In this slim volume MacKinlay Kantor has produced an intelligent, readable history of North America if the Confederate States had won the Civil War. Written in the same style as Sobel's "For Want of a Nail", the action is presented in the form of a history text, rather than a novel in the traditional sense. So instead of characters, the reader gets footnotes and "historical" asides. It is a fascinating way to write a work of fiction, and Kantor did an admirable job of it in this instance.

He takes two near simultaneous events as his turning points: Grant's death in a horse accident prior to his capture of Vicksburg, and the rout of the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg. Going forward from that point, he posits Lincoln's flight from Washington, the establishment of the Republic of Texas, and a host of other events, large and small, that lend far more realism to his allohistorical world than one might expect out of a story of less than a hundred pages.

As it happens, I think that a Civil War ending in Confederate victory would have left far more acrimony than Kantor predicts. However, it is the beauty of good alternate history that one need not agree with the author's interpretations to enjoy it. So long as the author's conclusions are well researched, logical and well argued (and that is absolutely the case in this instance) one can't take issue with them. Moreover, half the fun is stacking up your conclusions of what might have happened against the author's, and seeing how you rate.

Don't let its size fool you; "If the South Had Won the Civil War" is an intelligent, engaging alternate history. Kantor makes some genuinely fascinating leaps, and his logic and conclusions are ironclad.

Enjoy!

This is a fun, well written story about an alternate America in which the Confederacy wins the civil war. It was first published in the 1960s, well before most other alternate history stories out today. This story is part of the inspiration behind Guns of the South and the Great War series by Harry Turtledove. The tone of the story is very optimistic, almost too much so for my taste, but this does not take away from the quality of the ideas, and the emotions present in it. It is very short for an alternate history novel, and makes a good read over a weekend.

My interest in "what-if's..." began when I read this story in LOOK Magazine in November,1960. I read it so many times, that before I realized it, I had memorized it. I still consider it one of the best of the genre, because it is written like a history book and definitely is NOT a novel. It got me interested in history....real history. In the 60s and 70s the paperback version (slightly longer, which implied more to me that LOOK had edited it down rather than Kantor amplifiing it) could be found in every college book store. The ending was different,however, reflecting the publication date, I think. Instead of the final meeting of the three presidents on the anniversary of the firing on Ft. Sumter, it ended on December 20, 1960. "This date was suggested by President Hill because it will mark the centennial of the secession of South Carolina from the Union."