Below The Beltway

Its Volume Two of the American Empire series, and things are not well for pretty much anyone in the Timeline-191 universe. And that is the story that American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold
The United States, content with its victory in the Great War, has settled into a period of foriegn policy complacency. The Confederate States, recovering from its post-War economic crisis and the threatened rise of the Freedom Party cut short by a Presidential assassination, has settled into, well, I guess the best way to charaterize it is Weimar Richmond. As for the rest of the world, well, Germany remains powerful, France is in the grips of a revanchist movement aimed at resorting the monarchy, and Russia fights off a socialist-inspired rebellion.

But, then, the world turns upside down.

Economic crisis strikes the entire world. In the United States, it leads to the ironic result of the Socialist Party being blamed for the after-effects of a stock market bubble. In the Confederacy, it creates the opportunity that Jake Featherston and the Freedom Party needed.

Throughout all of this, Harry Turtledove sketches a picture of an America that, quite plausibly in some respect and implausibly in others, might have been. Since the Great War has ended, we’ve seen the Socialists rise to power, and the death of two rivals and American heros — Theodore Roosevelt and George Armonstrong Custer. Throughout this series, Turtledove has painted a picture of Custer that is quite less than sympathetic. He is seen as a vain, immoral, sometimes incompetent, and sometimes incredibly, incredibly insightful leader. In the end, in this world, he is clearly the greatest military hero the United States has known — the equivalent of what U.S. Grant and William T. Sherman became in a world where the U.S. won the Civil War. As for Roosevelt, well, Teddy achieved in Turtledove’s world the glory that alluded him in ours, the glory of being the wartime leader of a victorious nation. While I remain convinced that World War One was, quite probably, the most unnecessary war in the history of this nation, I also think we would’ve been much better off, in the end, with T.R. in charge in 1917 than Woodrow Wilson. Especially considering the fact that the “peace” that Wilson insisted on resulted, quite logically, in what happened less than 25 years later.

But enough of my opinions of history. Is this a good book or not ? Hell, yeah, it is. If you’re interested in it at all, though, you have to start at the beginning. And the begining starts with How Few Remain

As I’ve mentioned before, there are things to complain about. There isn’t any reason we need to read more paragraph about how easy it is for Lt. Sam Carsten to sunburn in any climate that doesn’t resemble Seattle or Vancouver, or about how Sylvia Enos’s husband was killed by a Confederate torpedo launched after the war had ended, or about how Clarence Potter met dictator-to-be Jake Feathrston. Or how Chester Martin became a Socialist and lost his job.

Enough already.

Nonetheless, the books does weave an interesting tale of America as it might have been. Thankfully, its a world we never had to live through.

Previous Post:

Book Review: How Few Remain
Book Review: The Great War: American Front
Book Review: The Great War: Walk In Hell
Book Review: The Great War: Breakthroughs
American Empire: Blood & Iron

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