The Anointed One by A.J. Nolte

Captain Simon Diogenes glanced around him at the crowded docks. Jaffa was a busy port city even at the slowest of times, and with the death of the Emperor David I Agrippa, these were far from slow times.

Diogenes' glance flicked over the disembarking passengers, noting several barbarians from the European Mithraic states. After the most recent war against the Manicheans of the Byzantine Empire, in which Mithraist mercenaries from the Gothic and Frankish kingdoms of Europe had fought hard on both sides, it was common to see the big blond warriors throughout the Alexandrian Empire. Diogenes himself would trust an Axumite or Nubian a thousand times over one of those heathen barbarians, and indeed, he saw a fair number of both.

Most of the travelers, though, were men like Diogenes and their wives; loyal Alexandrians and circumcised followers of the one true God. He supposed that was true of the Axumites and Nubians as well, though he wondered, at times, just how deep their commitment to faith and empire really was. Diogenes saw a number of traveling rabbis, probably headed to the Counsel of the Imperial rabbinate to be held in a few months time.

The politically savvy soldier knew just how disturbed the religious authorities of the empire were about the heir apparent's decision to forego the traditional coronation in Bethlehem. After the conversion of the Roman Emperor Judas Constantinus to Judaism and his relocation of the capital to Alexandria, those sections of the Empire which held to other beliefs rebelled. This combined with the influx of barbarians into the empire led to the fall of Rome.

Alexandria, however, had not only survived and prospered, but united all of Egypt, most of the Levant and part of Syria, as well as the former Roman provinces of Africa, into a powerful new Jewish Empire. With the conversion of the kings of Axum and Nubia to Judaism, and their de facto absorption into the empire, it seemed as if God was finally fulfilling the promises he had made to the Children of Israel so long ago.

As a consequence, it had become customary for the emperor to be crowned by the Chief Rabbi at Bethlehem, in order to fulfill the current interpretation of prophecy which linked the Emperor with the anointed one of God, or messiah in old Hebrew. Not coincidentally, this also gave the rabbinate considerable power over the Emperor, which it was not loathed to use on occasion. But Eleazar II Agrippa, the son of the beloved and recently departed Emperor David, had announced his intention to be crowned in Alexandria, and, in his words, "to put the superstitious nonsense of the messiah behind us once and for all."

Certainly, there were factions within the rabbinate who agreed with Eleazar, but the consternation over the decision would almost certainly lead to yet another divisive counsel and considerable civil unrest whatever the rabbinate decided. Diogenes thought the young Emperor was a fool to pick this fight, but sometimes young men were like that.

"Your pardon, Captain." Simon looked down to see a man garbed as a scribe addressing him.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"I pray God that you can. I am Josephus of Cordoba, a scribe in service to Lord Thiudaric of that city." Simon nodded; the Mithraist lords of Europe, whose religion taught them to shun any "work but soldiering", often used Jews as administrators.”I was sent by my lord to deliver letters to the Emperor at his coronation in Bethlehem, and to serve as his ambassador to the Emperor once the coronation was finished. Now, however, I find that the coronation has been moved to Alexandria, and my wife is great with child. I fear she could not easily make the journey, and I would not depart until I have seen her safely settled."

Simon sighed; this man's small crisis was only one of the many things Eleazar's unexpected change of plans had set askew.

"Your difficulties are not unusual, sir. If I can help, I will. Do you have lodgings arranged in Bethlehem?"

"Not yet, Captain. I fear my wife cannot travel much beyond that city, however."

"Perhaps I can help, then," Simon said. "My men and I ride for Bethlehem shortly. We will find a litter for your wife, and you can ride with us to the city. I believe lodgings are to be had with ease, particularly with the Emperor's changed plans. Once your wife is settled, you can best determine how to travel on to Alexandria."

"God Bless you, Captain, and I must accept your kind offer." The two men clasped hands, and Simon wondered what he had gotten himself into.

The trip to Bethlehem was uneventful, and Josephus, as it turned out, made for very good company. The Cordoban Jew had seen a fair slice of the world, even traveling to the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and to Persia.

"Byzantium is no great city," Josephus told Diogenes. "The emperors have tried to make it a new Rome, and its defenses are quite formidable, but it is a cheerless city, and the Manichean priests see manifestations of evil everywhere."

"And what of Rome?"

Josephus sighed. "Alas, it has fallen on very hard times, and is little more than a ruin. The land has not recovered from the ravages of Vandals and Huns. Of the Mithraic lands... well, it would be best if I kept my own counsel I think." Still, for all his reluctance to speak of Cordoba, Simon learned a great deal from Josephus from what he did not say. The man was not surprised to see synagogues, but much more shocked to see faithful Jews baring weapons. Josephus' eyes also darted around furtively, as though he were constantly in fear of ambush. Clearly, life was far from easy for the Jews of Cordoba.

"We are approaching Bethlehem, Captain." Diogenes nodded to his soldier, and turned to Josephus.

