Review of 'What If? II : Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
"What If? 2," edited by Robert Cowley is a collection of counterfactual essays that is an improvement on its predecessor. It's articles are more varied, creative, and focus less on military matters than the previous volume. A number of its articles are well-written and pose thought-provoking commentary for historians and the general public alike. Here is a link to review of volume one:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/142658014
For me, a counterfactual is most interesting when it does two things: one, show how small things could have a large impact and two, what are the implications of these small change. In Volume One, most of the articles became too wrapped up in the minutiae of the events and payed very little attention to what we can draw from those event, especially if they had changed. The articles in this volume are more consistent and creative, using different types of counter factual techniques, including second-order …
"What If? 2," edited by Robert Cowley is a collection of counterfactual essays that is an improvement on its predecessor. It's articles are more varied, creative, and focus less on military matters than the previous volume. A number of its articles are well-written and pose thought-provoking commentary for historians and the general public alike. Here is a link to review of volume one:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/142658014
For me, a counterfactual is most interesting when it does two things: one, show how small things could have a large impact and two, what are the implications of these small change. In Volume One, most of the articles became too wrapped up in the minutiae of the events and payed very little attention to what we can draw from those event, especially if they had changed. The articles in this volume are more consistent and creative, using different types of counter factual techniques, including second-order counterfactual (where something may change but the outcome does not vary much from the current timeline).
I enjoyed most of the articles but a few stood out for me. My favorite is "Pontius Pilate Spares Jesus" by Carols M.N. Eire, which is extremely well written and creatively engages with how a Christianity would have developed with a Jesus living into old age. A close second is the highly entertaining (and slightly implausible) scenario "France Turns the Other Cheek, July 1870" by Alistair Horne where Napoleon III communes with the spirits of Napoleon and Talleyrand to avoid war with Prussia.
Some essays are less entertaining and more thought provoking. Two good examples are "Repulse at Hastings, October 14, 1066" by Cecelia Holland, showing that the Battle of Hastings was not just a conflict between military powers but a battle which held the fate of Northern European hegemony in its hands. Another is "Pius XII Protests the Holocaust" by Robert Katz, examining the ability of one person to affect change at the right time. I also found "What if Pizarro Had Not Found Potatoes in Peru?" by William H. McNeill to be extremely engaging and worth reading even by those not interesting in counterfactual.
There were a number of weak articles but not nearly as many as Volume One. Most of them tacking both World Wars, especially World War II, and seem more concerned with the events as they happened in reality than what might have occurred otherwise. The two weakest were an essay by Lance Morrow about Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon in 1948 that is bland and far too short to be interesting and worst, by far, is the article Thomas Flemming about Napoleon keeping his interest in North America, which basically argues that he would have inevitably met his Waterloo no matter what, be it in Belgium or in North America.
The process of alternate history is not simply fantasy but is a very useful skill for historians to develop which helps them see what elements are important in historical events. I would recommend this book or select articles within it to others.
