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Things have changed now, and the Chinese are far prouder (at least, to foreigners) of their ancient history. I briefly popped into an exhibition some Chinese students were holding about Chinese culture, and it had a variety of "typically Chinese" things to show off to gawping Westerners...

Credit where it's due, Stalin could sing well. He and his Georgian cronies apparently still could (according to Simon Sebag Montefiore, anyway), when they made a record of their singing in one of their parties during the late 40s. Anyway, Communism would be seen by the Nazis in a Nazi...

Indeed. But "the very least" option of benevolent neutrality and readying troops takes into account the generally anti-war and pro disarmament public and government sentiment going round (WWI was very recent, after all), as well as the likelihood that the Japanese would have extreme difficulty...

I've heard it said that the Romans at the Battle of Arausio suffered more losses than any single day on the Western Front. That they could recover and win the war speaks volumes about the Roman Republic, and Gaius Marius in particular. How to make WWI less of a bloodbath: more British...

Britain was very much trying to align with Japan at this point. They had a history of cooperating in Asia, had deliberately stayed aloof from the agreements in the aftermath of the Sino-Japanese War which forced Japan to give up territory, and was able to trust Japan to help out in the Boxer...

I'd just like to point everyone towards the "Halifax" timeline by FletcherofSaltoun. Halifax was not a complete pacifist. In the 30s, he had wanted to, ultimately, stand up to Germany. In the TL, he makes a peace (briefly), the Western Allies rebuild their armies, and they attack Germany again.

Was I the only one who thought this was an ISOT putting the Gipper into the Casablanca Conference instead of FDR?

I was referring to soon after the collapse, not the High Middle Ages.

I see a lot of contradictory evidence about the Baths. On the one hand, people bemoan the loss of hygeine. On the other, Mary Beard's study of the baths at Pompeii show that the ones she studied lacked the equivalent of That Hole Underneath the Taps that Isn't the Plughole (pardon my technical...

Read it over the past few days. Am as ever ignorant but fascinated by the "for want of a nail" of one shell hitting one ship doing so much (give or take some authorial fiat to help things along.) Keep going. I look foward to Overlord with interest!

Bill Bryson wrote that the entire city of Vienna, due to its sheer mass of palaces and grand buildings, would be a prime target for alien landings.

Well, it's because there is insufficient detail for there to be much to comment about. There's a strong British Empire that wins the American War, George III presumably isn't mad, and ultimately Britannia somehow rules everything. Could you expand a bit on some of the points? Some could be...

It was a very major blank moment, and I came here via a link just discussing Phillip II.