"This was a bucolic little town once, but it has grown since. I doubt King David himself would recognize it." The town had become a small city, full of inns and shops, with a number of influential synagogues. None, of course, could compare to the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, which was the heart of the rabbinate's power. Still, Bethlehem had become an important place in the empire, because of the coronations of so many emperors.

Josephus chuckled. "Do you know, Captain, I had a whimsical thought just now."

"Oh? Please do share it."

"Well, in the interpretations of prophecy common outside the empire, it is said that the anointed one, the messiah, will be born in Bethlehem, not crowned there. So if all goes as I think it might, some men might say my son is..."

"That is a whimsical thought best kept quiet, my friend," Simon interjected. "Neither the Chief Rabbi nor the Emperor would find it amusing. There have been pretenders advancing that claim before, zealots who have stirred up rebellions against what they see as imperial decadence."

"Yes, of course. I meant nothing by it, certainly."

"I know that, Josephus, but if your Miriam does give birth in Bethlehem, as seems likely, you had better let it be known your son was born somewhere else. What were you thinking of naming the lad, by the way?"

"Jesua, in the vulgar Latin of Hispania."

"A good strong name. That would be Yeshua in Aramaic?"

"Yes, though it is common for those of us living in the heathen west to make our names less… distinctive. My wife, for example, goes by Maria to the people of Thiudaric’s court."

"That is no bad thing, in this case. I think it best for you, and the boy, if Jesua of Cordoba is never associated with Yeshua, a boy born of Miriam in Bethlehem." Josephus nodded.

"Perhaps that would be best, for now. As for tomorrow, who can say what the future might hold?"

 Simon Diogenes would have cause to remember those enigmatic words of the scribe Josephus, decades later, when the name of Jesua of Cordoba was spoken from far Britain to the east of Persia and the south of Nubia. And he wondered then what part he might have played, if any, in the messianic movement that forever changed the world three centuries after the fall of Rome.

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A.J. Nolte is a PHD candidate in international relations at Catholic University and an aspiring sci-fi and alternate history writer . He is knowledgeable in Byzantine, medieval, ACW, Cold War, Islamic and post-colonial history. Also, he'll read almost anything once if it's got an airship in it.

The Top 10 Posts of December

Although we still have next Monday's Weekly Update, I thought this would be the best time to recap the top posts of December. So without further ado:

1) How to Write and Publish a Novel in Eight Easy Steps by Chris Nuttall: Essays detailing what it takes to write a SF/Fantasy novel.

2) Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation 2 by Chris Nuttall: Review of the Star Trek: The Next Generation and Doctor Who crossover comic.

3) Review: The Kildaran by Adam Gaffen and Richard Evans by Chris Nuttall: Novel about a lost colony of Vikings turned special forces.

4) January 2013: The Month of No Americans by Matt Mitrovich: Next month's writing contest is still accepting submissions so hurry up before we run out of days to post.

5) Weekly Update #82 by Matt Mitrovich: I make a big announcement, plus news on East vs. West, Cherie Priest, Ian Tregillis, SF awards, steampunk events and new releases.

6) Showcase: A Crack at Draka by Matt Mitrovich: I attempt to use my evil powers to get one of my favorite web originals updated again.

7) Industria, Tecnologia, Potenza: An Italy After Action Report by Tyler Bugg: Using Arsenal of Democracy we get a taste of what could have happened if Italy made some better decisions in WWII.

8) Review: By Force of Arms by Billy Bennett by AJ Nolte: The Confederacy won, but the Union gets a second chance.

9) Amazing Stories, the world's first science fiction magazine, opens for Beta Testing of Phase 1 on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013 by Matt Mitrovich: The classic SF magazine is back and yours truly is blogging for them.

10) Weekly Update #83 by Matt Mitrovich: Iron Kingdoms is novelized, The Afrika Reich gets reviewed, more chances to get published and new releases.

Well Chris did an excellent job getting the top 3 spots, while I once again had the most articles in the top ten this month. Shout out to AJ and Tyler for making the list as well. Stay tuned tomorrow when I recap the best of 2012.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a volunteer editor for Alt Hist magazine. His fiction can be found at Echelon Press, Jake's Monthly and The Were-Traveler. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

Review: By Force of Arms by Billy Bennett

Guest post by A.J. Nolte.

Let me confess at the outset that I do not like negatively reviewing books. As an aspiring author who has yet to finish my first novel, I always try to give the benefit of the doubt to those who have. Let me also say that By Force of Arms, Billy Bennett's sweeping history of the Second American Civil War that never was, is not an entirely a bad book. All that said, there are a couple of really glaring flaws that will, I think, probably deter a lot of readers from buying the book.

