Alternative Revolutions
Ah, yes. It’s the birthday of the United States of America again. For a lady in her two hundred and thirty five year, she doesn’t look a year over twenty-nine, does she ((Actually, at her twenty-ninth birthday, she…)? No…,not at all.
And yet, we concede that you might be looking for an alternative to fireworks and flag-waving today. Here, then, is a list of ways history might have happened, save for chance, circumstance, and perhaps a bit of time-travel.
For Want of a Nail by Robert Sobel: In reality, the British general John Burgoyne, heavily outnumbered by American troops, surrendered his army to General Horatio Gates at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, a major turning-point of the Revolution. Robert Sobel takes a step sideways and presents the alternative version: reinforcements arrive at Saratoga, Gates’ men flee, and Burgoyne is victorious. Rather than openly allying itself with the American rebels, France withdraws its support, as does Spain, and the colonies surrender.Those former rebels who refuse to live in the Confederation of North America established by the British leave their homes and settle in what becomes the United States of Mexico. From the on the two continental nations find themselves constant rivals, locked in military, political and economic conflict. Sobel provides a detailed, intricately documented insight into two warring powers that develop in such dramatically different ways from their shared origins and underlines the power of single events upon the course of history.
The Two Georges by Richard Dreyfuss and Harry Turtledove: America, 1996. Airships ply the transport lanes between the great cities of the continent – from the capital at Victoria on the Potomac all the way to New Liverpool on the sunny California coast. Everywhere the North American Union is at peace, safe under the dominion of His Majesty Charles III – a peace that has held since the 1760s, when George Washington and George III struck an agreement commemorated in Gainsborough’s immortal painting The Two Georges. But now that peace is threatened. Styling themselves the “Sons of Liberty,” separatists have brazenly stolen the Gainsborough painting – right out from under the nose of Colonel Thomas Bushell of the Royal American Mounted Police. Bushell knows his duty: he must recover the painting, whatever the cost. And prevent his superiors in government from paying the terrorists’ ransom. But time is running out. And the painting could be anywhere in His Majesty’s enormous North American domains…
The Year of the Hangman by Gary Blackwood: In 1776, the rebellion of the American colonies against British rule was crushed. Now, in 1777—the year of the hangman—George Washington is awaiting execution, Benjamin Franklin’s banned rebel newspaper, Liberty Tree, has gone underground, and young ne’er-do-well Creighton Brown, a fifteen-year-old Brit, has just arrived in the colonies. Having been shipped off against his will, with nothing but a distaste for English authorities, Creighton befriends Franklin, and lands a job with his print shop. But the English general expects the spoiled yet loyal Creighton to spy on Franklin. As battles unfold and falsehoods are exposed, Creighton must decide where his loyalties lie… a choice that could determine the fate of a nation.
