This book is well described by its subtitle: "The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been." The twenty essays and numerous sidebars are actually only by American and British, so the use of "World's Foremost" is a bit of a reach, but nonetheless, there is a nice variety amongst the essays. Almost all of them are lively and compelling examples of what is known in jargon as "counterfactual reasoning," providing plenty of food for thought to chew on.

The essays progress in chronological order, and in general I enjoyed the ones that concentrated on the older events more, perhaps because they are more removed from time and consciousness and thus are easier to credit. As might be expected, John Keegan's brief "How Hitler Could Have Won the War: The Drive for the Middle East, 1941" is the exception here. In general, the more titillating notions are found in essays like Thomas Fleming's "Unlikely Victory: 13 Ways the Americans Could Have Lost the Revolution." or Cecelia Holland's "The Death that Saved Europe: The Mongols Turn Back, 1242." Irrespective of one's particular interests, this is a spectacular anthology of alternate history. It should be noted that the maps accompanying each essay are outstanding.

For anyone who likes history, this book is an uneven, but overall excellent and very enjoyable, series of exercises in "counterfactual" history. Not the silly, frivolous, or nonsensical kind, where Robert E. Lee all of a sudden is given a nuclear bomb, but instead serious, meaty (even highly PROBABLE) ones, like what would have happened if there hadn't been a mysterious plague outside the walls of Jerusalem, or if there had been a Persian victory at Salamis, or if Genghis Khan's drunken third son (Ogadai)had not died just as his hordes were poised to conquer (and probably annhilate) Europe, or if Cortes had been killed or been captured Tenochtitlan, etc.

The major flaw with this book is that the essays are of somewhat uneven interest level, style, and quality. Personally, for instance, I found the essay on the Mongols to be fascinating, sending chills down my spine! "D Day Fails" by Stephen Ambrose, on the other hand, didn't do much for me at all, nor did "Funeral in Berlin." In general, I would say that the essays covering earlier periods in human history tend to be better than ones covering more recent history. Possibly this is in part because the later periods have been covered to death. I mean, how many "counterfactuals" on the US Civil War can there be before we get sick of them? But a well-written, tightly-reasoned counterfactual which, based on events hundreds or even thousands of years ago, quite plausibly leads to a result where there is no Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, or Western culture at all, is absolutely fascinating in my opinion. If nothing else, books like "What If?" show how important CHANCE is in human history, as well as the importance of the INDIVIDUAL, as opposed to some Hegelian/Marxist-Leninist historical "inevitability." The bottom line is that it is rare that anything is truly "inevitable", and the aptly titled "What If?" gives us some excellent case studies.

As you already know after considering the book, this is a series of counterfactuals - the "What Ifs" of historical events. The focus is on military events and run from 480 BC to the Chinese Communist revolution of the late 1940s. Roughly one-third of the writings focus on world history prior to 1830 (Greek warfare, Napoleon wins at Waterloo), one-third on American history (Revolution - Civil War) and one third 1900 World History (WWI - Cold War). Each counterfactual is authored by respected historians including Stephen Ambrose (whose contribution is surprisingly weak), James McPherson, Cecelia Holland and Stephen Sears. There is also a series of interesting, smaller, one to two page articles spread out through the book.

The authors take various approaches to the challenge. Some launch into intriguing 'what ifs' and their consequences. These include the impact of Alexander the Great's pre-mature death, ways the American Revolution could have easily failed and what if the Battle of Midway had been won by Japan. Other authors take a different approach of only reviewing how events could have been different or how variants were avoided, but they never discuss the impact of the alternative event. This is the only weakness of the book in my opinion. Most articles joyfully carry through on the full description of how events could have differed and how the world would be different if they had turned out this way. For example, would Lincoln have negotiated peace with the Confederacy if Lee's orders for Sharpsburg had not fallen into McClellan's hands allowing the South to win this battle?

Finally, the scenarios are relatively realistic. There are no discussions of 'what would have happened if the Americans had automatic weapons in 1776...' The articles are very interesting for historians and those interested in military history. The broad discussions and topics also make the reading captivating and easy to read. Each article is less than 15-20 pages long, so you won't have to read "war & peace" to cover the topic. Enjoy!