The premise of the book is actually a pretty common starting point for Confederate victory scenarios: the survival of Stonewall Jackson after the Battle of Chancellorsville, his more aggressive actions on the first day of Gettysburg, total Confederate victory in the Battle of Fredericksburg and the intervention of the European countries to push Lincoln to the negotiating table. So far its plausible, and unlike many modern alternate historians, Bennett does not over-estimate the British willingness to lend the Confederates a helping hand. While you see a lot of alternate historians (cough, Turtledove, cough) envisioning a permanent strategic alliance between Britain and the Confederacy, I think this dramatically under-estimates the anti-slavery sentiment of the British public, and over-estimates Britain's willingness to get involved in North American affairs. Britain might go so far as to urge a diplomatic resolution to the conflict to tweak the Americans' tails on the cheap and give them something close to home to worry about, but openly allying with the Confederacy to the extent of actually sending troops to North America just does not seem plausible to me, and Bennett gets this right.

As the story moves forward, we find the north ready for a fight once again in 1869, with Confederate intervention in Mexico as the pretext. I also give Bennett some points here for the way in which he integrates new technologies onto the battlefield. The Gatling gun and breech-loading rifle certainly would have revolutionized warfare, and I doubt generals on either side, whose most recent experience with warfare would have been the Civil War of 1863, would really have understood the changes these new weapons would bring. Finally, on the positive side of the book, I actually found Bennett's characters to be interesting. From Buffalo Soldiers to Confederate scientists, war corespondents to members of the French Foreign Legion, Bennett did a good job inventing credible characters out of whole cloth.

Now, to those flaws I mentioned. First and foremost, this book really, really needed a content editor.  The occasional spelling and grammar mistakes I can live with, although other readers may have a lower pain threshold in this regard. When they occur on a very regular basis, and are combined with basic copy editing mistakes, it can become distracting. For example, part of the scenario rests on the premise that pro-Confederate Ohio congressman Clement Vallandigham wins the 1864 election, and guts the Union army (we'll come back to plausibility in a moment). Yet, later in the book, McClellan is listed as the President elected in 1864. This is probably an editing mistake left over from an earlier draft, but I found it confusing, and distracting.

On the one hand, Vallandigham being elected is fairly implausible. Even when a country loses a war, it does not tend to support those who opposed it. So McClellan's election is more plausible, but less likely to yield the result the author wants. There are a lot of bad things you can say about Little Mac, and I've said most of them, but the one thing I could never see him doing is gutting his beloved Army of the Potomac, which served, not incidentally, as the base of his power in 1864. I actually think the most likely outcome of the 1864 election would be a moderate, pro-war Democrat winning, maybe Dan Sickles for example if he performed well at Gettysburg, or a less radical Republican like William Seward taking the helm.

This leads me to the second, and in my view, most major flaw with By Force of Arms. I excluded several characters from my positive description above, and that was deliberate. Like the scenario itself, I am not sure the actions of Bennett's real historical people are actually plausible, and I think this owes something to the author's pro-Confederate slant. Let me clarify this point a bit. Bennett makes a conscience effort not to sugar-coat the racism throughout Confederate society, and one certainly doesn't get the impression that he thinks a victorious Confederacy would have been a utopia. I do think, however, he sees a pro-union bias in much of the American Civil War alternate history out there, and in trying to balance this, over-corrects. As a result, major portions of the book just don't pass the plausibility test for me.

I recognize this is sort of a hard line to draw with alternate history, and I also confess I'm a good bit more sympathetic to the Union than the Confederacy, and certainly more sympathetic to it than the author, so this may color my judgment. Nevertheless, it seems to me that all the major Union politicians and generals make horrible decisions which also happen to be out of character. Let's begin with the first union actor which does things that make no sense: the general electorate. Certainly, I can understand the desire to pick a war hero after the humiliation of defeat and, equally importantly, the economic and political weakness of the Vallandigham administration. Picking William T. Sherman, however, seems to have more to do with the author's desire to portray the U.S. President as a cartoon villain, complete with conspiratorial meetings with New York financiers and broad expansions of executive power. There are a host of staunchly anti-Confederate figures who would have made sense as victors in the 1868 election: Thaddeus Stephens, Charles Sumner, or generals such as John C. Fremont. However, the idea of a subordinate commander in the western theater who, as of 1863, hadn't earned the controversial notoriety he did during the 1864 campaign, steam-rolling his way into the White House is a little far-fetched.

This pales in comparison to the other bad decisions Union characters make in this book, seemingly without reason. Take the most egregious example: U.S. Grant, who is quite logically put in charge of the whole war effort, decides to concentrate the entire Union army into one massive hammer attacking Virginia. Sure, Grant believed in Union victory by attrition, and took personal command of the OTL force in the east. I could certainly see him doing something similar in a second Civil War scenario. However, the idea that he would simply allow the Confederates a free shot at California and basically ignore the  the western theater—where he spent the vast majority of his  military career including his service in the Civil War, is a little hard to swallow.

