FEBRUARY 201 5 SUNRAYS | 59
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SCTXCA.ORG
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Sun City Texas Library. Questions?
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News from the SC Stacks
By Nancy Davis
Have you ever wondered, “What if?”
You’re not alone – in fact, an entire liter-
ary genre is devoted to the question. Pop-
ularly called “alternate history,” works
of this genre explore how differently life
could have been if even something as
mundane as the weather had been just
slightly altered. From chance encounters
to battle outcomes, our present is dictat-
ed by a past which could easily not have
happened.
Editor Robert Crowley has compiled a
riveting collection of essays from histo-
rians exploring such possibilities. Titled
What If? Eminent Historians Imagine
What Might Have Been
, this anthology
features many writers popular in our li-
brary, including Stephen Ambrose, Ca-
leb Carr, John Keegan, and David Mc-
Cullough, exploring hypothetical shifts
in history. What if Pontius Pilate
hadn’t
ordered Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, or if
AbrahamLincoln decided against the ab-
olition of slavery?What if the Allied inva-
sion of D-Day had failed, or the Mongols
succeeded in conquering Europe? These
and other topics offer a very different
look at world history as we know it. You
can find this book in Dewey 900.
An interesting book I’ve been reading
lately places its focus a little closer to
home. Titled
Then Everything Changed:
Stunning Alternate Histories of Ameri-
can Politics: JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford,
Reagan
, author Jeff Greenfield presents
an engaging series of alternatives so well
written, they almost seemas though they
truly were “the way it was.” This book
is located in American History section,
Dewey 970.
Though many “What If” books are fo-
cused on the facts, alternative history
works can be fictional as well. Along with
co-author William B. Forstchen, Newt
Gingrich has written a series of books
about World War II, pitting Admiral Ya-
mamoto against Admiral Halsey. Two
of their books currently in our library -
Pearl Harbor
and
Days of Infamy
– are
enjoyable reads for a journey down a fic-
titious (rather than historically factual)
course.
Philip Roth (author of
The Human Stain
and
Portnoy’s Complaint
) has written
several alternative histories, includ-
ing
The Plot Against America
, in which
Charles Lindberg defeats Franklin Roo-
sevelt for the 1940 presidential election,
only to open negations with Hitler and
bring many troubles to American Jews.
Quite a good, dramatic read from a Pulit-
zer Prize-winning author.
The
Ring of Fire
series by Eric Flint
takes a different spin on the alternate
history genre as time-travelers venture
back to the Thirty Years’ War. Stephen
King also explores this concept in his
time-traveling novel,
11/22/63
.
Other authors of fiction to look for: Mi-
chael Chabon, Harry Turtledove, Seth
Grahame-Smith, Stephen Baxter, Doug-
las Niles with Michael Dobson, Robert
Conroy, and Peter Tsouras.
I have been fascinated by alternate histo-
ry ever since I read a book on changes in
U.S. and world history if the losing can-
didate in presidential elections had won.
I don’t remember the name of the book; it
1634: The
Bavarian
Crisis by
Eric Flint
and Virginia
DeMarce
Days of
Infamy
by
Newt
Gingrich
and
William R.
Forstchen
was a collection of short essays and didn’t
go into a lot of detail as I recall, but it set
off my thoughts into “what-ifs” that can
be very interesting. Do you ever wonder
what post-9/11 would have been like if
Al Gore had been president? Even closer
to home, would you be living in Sun City
Texas if Sam Houston and the Texans
had not won independence fromMexico?
If Santa Anna had not surrendered (he
had superior man-power and weapons,
but he was with a prostitute at the time
of attack), Mexico would have had much
more land and resources and the United
States would have been greatly dimin-
ished.
Alternate histories can be very interest-
ing and fun to read. Try one sometime!
Did you know…?
Our 52 library volunteers gave more
than 6,000 hours in 2014 to keep our li-
brary running smoothly.
The Plot
Against
America
by
Philip Roth
The Yiddish
Policemen’s
Union
by
Michael
Chabon
