Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals - Softcover

Ferguson, Niall

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241952255 ISBN 13: 9780241952252

Publisher: Penguin, 2011

Synopsis

Edited by Niall Ferguson, Virtual History applies 'counterfactual' arguments to decisive moments in modern history.

What if Britain had stayed out of the First World War?
What if Germany had invaded Britain in 1940?
What if Nazi Germany had defeated the Soviet Union?
How would England look if there had been no Cromwell?
What if there had been no American Revolution?
And what if John F. Kennedy had lived?

In this acclaimed book, leading historians from Andrew Roberts to Michael Burleigh challenge the complacency of traditional accounts, exploring what might have been if nine of the most decisive moments in modern history had never happened.

'Quite brilliant, inspiring for the layman and an enviable tour de force for the informed reader ... A wonderful book ... lucid, exciting and easy to read' - Literary Review

'Ferguson constructs an entire scenario starting with Charles I's defeat of the Covenanters, running through three revolutions that did not happen and climaxing with the collapse of the West, ruled by an Anglo-American empire, in the face of a mighty transcontinental, tsarist Russian imperium ... A welcome, optimistic assault on an intellectual heresy' - Sunday Times

'A talented and imaginative team who tackle with counterfactual verve a series of turning points' - Daily Telegraph

About this title

Review:

Quite brilliant, inspiring for the layman and an enviable tour de force for the informed reader ... A wonderful book ... lucid, exciting and easy to read (Literary Review)

Ferguson constructs an entire scenario starting with Charles I's defeat of the Covenanters, running through three revolutions that did not happen and climaxing with the collapse of the West, ruled by an Anglo-American empire, in the face of a mighty transcontinental, tsarist Russian imperium ... A welcome, optimistic assault on an intellectual heresy (Sunday Times)

A talented and imaginative team who tackle with counterfactual verve a series of turning points (Daily Telegraph)

About the Author:

Niall Ferguson is one of Britain's most renowned historians. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, and a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He is the author of fifteen books, including The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, Empire, Civilization and Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, which won the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Prize. He is an award-making filmmaker, too, having won an international Emmy for his PBS series The Ascent of Money. His many other prizes include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013). He writes a weekly column for the Sunday Times, for which he was named Columnist of the Year at the 2018 British Press Awards.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0241952255
• ISBN 13: 9780241952252
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 560