In addition to the often baffling decisions of Union generals, the Confederates never make any mistakes. Bennett doesn't account for "victory disease", the well-established phenomenon that winning armies often get over-confident and over-extended. Additionally, it tends to be the case that armies which lose wars have a better record of rapidly adopting innovations than armies that win. Add all this to the very traditional military culture of southern officers at the time, and it seems to me the Confederates adapt too quickly, and adopt new technologies far too readily, while the Union generals talk about lessons from the last war, but command with about the level of competence they showed in 1862.

On the whole, then, I thought the premise of By Force of Arms was interesting and decently plausible, the characters were good and the description of changes in warfare was well thought-out. For me, though, the book was just too badly-edited and unabashedly pro-Confederate. A more balanced perspective with the editing problems of this book, or a pro-Confederate narrative without some of the serious editing issues, would have probably gotten a better review. As it is, I think if a dash of "lost cause" fiction is your thing, you might be able to overlook some of the editing and content issues. Mr. Bennett is an author who shows some promise at imagining alternate impacts to alternate history scenarios. Unlike the Union army of his books, I hope his next offering will be able to overcome some of the weaknesses of this book.

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A.J. Nolte is a PHD candidate in international relations at Catholic University and an aspiring sci-fi and alternate history writer . He is knowledgeable in Byzantine, medieval, ACW, Cold War, Islamic and post-colonial history. Also, he'll read almost anything once if it's got an airship in it.

Review: Rising Sun by Robert Conroy

Guest post by A.J. Nolte.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with Rising Sun, the newest World War II novel by Robert Conroy. The writing is fine, the scenario is plausible [Editor's Note: Not everyone would agree with you.], the action scenes are interesting and engaging, and the characters are moderately intriguing. By far the biggest problem with Rising Sun isn't this book on its own, but rather when you compare it to all of Conroy's other books, particularly his recent string of World War II novels.

I started reading Conroy with 1862, his re-imagining of the American Civil War in which the British support the Confederates. While I could certainly quibble with some of the choices Conroy made in 1862, the novel was enjoyable, engaging and not entirely implausible. By far my favorite  Conroy novel was 1901, which posited a German invasion of the United States in order to gain control of America's newly-one colonies. This scenario isn't Conroy's most plausible, but it was definitely one of a kind. Since 1901 however, Conroy has written four consecutive World War II scenarios: Red Inferno 1945, 1942, Himmler's War and Rising Sun. In all four of these books, the  characters, initial scenario and eventual outcome are remarkably similar. So if you've read 1942, Rising Sun is going to feel extremely familiar, perhaps too much so.

The premise of Rising Sun is a crushing U.S. defeat at the Battle of Midway. In the aftermath, the U.S. scrambles to pull together its fleet, while the Japanese attempt to take the war to the Americans more directly. Unfortunately, the book rapidly engages all of Conroy's favorite tropes: the young military hero, with the assistance and support of his skinny, intellectual love interest attempts to implement a strategy which will culminate in American victory, despite grumbling from high command and the intervention of military politics. I'll leave the ending for you to guess, and if you've read many of Conroy's books, it shouldn't be difficult.

There were certainly some strong scenes and characters in Rising Sun. Amanda, the previously-mentioned skinny, intellectual love interest, is a rather compelling character who faces interesting challenges (think crossing the Pacific in a small boat). Conroy also focuses on the U.S. mainland here, which is somewhat unique. The addition of the FBI angle, and the land action in Alaska sort of set this book apart. And, as I mentioned above, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with this book; if you liked the Conroy formula in his previous novels, you'll probably like this one. For real World War II buffs and people new to Robert Conroy's writings, I might recommend Rising Sun. But if you've already read Red Inferno 1945 or 1942, Conroy's other novels set in the Pacific, and don't have a deep personal interest in the Battle of Midway, you might want to spend your money somewhere else.

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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A.J. Nolte is a PHD candidate in international relations at Catholic University and an aspiring sci-fi and alternate history writer . He is knowledgeable in Byzantine, medieval, ACW, Cold War, Islamic and post-colonial history. Also, he'll read almost anything once if it's got an airship in it.

Top 10 Underrated Political Alternate Histories

Guest post by A.J. Nolte.

With the 2012 election in full swing, it’s worth taking a look at 10 alternate scenarios, themed around elections, which haven’t really been explored much in alternate history, but which could have dramatically altered the current American political landscape. I've tried to draw on both Republican and Democratic primary election changes. Most of them date from the twentieth century, but I’ll try to throw in a few nineteenth century scenarios to spice things up a bit. Thus, in no particular order, here are the scenarios:

Speaker Cheney

Long before he was the boogie-man of liberal anxiety during the Bush Administration, Dick Cheney was nominated by the first President Bush to be Secretary of Defense. However, Cheney wasn't Bush’s first pick for the position, and was only chosen as a safe alternative after the nomination of John Tower went down in flames. But what if Tower’s nomination had succeeded or Bush had picked a different secretary of defense? At the time, Cheney was actually senior to Newt Gingrich in Republican house leadership. Thus, it’s likely Republicans would have gone into the historic 1994 mid-term elections with Cheney, not Gingrich, at the helm. Would they still have won their crushing majorities absent the Contract with America?

