Thursday, March 12, 2009

What If? 2

The What If series is one of those weighty, awesome tomes that looks good on your bookshelf. It screams, "I'm smart AND countercultural!" But that's not why I bought the hardcover. I bought it because it was half price at Borders and I like alternate history.

The problem is that Robert Cowley, the editor, doesn't seem to have much influence with the myriad of authors who contributed essays to the book. Some essays are satirical, some are deadly earnest, some are written as fictional narrative of historical events, others are written in a question and answer format. The overall book is thus widely uneven, with some authors providing a solid grounding in how history unfolded and explaining how it might have diverged, and others just simply spouting in stream-of-consciousness and expecting the reader to know enough about historical details to appreciate the divergence. I prefer the former to the latter, and I suspect most casual readers of this sort of book feel the same way.

The stories are still a lot of fun, but they tend to be interesting only insofar as the reader is cares about that particular time period. None of these essays will make a fanatical historian out of you, and some of them might turn you off to the authors entirely. Some of the poorer examples include the author burdened with explaining a world in which Jesus Christ doesn't die on the cross; we end up with a breezy self-reflective narrative rather than a rigorous historical examination. Conversely, it's interesting to see Theodore F. Cook support Gavin Menzies' theory of China discovering America.

What If? 2 isn't a bad book, but it's a challenging one. The essays are meant to be read side-by-side with historical summaries, and readers are advised to brush up on their history before diving in.

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