Spurred by the exciting and high-quality content of the `counterfactual' essays published by historians in the `What If' series edited by Robert Cowley, I splashed out on the moderate asking price for Roger L. Ransom's book on what he calls the historian's favorite question: what if - in this case, the Confederacy and not the North had won the American Civil War. For people in a hurry to learn the basics (or refresh their memory) of the course of the conflict, its second chapter offers a concise and handy guide. But what bothers me is that the discourse on the causes of the conflict puts too much emphasis on slavery, that in fact was only the moral pretext on which the war, well and truly begun and then going against the North, was sold to a recalcitrant Northern public and disgusted foreign powers alike, both increasingly abhorred by Lincoln's abuse of power and the atrocities committed by his armies. For instance, the author neglects to mention that the bombardment of Fort Sumter by Confederate forces that began the war was a deliberate provocation and that the Confederacy had offered to buy this and other Federal installations. He does not give due consideration to the key fact that tax considerations - the fear that the CSA might turn its harbors into freeports, thus crippling Federal revenues - made the main case for war. On the specifically military aspects, calling the battles of Perryville, Antietam, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Shiloh and Chattanooga `Union victories' in one breath is more than stretching the truth. When it comes to the counterfactual part of the book, the alternative history is meticulously researched and believable - up to a point. Personally, I find it very hard to imagine that the U.S., reduced by the Confederacy with which it would have shared North America, would have allied itself with the Kaiser's Germany in World War I against Britain. More generally, the author makes a case that the outcome of history as it did happen would have reasserted itself, by a re-Union of the two nations in 1918. How this would have benefited - indeed, how this now benefits - "the whole family of man" as the last chapter is named, is highly doubtful. This line of reasoning smacks of justification by all means of a conflict that, when broken down to its essentials, was a war of conquest by the North, powered by lust for power and greed, of the South, that - warts and all - wanted nothing but its independence, its Constitutional right to choose its own government. In ostensibly defending that Constitution, Lincoln chose to trample it as he allowed his armies to trample and rape the South. I have a very different view of `what might have been' had the Confederacy survived as an independent nation. This book upholds a lie: that the rapacious conquest of the South was beneficial to mankind. It was anything but that, then and now, as history testifies.

failed to grip, 65% what did happen and the rest what might have occured. lacked spark and far too academic

Some interesting possibilities of how history would have been changed. Slavery would have ended on it's own with time. All the lives lost could have been saved. But freedom for the slaves would have drug on for another generation. Who's to say...?

What if the South had won the Civil War, and what would the world be like today? Many historians have considered this scenario and plenty of science fiction collections have been constructed around stories of such - but THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA uses real facts and analysis to blend historical plausibility and realistic scenarios to show how a Confederate-run America would change not only this country, but the world. Even economics are explored, along with international relationships changed by such events. An intriguing survey any collection strong in Civil War history will want: it offers more scholarship and seasoned, rational reasoning than most approaches.

What if the South had won the Civil War, and what would the world be like today? Many historians have considered this scenario and plenty of science fiction collections have been constructed around stories of such - but THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA uses real facts and analysis to blend historical plausibility and realistic scenarios to show how a Confederate-run America would change not only this country, but the world. Even economics are explored, along with international relationships changed by such events. An intriguing survey any collection strong in Civil War history will want: it offers more scholarship and seasoned, rational reasoning than most approaches.

Ransom gets it all wrong here. Counterfactual history is extremely useful in showing historical causation, as well as valuating the outcomes, but if it's done poorly it becomes fiction. There is a very thin line between fictional and counterfactual works, and what divides the two camps is a solid methodology. Ransom is too accepting of even the most flimsy "what-ifs" because he's not willing to limit himself to the options that the historical players considered themselves. Yes, what if aliens came down and nuked the earth? What if all of the Native-Americans in North American ganged up on the North during the war? What if, what if, what if? The thing that keeps counterfactual history from sounding foolish is methodology accepted by most scholars. They produce the works of counterfactual scholarship. Ransom has created something entirely different, and it should be avoided.

When I first purchased this book I thought I was going to read yet another "what if" story of the South winning the American Civil War, maybe with some new idea but basically with the same pattern already seen in other such products.
Thus I was very satisfied when, page after page, I found solid facts in the first chapters concerning the "why" and the "how" the Civil War came to happen (together with a brief conduct of the real war itself), followed by the "story" of an alternate Civil War based on those same facts but ending with a Confederate victory. Most important, the author finally deals with the aftermath of a Confederate victory, both from a political and economical point of view (something not easily found in other such products) trying to draw conclusions based on various possible alternatives.
I found the presence of verifible figures and hard data very helpful to fully understand a chapter of American history that I, as an Italian reader, did not know but was eager to analyze.
I found the book very well written, easy to follow, and enough imaginative in the chapter concerning the "other war" to satisfy my anticipations, but most of all I found it indispensable to fill in my gaps about that part of world history that I could not study in Italy.
All in all a very good product, I would surely recommend it to all lovers of real and fictional history.