It’s certainly plausible; a lot of debate remains about the role the Contract played in Republican victories verses, for example, a trickling down of southern realignment to the congressional level, Clinton’s health care failures and so on. Thus, it is very possible we could have seen a Clinton/Cheney, rather than a Clinton/Gingrich showdown. If that doesn't tickle your political fancies, just imagine Cheney and Gingrich battling it out for leadership of the Republican house caucus. The two men weren't exactly pals during their mutual house careers, so the battles between them could have been legendary.

A Different Democratic Hope

In 1992, Democrats were desperate for a figure capable of leading them out of their twelve-year electoral wilderness. By unlikely coincidence, they settled on a young southern governor named Bill Clinton. But Clinton’s coronation was anything but assured. In fact, the odds-on favorite for the Democratic nomination in 1992 was New York Governor Mario Cuomo. Its possible Cuomo was seen as too liberal by a victory-hungry Democratic Party establishment wary of the Dukakis disaster, or that Cuomo himself was wary of the seemingly popular President Bush, but it’s not implausible we could have seen a Bush/Cuomo general election.

However, for me, another Democrat is a much more interesting possible candidate. Moderate Democrats were torn in 1992 between Clinton and Virginia governor Doug Wilder. If some of Clinton’s more…adventurous…lifestyle choices had come out earlier, might the Democratic Leadership Council types have gravitated to Wilder? This would have made Wilder, if he won, the first African-American nominee of either major party, and a full 16 years before Barack Obama. Could he have won such an election? Would President Bush have tapped war hero Colin Powell for his ticket in the 1992 election, in order to try and counter the narrative of a historic election? Would it have worked? Fascinating speculations, which could be the source of a crackling good electoral AH.

A Republican Primary without Ike

Dwight D. Eisenhower’s candidacy for the Republican nomination was by no means a foregone conclusion in 1952; it took a lot of arm-twisting from two-time Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey to get the popular war hero into the ring. Eisenhower also seriously considered not running for a second term in 1956. Either of these elections would have been a fascinating free-for-all without Ike.

In 1952, the Republican Party was dominated by the Dewey/Taft split, an internal party squabble between interventionist, east coast moderates and quasi-isolationist, Midwestern conservatives. Without Dewey, the Taft wing of the party would have been immeasurably stronger, possibly making Robert Taft the nominee in 1952, and throwing the election’s outcome very much in doubt. An equally intriguing possibility is that moderate but law-and-order governor Earl Warren could have won the nomination, with a conservative Taft supporter as his Vice-President.

In 1956, things were even more jumbled. Taft was dead, while Nixon was not trusted by many Dewey supporters, so might not have had the field cleared for him. Could 1956 without Ike have been the year in which Harold Stassen finally broke through, or would another Republican politician have emerged to take up the gauntlet? Needless to say, the impact on a different Republican nominee, and a different President of either party, would have been enormous for civil rights, the cold war and the near future electoral history of the U.S.

[Editor's Note: Or we could have had a President Disney.]

The Presidency of Aaron Burr

Imagine a situation where a Republican congress got to choose the President, with the catch that their options were Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama? This was the situation which faced the Federalist congress after the election of 1800, one of the bitterest and most divisive elections in American history (picture one party accusing the other party, openly, of being agents of a nation with whom we were at war, while being accused of serious abridgements of freedom themselves…and both accusations proving, in retrospect, to be sort of true). Their choices, in this case, were between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr.

Given that one of these men would end up rated by historians as one of our top ten presidents, while the other shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel then got involved in a number of extremely sketchy conspiracies, those bye-gone Federalists probably made the right choice. But picture this scenario instead. Aaron Burr promises to work with the Federalists more than Jefferson, and gets the nod from congress. He then actually confirms all of President Adams’ “midnight appointments”, thereby butterflying Marbury vs. Madison away, and possibly delaying or altering the American concept of Judicial Review. How different would a Burr presidency have been from Jefferson’s? There have been a few alternate history short stories on the topic, but its fertile ground for speculation.

A Second Coolidge term

Call this one the “Milton Friedman special”. It’s a common conceit of libertarian economists that a truly non-interventionist U.S. policy in the aftermath of the 1929 stock exchange crash would have dramatically changed the Great Depression. Keynesians, by contrast, argue that less intervention would have made the situation immeasurably worse. Both would have a field day with this scenario.

In 1928, Calvin Coolidge opted not to run for a second full term as President, and was replaced by Herbert Hoover. Hoover was certainly more of an economic interventionist than Coolidge, who reportedly told farmers coming to ask the government for help in a bad agricultural year to “take up religion”. Do you think a less interventionist economic policy would have decreased the Great Depression, or made it worse, possibly giving space to more radical demagogues? This electoral scenario would give perspective writers free range to counter-factually explore the assumptions behind their own economic beliefs.

