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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.713
EAN num: 9780393329117
ISBN number: 0393329119
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 368
Printing Date: October 02, 2006
Publishing house: W. W. Norton
Sale Popularity Level: 259952
Studio: W. W. Norton
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'Provocative and compelling…[a] wild ride through Civil War history.'—Library Journal
What if Lee had avoided defeat at Gettysburg? What if a military stalemate had developed, coupled with growing antiwar sentiment? What if Lincoln had been defeated in the 1864 election and Great Britain had recognized the Confederacy? What would have been the careers of an independent Confederate States of America and a defeated United States?
'No historian has thought through such 'what if' questions as seriously as Roger Ransom,' says the Washington Post Book World. A master of historical analysis, Roger L. Ransom follows the consequences of the 'what if' scenario over an extended period of time, exploring such issues as the fate of slavery in a CSA, how the economies of the USA and the CSA would have developed, and how their foreign policies would have differed. The result is a fascinating historical vision that is a source of insight into the critical events of the Civil War period as they actually happened.
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Rated by buyers 
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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.
Rated by buyers -
failed to grip, 65% what did happen and the rest what might have occured. lacked spark and far too academic
Rated by buyers -
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...?
Rated by buyers 
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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.
Rated by buyers 
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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.
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