alastair Horne on Napoleon's missed opportunities (including the speculation that a Europe unified by Napoleon might have forestalled German unification and, by extension, WWI and the rise of Hitler); and James McPherson's startling piece on a lost Confederate order discovered by a Union officer that resulted in the narrow Union victory at Antietam. (Had the South won there, evidence suggests that both Britain and France would have openly supported and even backed the Confederacy.) Best of all is Theodore Rabb's speculation that if a heavy summer of rain hadn't kept the sultan of the Ottoman empire from bringing cannon, his siege of Vienna would have succeeded, in which case Martin Luther would have had a different life, Henry VIII would have been permitted to divorce his Hapsburg wife, and Europe would be a very different place. Other contributors include John Keegan, Stephen Ambrose, David McCullough, and David Clay Large. A superb introduction by Cowley prefaces each essay. Taken individually, all are small gems of history; brought together in a single book, they offer an oustanding overview of the fragile happenstances on which history turns. The book of the year for any history lover. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Historians and inquisitive laymen alike love to ponder the dramatic what-its of history. In these twenty never-before-published essays, some of the keenest minds of our time ask the big, tantalizing questions: Where might we be if history had not unfolded the way it did? Why, how, and when was our fortune made real? The answers are surprising, sometimes frightening, and always entertaining.. "In addition to the essays, fifteen sidebars by such authors as Caleb Carr, Tom Wicker, David Fromkin, and Ted Morgan illuminate in brief other world-changing episodes.

FROM THE CRITICS

Entertainment Weekly

Since chance, error, and the weather deserve as much credit as humans for the mess known as history, its fair to ask historians for a retake. What If? Imagine the narrowly missed possibilities of a Muslim Europe, a Mongol Europe, a permanently Confederate South, a 20th century in which names Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao mean nothing, or a triumphant Nazi Reich or Japanese Empire. You'll have the vertigo-inducing sense that everything, you and me included, could have been very, very different. Grade: A.

Chronicles of High Education

If rain, wind, and fog had not aided the Continental Army's desperate escape across the East River one night in August 1776, would we now be singing "God Save the Queen" at ball games?

For Robert Cowley thinks that "counterfactuals," scenarios of how the course of history might have changed if some key event had unfolded differently. So he enticed 34 historians to contribute to a new book of essays: What If? The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been.

Publishers Weekly

Counterfactuals--considerations of alternate outcomes--make up one of the main provinces of military history. This volume, for which an A&E companion TV documentary is scheduled in November, incorporates two dozen essays and a dozen sidebars on what might have happened by writers of diverse specialties, including generalist Lewis Lapham, novelist Cecelia Holland and historians John Keegan, David McCullough and Stephen Ambrose. Readers willing to be open-minded can consider Europe's fate had the Mongols continued their 13th-century course of conquest. They can speculate on the death in battle of Hern n Cort s and the consequences of an Aztec Empire surviving to present times. Thanks to James McPherson, they can read of a battle of Gettysburg fought in 1862 (instead of 1963) and resulting in a Confederate victory, or the consequences of a Confederate defeat at Chancellorsville courtesy of Steven Sears. Ambrose suggests that Allied defeat on D-Day would have meant nuclear devastation for Germany in the summer of 1945. Arthur Waldron presents a China, and a world, that might have been far different had Chiang Kai-shek not taken the risk of invading Manchuria in 1946. Consistently well drawn, these scenarios open intellectual as well as imaginative doors for anyone willing to walk through them. Maps and photos not seen by PW. Audio rights to Simon & Schuster; foreign rights sold in the U.K. and Germany. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

What if George Washington hadn't escaped from Long Island? What if Lee's Special Order No. 191 hadn't been lost? How would history be different? Cowley, founding editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, calls on historians like Stephen Ambrose and John Keegan to reconsider history's little quirks. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Henderson - The Christian Science Monitor

Why is this exercise worth nearly 400 pages of sometimes intricate analysis—other than to amuse the historians who fill the pages? Because it makes one sit back and marvel at the course of history, right up to today...Clearly these historians enjoy their forays into "what if" history. It's fun to tag along, with rewarding vistas of what did happen, as well as what might have.Read all 6 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

A captivating display of historical imagination, What If takes us through 2500 years of close squeaks and narrow misses. -- ( C. Vann Woodward; Professor of History, Emeritus, Yale University ) — C. Vann Woodward