1976 Democratic Primary

In retrospect, Jimmy Carter has been lionized by progressives as a tragic warrior who fought hard for many of their pet causes, and vilified by conservatives as an ideological president too far to the left for the country. Both of these characterizations would have shocked liberal Democrats in 1976, who encouraged California governor Jerry Brown and senator Frank Church to enter the Democratic nominating contest. Unfortunately for these progressives, they failed to fully understand the impact of the Democrats’ new primary-heavy nominating system.

By contrast Carter, a hitherto obscure governor from Georgia, grasped the importance of these new nominating contests, and used them to crush more established Democratic names. But what if some of these politicians had picked up on the importance of primaries sooner?

The list of Democrats running in 1976 runs from George C. Wallace to Birch Bayh (author of two constitutional amendments and a progressive hero), to Henry M. (Scoop) Jackson, a savvy cold warrior after whom Joe Lieberman seems to have modeled his senate career. Any one of them would have made a fascinating candidate to go up against Gerald Ford, and if you add in the contentious primary between Ford and an up-start governor from California named Ronald Reagan, the permutations of this alternate 1976 are almost endless.

George Wallace, civil rights moderate

When you think George Wallace, you probably instantly remember the now infamous phrase: “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” What most people don’t know is that, in 1958, the fiery racial populist was actually considered a civil rights moderate.

In 1948, Wallace refused to join Strom Thurmond’s Dixiecrat walk-out of the Democratic convention. African-American lawyers in Alabama in the 1950s called Wallace “the most liberal judge” in the state, and there’s speculation that his granting of probation to some African-Americans may have cost him the 1958 gubernatorial election. His opponent in this Democratic primary, John Malcolm Patterson, ran with the support of the KKK, winning the primary by getting to Wallace’s right on race. Reportedly, Wallace vowed never to let this happen again after his 1958 loss.

If Wallace was a primarily opportunistic segregationist, it’s interesting to speculate what might have happened had he won in 1958. Would Governor Wallace still have beaten the drum on segregation quite so vehemently without the stinging results of this primary? Very possibly; as a populist, he likely would have seen this position as “what the people wanted”. Equally plausible, however, would have been a post-1958 Wallace who focused his efforts on other issues, such as economic development. And if he retained his somewhat moderate views pre-1958, it’s interesting to speculate about Wallace’s potential national future. Regardless of the possible result, it’s interesting to note how much losing an election can change a candidate’s future.

Scenarios which don’t involve Wilson or Roosevelt

Many historians have speculated about the outcome of a TR victory in 1912. Surprisingly, however, there’s been very little discussion of the outcome if William Howard Taft, the incumbent Republican, had managed to beat Wilson in 1912. The idea isn't entirely implausible of course; a little less ego from one, a little more compromise from the other, and the Taft/Roosevelt split might well have been patched up short of an open breech in the Republican Party.

One possibility would be to make Archibald Butt, a military officer with a foot in both camps, miss his boat in April 1912. He was, of course, one of the passengers on the RMS Titanic. But perhaps more intriguing is a brief mention in several sources that Governor Herbert S. Hadley was considered as a compromise candidate, but declined to be nominated due to tuberculosis. Absent this illness, could a different little-known politician from Missouri have risen to the nation’s highest office, just in time to face a world war?

A Different Bush, A Different McCain

With Jeff Greenfield’s short story 43*, we've now seen a realistic attempt to envision what a Gore presidency would have looked like. But as it turns out, it’s not that hard to butterfly away the presidency of George W. Bush without a Gore victory.

In 1994, two Bushes ran for the governorships of two different states: George W. in Texas and Jeb Bush in Florida. It was always broadly assumed by the Bush inner circle that Jeb, not George W, would be the next Bush to run for the White House. Jeb, however, lost his run for governor in 1994, only to come back and win in 1998. It was George who, after a term and a half as governor, ran for the top job in 2000.

Flip those 1994 electoral outcomes, and a very different Bush—possibly holding some rather different views—would have been a likely candidate for political office. Of course, an equally likely possibility is that both Bush sons lose in 1994, leaving a wide open Republican field in 2000. Possible candidates include Michigan governor John Engler, Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, New York governor George Pataki, Utah senator Oren Hatch, and—because I have a fondness for dark horses you've never heard of—North Dakota governor Ed Schafer.

However, the odds-on favorite, absent a Bush, was probably Arizona senator John McCain. Healways had a bit of a right flank problem in the 2000 Republican primary, but assuming his primary competition came from an openly pro-choice candidate like Ridge, might social conservatives have gravitated to him? How would his broad, moderate appeal in 2000 have weathered a tough campaign against the Vice President, who he promised he would “beat like a drum”? And how would a President McCain, if victorious, have responded to the events of 9/11? All of this would make for a fascinating alternate history.

