What Ifs? Of American History

As a gamer, I have a special fondness for the What If series. Many gaming scenarios have been built around the different realities occuring from alternate history - heck, anyone can speculate on a different outcome of the Civil War, World War II, or the possibility of World War III. What If brings a level of expertise to the table, "preeminent historians" according to the back cover.

An important staple of an alternative history series is education, demonstrating how things could be different if a particular event or choice wasn't made. I learned a lot more about World War II from this book by what didn't happen, which helped reinforce why events unfolded as they did. In that regard, alternate history scenarios are a great teaching tool.

Unfortunately, the editor (and I blame the editor, Robert Cowley) doesn't seem to be able to rein in his writers. With this many essays, there's bound to be some differences in quality. But the writers never agree on the RULES of the essays themselves.

Not all the essays actually lay out alternate history. Some of the essays are essentially summed up as "WHEW! Boy are we lucky things turned out the way they did!" Which isn't nearly as educational as showing what could have happened. There are plenty of other experts that can simply tell us about the near misses of history.

Not all of the essays are grounded in actual history. It's fine to lay out alternate history, but for a neophyte who isn't familiar with the timeline of events, speculation without a comparison to the actual events just muddles the waters. When the writers use active voice, you have no idea if our guide to history is in fact speculating or retelling actual events as they happened. Opinion? Fact? Hypothesis? It's never clear.

Finally, some of the essays are outright fiction, Joe McCarthy's Secret Life being the most egregious example. So what, exactly, is this essay trying to prove? How easy it would be for McCarthy to actually be a member of the communists he was rooting out? What's the lesson here?

Some of these essays have been reprinted from the What If series before, which is odd - I imagine the group interested in this series already read the first volume and their inclusion "as a bonus" seems a little disingenuous. If the plan was to have this volume be a reference, it falls short of its goals.

That said, What Ifs? of American History is an interesting if uneven collection of opinions, predictions, and history lessons about America. Worth reading, but you might want to keep a history textbook nearby.