This is a solid, well-thought out "what might have been" study that goes beyond the sensational or the mythical. Here the reader is treated to the political history of the Confederate States of America as it might evolve. Almost 50 years ago McKinley Kantor penned one of the best pioneering works on the question "what if the South won in 1865?" (he has the North and South reunited by 1915 in the face of WWI and the growing threat to both side-by-side Americas); it also was an excellent political and military "first cut" to a fascinating subject not only for Civil War buffs but any one interested in "Alternative History".

Ransom's book is plausible in its projections based on the facts of the early formation and struggle by the CSA to become independent. He provides controversial thinking on what might happen if the CSA were successful, but his line of reasoning is what makes the book engaging and thoughtful. Ransom writes a good read, and the scholarship is of the quality to be quoted in other similar, high-quality studies.

Joseph Richard Goldman

Roger Ransom has written one of the most provocative efforts in the field of counterfactual speculation which I have had the chance to read. Taking as his challenge the well-plowed ground of the American Civil War, Professor Ransom has managed to offer a series of genuinely innovative insights into the possible result of a Confederate victory. Rather than picking one "point of divergence," Ransom instead opts for what one might call a "semi-chaotic collage" of mutually reinforcing changes, resulting in a military stalemate in 1864 that in turn produces a collapse of the North's political will to continue the fight. The changes hypothesized are plausible, and their "snowballing" effect makes a good case for Ransom's basic thesis that the South's best chance for victory lay in an improved performance by the Confederacy's Western and Eastern forces, combined. The true strength of Ransom's work, however, does not lie in its narrative describing the battlefield course of (yet another) alternate American Civil War. Rather, it is in the analysis of the possible consequences of a Southern victory, and particularly the international consequences of a division of the North American Continent between two rival American Unions, where this alternate history truly excels. Professor Ransom describes how the ensuing rivalry between USA and CSA would have affected the relationships between the Great Powers of Europe, as they are drawn into the USA-CSA rivalry, and for reasons of their own vital interests. Ransom also directly tackles the feel good notion that North and South would have quickly shaken off the bad feelings of a successful "War for Southern Independence" and developed a friendly relationship, allowing the two American Unions to operate virtually as one, in confronting the challenges of the 20th Century. (MacKinlay Kantor's Civil War Centennial piece for LIFE magazine on the subject is perhaps the best-known of the "Panglossian" takes on a Confederate victory.) Ransom persuasively argues that the divisions between North and South which ruptured into inter-regional war in 1861 reflected profoundly different approaches to basic questions of socio-economic organization and political order, and that these differences would have driven the two American Unions even further apart as each in the wake of Southern independence worked to define itself in contradistinction to the other. Professor Ransom also grapples insightfully with economic issues that alternate history writers tend for some reason to avoid, and the resulting analysis adds a crucial and genuinely illuminating dimension to his work (e.g., he addresses the international economic factors that would have shaped the post-Secession prospects for a "King Cotton" not overthrown by Northern arms). I am a lawyer by trade who has tried his hand at alternate history, and the venerable AH subject of a Southern victory has always held a special fascination for me. I confess to sharing Professor Ransom's view that a Southern victory would have proven a setback, both domestic and international, for the cause of human progress. But whatever one's point of view on that question, any serious student of the American Civil War, even those who generally scorn "What if?" as nothing more than a silly parlor game, would benefit from reading Professor Ransom's fine effort.

If you are a reader of Turtledove please tread with caution - this might not be what you think it is. While 'proper' alternate history is written as if it really did happen, Ransom has very delicately made his own approach to alternate history. In the history after the Civil War, he takes an approach to alternate history by discussing the parallels between reality and possibility, issues the world may confront, options available to them and consequences in a "Well if A happens then B arises then we will have a C" etc. Roger constantly ducks in and out of reality and plunging back down into fiction, taking some of our assumptions, knowledge of the period and some imagination with him. This is all good if you want a professional, delicate, step-by-step analysis if how the Confederacy may have evolved and its impact on the world. As before this IS NOT the style of 'proper' alternate history, more that of a serious, in-depth-investigation parlor game.
Another query is the length of Roger's point of divergence, which is sometimes bordering on the edge of credibilty and yet is full of imagination. Finally, by looking through Roger's notes and opinions of other alternate history works, one can easily tell that this writer is heavily influenced by Harry Turtledove's version of a Confederate world. It is a pity that Roger pulled out the 'Great War' card in which the two nations find themselves on conflicting sides in 1914 and the demise of the weaker American - no matter how well written. To see a more extended analysis of a Confederate timeline further into the 20th century would have made me feel more confident of this book, yet that is just my opinion.
Nevertheless a good, scientific investigation of a Confederacy that has ended alot of arguements and is mostly untouched by the somewhat radical views of Turledove.