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I think so - a "pan-Arab" ideology could also work to unite Egypt and northern Sudan as long as being Arab is defined by language. If I remember right, Egypt in OTL actually occupied much of the Sudan before it (Egypt) fell under Britain's thumb. For a while, I think, the Sudan was jointly...

If their leadership is really good and lucky, Egypt might be able to get as far south as the equator in Africa, but I can't see them getting all the way to South Africa with a 19th century POD. Also, if they even conquer OTL Sudan, Uganda, maybe part of Kenya, they will probably lose them if...

No way a European power could even think about conquering China until well into the 19th century. The most that might have happened is that if China was disunited into several warring dynasties at some point between the 16th and 18th century, Spain or another European power might have been able...

Well, to someone from Japan, Korea, or northern China, northern Europe probably wouldn't seem too bad (except maybe far northern Europe). Likewise, people from more tropical areas like India or southeast Asia or North Africa wouldn't find much of southern Europe to be too cold. The biggest...

As far as I know, the whole Protestant work ethic idea was traditionally applied to Calvinists more than other Protestants. The idea was that Calvinists interpreted hard work, discipline, and material success as possible signs that a person was among the elect, and so there was a powerful...

I never got the impression that even 50s WWII movies had the message that "war is glorious". It seemed to me more like the WWII movie message was "war is horrible, but sometimes necessary and just".

Those are good points - although I wonder if in a "whiter" USA casual racism might still be more publicly acceptable and institutional racism run even deeper. Perhaps the paradox of a society that is more "liberal" on economic and gender issues but more "conservative" on racial issues?

Anti-semitism was of course a huge problem, but probably even bigger was the Great Depression. As long as the Depression was going on, public opinion was fiercely against allowing much immigration of any kind, whether it was "regular" immigration or refugees. As far as I know, this was true of...

If you're talking about classic medieval-style castles with high walls and crenellated towers, etc., you would have to either have Europeans discover and move into the Americas earlier, before cannon became really powerful in the late 15th-early 16th century, or delay the discovery of gunpowder...

I think the big things for a Lincoln administration apart from preventing further spread of slavery would be a high protective tariff and support for further westward settlement, including a transcontinental railroad (which might have been completed around 1865 instead of 1869 without the Civil...

Somewhere I once read a scenario (I don't think it was on ah.com) where Prussia makes the mistake in 1866 of annexing territory after beating Austria, thus making Austria an enemy instead of an ally after the war. When war breaks out between Prussia and France, the Austrians join the war on the...

Yup, I think this is from just after alternatehistory.com switched from the original format to what we then called the "new board". It's definitely been a long time, and ah.com was a much smaller place back then. :)

I don't think I've ever seen one of my old posts resurrected like this - and when I say old, I mean old! :eek:

From the little bit that I read about the Franco-Prussian War, it seems that the French and the Prussians/Germans had to learn for themselves some of the same lessons that soldiers for the USA and CSA had learned a few years earlier. There was one battle where the Prussians launched a massive...

I'm not sure about the context, but Sheridan might have been referring to the fact that the Franco-Prussian War was a more limited conflict for more limited ends (changing the balance of power, small territorial adjustments) whereas the US Civil War was total in the sense that the USA had to...

It seems like these "Tartars" are some kind of Norse/Mexican hybrid culture, but there may be some other Old World influence, too.

I think that other European powers would have to remain uninterested in the Americas (very, very unlikely, once Spain especially shows how profitable they can be), or have the Iberian powers remain fanatically dedicated to keeping other Europeans out of the Americas entirely, even if it means...

That's probably the most likely outcome. I personally think that there's a decent chance that something like this actually happened at least once, maybe more than once, in ancient times. Almost certainly not with Israelites, though, probably Phoenicians/Carthaginians.

Yes, anything that makes Europe less culturally distinct from the rest of Eurasia could make it less likely to be seen as a separate continent.

This looks very interesting! It makes sense to me that the Pinzons and other Spaniards would assume that the islands had been ravaged by Tartar armies of the Khan, given that they're assuming that they are somewhere near Southeast Asia. I do wonder if the iron and steel-using raiders who...