Williamson Murray

What If?

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The alternate history continues with a collection of essays from various historians and popular writers, a modern sequel of sorts to If It Had Happened Otherwise.

There was a follow up volume I have not read.

Raw Feed (2004): What If?: The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been, ed. Robert Cowley, 2000.what-if

“Introduction”, Robert Cowley — A cursory look at the current state of academic “counterfactual” writing, teasers for the essays in the collection, and a brief discussion of their genesis in the special tenth anniversary edition of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History.

“Infectious Alternatives: The Plague That Saved Jerusalem, 701 B.C.”, William H. McNeill — Not surprisingly McNeill, the historian who really first put forth the idea that disease epidemics affected many events in history, chooses a plague as his turning point. We don’t really know why the Assyrian king Sennacherib abandoned his investment of Jerusalem. We know his army suffered severe losses, and it is probable that it was due to disease. McNeill briefly sketches, in cultural and religious terms, the consequences of the Assyrians taking Jerusalem and, thereby, killing Judaism as a cultural force for good. (It really isn’t that much of a stretch. The splinter kingdom of Israel had abandoned Judaism and disappeared in 722 B.C. Several cities in Judah were taken, and the King of Judea ended up paying tribute to the Assyrians.) McNeill sees the main effect of Jerusalem being taken is that the Jewish faith looses further confidence. The unique universal monotheism of Judaism is weakened. When the Jews are taken off in the Babylonian captivity, they become just another locally centered, ethnically based faith and exert no influence on the following centuries.

“A Good Night’s Sleep Can Do Wonders“, Barbara N. Porter — A very brief alternate history that imagines the possible consequences (actually, it spends most of its time recounting the historical record and not imagining alternative outcomes) of the Lydian King Gyges not getting a good night’s sleep and impatiently attacking the Cimmerians before he was ready. The Lydians don’t form an alliance with Assyria and, years later, nascent Greek culture is overwhelmed by the expanding Cimmerians. Continue reading →

Moment of Battle

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You should get some new content shortly.

Until then, here’s a retro review from April 12, 2013.

Review: Moment of Battle: The Twenty Clashes That Changed the World, Jim Lacy and Williamson Murray, 2013.Moment of Battle

This is the latest updating of Edward Creasy’s The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: From Marathon to Waterloo.

The battles range from Marathon in 490 BC to Operation Peach of the Iraq War in 2003. The authors opt for a specific criteria – not battles that changed the course of a war but ones that fundamentally altered the future influence of nations and cultures. Most of the time that criteria is met even if it means we get four from WWII (the Battle of Britain, Midway, Kursk, and Normandy). The inclusion of the Iraq War is, as the authors acknowledge, somewhat questionable given that history is only beginning to work out its effects. It seems there to mainly lend novelty to the latest entry in this military history sub-genre and to take advantage of the authors’ own contributions to scholarship on the war – in this case a fascinating look at Saddam Hussein’s decisions in response to the invasion of his country.

Besides the Iraq War, there are other deviations from the stated formula. The “Annus Mirabilis” chapter actually covers two 1759 battles, one on land and one on sea, that determined the British, and not the French, Empire would dominate the world and lay the groundwork for modern globalization. We get Vicksburg and not Gettysburg for the American Civil War – thus running counter to the authors’ wry observation that historians looking for a quick payday can always whip out a book on Hastings, Waterloo, or Gettysburg. (Hastings is here, though.) Continue reading →