Election 2008, Without Obama or Palin

2008 was an election marked by the meteoric rise of two hitherto obscure politicians into the national spotlight. Barack Obama’s rise to the White House began in 2004, while Alaska governor Sarah Palin didn't truly make her mark until 2006. However, life could have turned out very, very differently for both Obama and Palin.

There are several interesting paths for Obama, but in my mind, the most interesting would have been an Obama victory in the 2000 Democratic congressional primary against Representative Bobby Rush. Would Congressman Obama, representing a very progressive African-American district, have been able to tack to the center sufficiently to maintain his national profile? Or, would he have been seen, like Newark mayor Corry Booker, as simply one of many rising young African-American politicians focused on reform? Of course, there are plenty of ways to prevent Obama from winning in 2004, from a more successful campaign by his primary rival Blair Hull, to the divorce records of Republican nominee Jack Ryan either not coming out, or coming out before the Republican primary, thereby allowing Republicans to pick another nominee.

Of course, the easiest alternate history in this regard would be for Peter Fitzgerald to run for reelection. He would not have been a shoe-in, of course, and the Illinois Republican Party would almost certainly opposed him in a competitive primary, but the eventual winner would have given state Senator Obama a real fight in November, particularly in the good Republican year of 2004.

For Palin, the butterflies are much easier. She could have lost the 2006 Alaska gubernatorial election, either in the primary or general election. She might very well have decided to run against Lisa Murkowski for the senate in 2004. It’s an open question whether she would have won such a fight, but if she did, her rise to the national spotlight would have happened earlier, more gradually, and probably with less fanfare. This in turn would probably have made her less attractive to John McCain, who was looking for a game-changer in the race. The easiest solution would have been for McCain to simply not pick her. Other potential candidates, such as Joe Lieberman, Carly Fiorina and Tim Pawlenty, received trial balloons prior to the Palin pick, and McCain could have gone with one of them.

But how would these different circumstances have changed the 2008 election? Palin is the easiest variable to predict; McCain would still have lost. Faced with the first African-American presidential nominee of either major party, and given the image problems Republicans had in 2008, there was simply no way McCain was going to pull out a win, absent a major, positive game-changing moment. Additionally, McCain ran on the premise that 2008 would be a foreign policy election, and was a self-admitted novice on the economic issues which proved to dominate the election.

Without Obama, the picture becomes murkier. I submit that some sort of organized stop Hilary Clinton movement was almost inevitable, given the level of visceral hatred Republicans and many independents held for her at the time (what a difference 4 years makes). It’s also worth keeping in mind that many progressive Democrats weren't exactly enamored of the Clinton legacy. Would Democrats have rallied around John Edwards—an unfortunate choice in retrospect—or perhaps gone for a different historical first with then New Mexico Governor—and Latino—Bill Richardson? Or would anti-Hilary Democrats have turned, as their party has so often in the past, to a popular southern governor like Mark Warner or Phil Bredesen? The speculative possibilities are endless, and endlessly fascinating.

Honorable Mention: Third party scenarios?

We hear a lot from election to election about how nice it would be to have a viable third party candidate, or a third party president. But, realistically, how plausible is such an outcome post-1900? The short answer, in my view, is not very, but not for the reasons you might think. In fact, the reason we don’t have a viable third party in the U.S. is precisely because every third party focuses like a laser on running a candidate for president. However, generally-speaking, you don’t get to be President unless you've run for and won an office previously, and all-too-often, third party candidates are first-time candidates.

There’s another reason why the presidency trap kills third parties; it prevents them from building a viable party organization in any one of the fifty states. You can’t win an election without hundreds of thousands of people knocking on doors, making phone calls, pushing their friends to vote for you and giving you money. Unfortunately for them, most third parties focus so totally on their quixotic quest for the matching funds 5% of the popular vote in a presidential election would bring, that they utterly fail to do the incredibly difficult-but-essential work of building up local party structures.

If you want to talk about third party scenarios, I suppose the most plausible would be 1948, 1968, 1980 and 1992. In each of these cases, third party candidates actually won significant portions of the popular vote. However, if you look at the Electoral College map, only Wallace and Strom Thurmond won actual electoral votes.

Take Ross Perot as an example here. Eighteen percent of the vote is a very respectable share of the vote for a third party candidate, and Perot used this as a platform to create the Reform Party. Unfortunately for Perot, and the third party ideal, he focused on attempting to repeat his performance in 1996, rather than carefully building up state and local party organizations, running strong candidates for state legislative and congressional races, and thereby forging the types of coalitions he would have needed to actually one day win a presidential election. The utter collapse of the Reform Party post-Perot, and its vacillation between Pat Buchanan in 2000 and Ralph Nader in 2004, demonstrate my point about the problems of candidate-centric third party efforts quite powerfully.

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A.J. Nolte is a PHD candidate in international relations at Catholic University and an aspiring sci-fi and alternate history writer . He is knowledgeable in Byzantine, medieval, ACW, Cold War, Islamic and post-colonial history. Also, he'll read almost anything once if it's got an airship in it.

