What If? 2 : Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been

449 Pages·2005·6.05 MB·English

by  Robert Cowley, James Bradley, Caleb Carr, Thomas Fleming, John Lukacs, Geoffrey C. Ward

URRAY PUBLICzIJBRARY
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"Fascinating and provocative. II
re
-The New Yo Times Book Review
"Counterfactual supposes, would-haves, might-haves
in all their dizzying permutations."
--Til1!€
"Great fun. You'll have the vertigo-inducing sense that everything,
you and me included, could have been very, very different."
En terMirzrrzerzt Weekly (A)
"Lively exercises in a fascinating game historians call 'the couriterfactual.I H
-Chicago Sum-T§mes
"Tantalizing."
-Chicago Tribune
"What lf>"' shows us that . . . history is not an inevitable march of dusty names,
dates and places, but a precari(cid:127) ous, careenns ng ru¢ de that could ha. ve¢' taken us
to any number of destinations."
-Milwaukee louraml Sentinel
"Masters of history and the written word David McCullough, James McPherson
and Stephen Ambrose among them-paint compelling portraits. These historians
enjoy their forays into 'what if' history. it's fun to tag along."
-The Christian Science Monitor
"Pure, almost illicit pleasure. Excellent. A splendid book."
-The Sunday Telegraph (London)
"One of the delights of the book is that broad speculative analysis is built
from a mass of exciting detail. This makes for a top-class bedside read."
--Financial Times (London)
ISBN 0-399-14795-0
5 289 5
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9 780399 147951
WHAT IF? is a trademark of American Historical Publications, Inc.
G. R Putnam's Sons
Publishers Since 1838
a member of
Penguin Putnam Inc.
375 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
Copyright © 2001 American Historical Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not
be reproduced in any form without permission.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
What if' 2 : eminent historians imagine what might have been :
essays / by James Bradley . . . [et al.] ; edited by Robert Cowley.
p. cm.
Contents: Socrates dies at Delium, 424 b.c./Victor Davis Hanson -- Not by a nose/]osiah Ober - Pontius
Pilate spares ]esusICarlos M. N. Eine - Repulse at Hastings, October 14. 1066/Cecelia Holland - The
Chinese discovery of the New World, 15th century/Theodore F. Cook, ]r. - Martin Luther bums at the
stake, 1 521 lGeoffrey Parker -- If Charles l had not left Whitehall, August I64l lTheodore K. Rabb -
Napoléon's invasion of North America/Thomas Fleming - If Lincoln had not freed the slaves/Tom Wicker
- France turns the other cheek, July l870lAlistair Home - The Election of Theodore Roosevelt,
1912/john Lukacs - The Great War torpedoed/ Robert L. O'Connell - No Finland Station lGeorge Feifer
- The luck of Franklin Delano Roosevelt/Geoffrey C. Ward - The War of 1938/Williamson Murray -
Prime Minister Halifax /Andrew Robers - The boys who saved Australia, 1942/.lames Bradley - Enigma
uncrackedl David Kahn - Pius Xll protests the Holocaust/Roben Katz - VE Day-November 11,
1944/Caleb Carr - The Fiihrer in the docklRoger Spiller - No bomb: no end/Richard B. Frank - The
Presidency of Henry Wallace /James Chace - A tale of three congressmen, 1948/ Lance Morrow - What if
Pizarro had not found potatoes in Peru?/William H. McNeill.
ISBN 0.399-1479550
1. Imaginary wars and battles. 2. Imaginary histories. l. Title: What if' two.
II. Title: What if' 2. III. Bradley, James, date. IV. Cowley, Robert.
D25.5 .W44 2001 2001034919
355.4'8-dc2 I
Printed in the United States of America
l 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
This book is printed on acid-free paper. ®
Book design by Michelle McMillian
Map and picture research by Sabine Russ
Maps ©2001 Jeffrey L. Ward
Endpapers: Detail of Bayer Tapestry, Musée de la Tapisserie, Bayeux, France.
Copyright Erich Lessing I Arr Resource, NY.
Ll.S.A. $23 -in
Canada $4 I }~ l
"The book of the year
for any history lover."
-Kirkus Reviews on What If.p YM oC-ARDED b
Murray I 3f?1T 'f*¢~g"p;
History comes alive in this new volume of essays
on the vital turning points in our common her-
itage. With What if.)r un 2/ Robert Cowley has
gathered another group of imaginative essays,
a worthy sequel to What If?"', one of the most
admired history books of the past few seasons.
There is no surer way to feel the danger or the
good fortune of our collective past than to
contemplate those moments when the world's
future hung in the balance. Our brightest his-
torians speculate here on some of these intrigu-
www
ing crossroads and the ways in which our lives HH" Ze x
might have been changed for the better-or
the worse.
The twenty-five never-before-published
essays range across the full span of history.
Victor Davis Hanson imagines a drastically
altered development of Western philosophy if
Socrates had died on the battlefield at Delium
in 424 BC. Writing about an early death-at-
the-stake of Martin Luther, Ceoffrey Parker
describes ramifications that might have in-
cluded a divided Reformation movement, a
strengthened Catholic leadership, and no Euro-
pean settlements in the Americas. john Lukacs
proposes that Theodore Roosevelt might have
brokered an earlier end to World War l-if he
had been renominated for president in 1912.
Geoffrey C. Ward reminds us of Franklin D.
Roosevelt's good fortune on numerous occa-
sions, including his escape from an assassin's
bullet in 1933. If FDR had not evaded his woulfl-
be assassin, Vice-President john Nance Carver
might have scrapped the New Deal and mat*
(Continued on back ill"
OI IO

355.48 WHAT
what if? II : eminent
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vciy different World War II commander-in-chief
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lames Bradley, author of the bestselling Flags Q
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Our Fatbcrs, writes about the defense of Por
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Moresby, New Guinea, by a band of soldier:
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I that may have saved Australia in 1942 and hac
a .1-»e metic effect on the war in the Pacific. Anc
I Caleb Carr argues that we could have been spared
the horrific last six months of World War II in
e
Europe if General Eisenhower had seized hi
chance to destroy the Nazis in the fall of 1944
In the list of contributors are award-winning
and bestselling authors, many as well-knowl
among general readers as they are among school
as. The all-star group includes Lance Morrow
'Theodore K. Rabb, Alistair Home, ThoMas Flem
ing, James Chace, Tom Wicker, Andrew Roberts
Josiah Uber, and others.
|
UPT'
ROBERT COWLEY is the editor of What
No End Save Victory: Perspectives on World War It
and With My Face to tine Enemy: Perspectives on to
Civil War, and the founding editor of MHC
of
The Quarterly .local Military History, whicl
was nominated for a National Magazine Away
for General Excellence. Cowley, who has hel
several senior positions in book and magazine
publishing, lives in Connecticut.
Jackal design by Lisa Amoroso
of
Photograph Robert Cowley by Lisette Prince
Visit our website at:
www.penguinputnam.com
C. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
a member of
Penguin Putnam Inc
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OTHER VOLUMES EDITED BY ROBERT COWLEY 7
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With My Face to the Enemy: Perspectives on the Civil War
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No End Save Victory: Perspectives on WWII
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What If?™: The World’s Foremost Military Historians 12
Imagine What Might Have Been 13
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Experience of War
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The Reader’s Companion to Military History
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(with Geoffrey Parker)
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WHAT IF?™ 2 6
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ESSAYS BY
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THOMAS FLEMING
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16 JOHN LUKACS
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GEOFFREY C. WARD
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Edited by
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