Re: [OT] Tutrtledove's Alternate History of the UC Civil War

From: "Brian Bilderback" <bbilderback@hotmail.com>

> >From: John Sowerby <sowerbyj@fiu.edu>
>
> >One set of ideas I do like is from Harry Turtledove. In a world where
the
> >CSA won at Antietam, and then won again 10 years later with the aid
of
the
> >French and British, the Great War opens out on the US continent with
the
> >USA fighting with the Germans / Austrians, and the CSA alongside the
> >British and French.
>
> Given the number of German immigrants in the North, and the British
cultural
> heritage of the South, I find that culturally plausible but
politically
> distasteful.	Of course being pro-Germany in WWI doesn't rankle me
quite
the
> way it would in WWII.

I recommend this series.

Neither the CSA nor the Union end up as places I'd particularly like to
live
in. The Prussian Militarism of the North in particular perverts
"manifest
destiny" into something that is deeply disturbing. The treatment of
Canada is straight out of what Prussia did in Alsace and Loarraine after
1870.

And the South is no better, even after they freed the slaves: after
losing
WW1, the Chaos that is left leads to a "Freedom Party" thirsting for
Revenge,
smarting against the reparations, and with a ready-made Scapegoat rather
easier to distinguish than the Jews were in Germany.

The last book to be published takes the alternate-history to an era just
after a "Munich Putsch"-style fiasco.

Turtledove makes this all too believable. But don't make the mistake of
thinking that he's saying it is desireable.