Review: Wolf Hunt by Sebastian Breit

Guest post by A.J. Nolte.

When you think of alternate history, two time periods jump immediately to mind: the American Civil War and World War 2. By far, these two conflicts are the most frequently re-imagined periods in alternate history, with many novels, anthologies and scholarly essays dedicated to them. Among these alternate histories, many posit the idea of modern, or even slightly near-future military elements going back in time to change the course of the war. Harry Turtledove's Guns of the South and John Birmingham's Axis of Time trilogy are only two of the more well-known examples. With Wolf Hunt, Sebastian Breit appears to be embarking on a project similar in scope to Birmingham's well-known trilogy. So when I read Breit's novel, I was looking for it, ultimately, to do one thing: distinguish itself from every other World War 2 alternate history ever written.

At this, I would have to say Wolf Hunt was modestly successful. The premise is a bit too reminiscent of the Axis of Time trilogy for total uniqueness; an allied, U.S.-led force is on its way to perform a humanitarian intervention, when it is pulled back in time to World War 2. After an extremely devastating bout of blue on blue violence which feels just a bit contrived, the up-timers set about trying to change the course of the war, to the detriment of the Nazis. Beyond these similarities, however, many of the differences actually favor Breit's novel over Birmingham's. For one thing, and this is the true hook of Wolf Hunt, over half the modern task force is German. This also makes the eventual blue on blue violence somewhat more explicable than Birmingham's "oops, we just ran into the down-timer U.S. navy" plot device in Axis of Time.

Legitimate difference over national interest rapidly heightens the tension between U.S. navy Captain Stephen Flynn and his German counterpart and friend, Captain Florian Hallwinter. One might be forgiven for thinking that two men who obviously knew and trusted one another as thoroughly as Flynn and Hallwinter would have found some more effective way of dealing with these divergent interests, and confronting their mutual enemies. On the other hand, what actually happens isn't totally unreasonable, given a totally unprecedented and panic-stricken situation, and it's clearly necessary to keep the story suspenseful. This was something which bothered me a great deal while I was reading the book, but less so in retrospect. Still, I would have liked to see more attention paid to this conflict; while it's a necessary element of the plot, the way it's presented comes off feeling just a little bit forced.

Throughout the rest of the book, the parallel story-lines follow Flynn and Hallwinter, as well as their crews. The American sections, while well-written, feel a bit boiler-plate. The Americans have the now almost stereotypical encounters with J. Edgar Hoover, the racism and sexism of the 1940s and so-on.  Will any of the Americans use their future knowledge to try and change the future of American politics, subtly alter American society, or even simply help their grandparents? Hopefully, more of these human interactions will become apparent in future books.  The sections dealing with the modern Germans are Wolf Hunt's strongest element, most distinguishing feature, and clearly the plot which most interests the author. (It's an open question in my mind as to whether the book might not have been stronger without the American plot-line altogether; I will give Breit the benefit of the doubt for now on this score as he seems to be setting up for a longer series in which the Americans will be pivotal).

Captain Hallwinter, clearly a tormented soul whose decisions sometimes seem questionable, his conflicted XO, a young and highly competent Turkish officer, the ruthless Colonel Kaufmann, and even a pair of grousing helicopter pilots seem, on the whole, better flushed out than their American counterparts. And their mission, the overthrow of Hitler and the Nazi Party at the height of their power and success, is interesting, uncertain, and leaves the reader guessing until the end. I hope Breit's second novel, Clash of Eagles, has put a bit more thought into the development of the American plot-line in some non-standard directions. Additionally, there's very little attention paid to non-German and non-American perspectives in this novel. What will all these changes mean for the British, the Soviets and the Japanese? These answers are hinted at, but I'm hoping to see some viewpoint perspectives from these nations in future books.

All that said, I found Wolf Hunt a satisfying read. If you're looking for a book that does something totally new in the field, you'll be disappointed, but this is a fast-paced and interesting story told very well. In fact, most of my problems with the book are probably the type of frustration any reader will have with the first novel in a series, where some things are left for development in the future. Breit clearly knows his subject in great detail, but avoids the sadly all-too-common tendency to overload the reader with technical jargon in favor of a lean and clean story. There are some relatively minor grammatical issues and the writing's a bit clunky in parts, but for a first novel reasonably priced at four dollars (for the e-book version), it's well worth your money. And if, like most fans of alternate history, you just can't get enough of World War 2, Wolf Hunt is almost certainly a book you need to add to your collection.

Grade: 4 out of 5 stars.

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A.J. Nolte is a PHD candidate in international relations at Catholic University and an aspiring sci-fi and alternate history writer . He is knowledgeable in Byzantine, medieval, ACW, Cold War, Islamic and post-colonial history. Also, he'll read almost anything once if it's got an airship in it.