What If?: The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been |
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Pages: 416 (Paperback) Editor: Robert Cowley ISBN: 0425176428 Pub: Berkley Publishing Group Pub date: 2000-09 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 378523 |
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Reader Reviews:
A challenge for history thinkers (13/14 people found this helpful)
In many decisive occasions of human history things could really turn out differently and we would live in a very, very different world now (Even, the world history itself; what if the meteor that finally killed all dinosours missed the earth). The book comprises many interesting cases from 700 BC up to present time. One starts to believe that everything was chance (or bad luck). Still, I feel the book could even be better. American originated cases (from Revolution to Midway) make up an unproportinally large part of the book. Instead there could be given more examples from others parts of the world, especially from Europe and Asia. There are lots of moments that should have taken place in this book, at least as an anecdote. Anyway, it is a brilliant work and I recommend it to all history thinkers.
The title says it all. (10/10 people found this helpful)
I just love books like this - having tried to write alternate history stories myself, I know how difficult it is - miss one tiny detail and the whole premise can fall apart. So books like "What If..." written by people who know a little bit more about their chosen subjects than myself (ie: proper Historians) are indispensable for anyone who wants to consider how different the world would be if, for example, the US hadn't fluked a win at the Battle of Midway or even if the UK and US hadn't entered the First World War. Would it have even BEEN a "World" War? Probably not as it happens. Food for thought.
I also recommend "The Hinge Factor" by Erik Durschmied and "The Hitler Options" and "Invasion" edited and written by Kenneth Macksey respectively, the latter being an in-depth look at the alternate history of the German Invasion of England in July 1940.
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Subjects -> History -> General
Books -> Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Alternate History
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> General
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Age (feature_two_browse-bin)
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Paperback
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