American Empire: The Victorious Opposition

[Fiji]

So, I'm at the discount book fair checking out the depressingly small collection of English paperback (only ~150 titles!!!)

and the theme seemed to be "books with dragons on the cover"

so this one item stuck out "American Empire: The Victorious Opposition"
and at a price of 1 EUR I was willing to give our dear friend Harry a second chance.

and of course, this being a discount fair, I picked up part 3 of a series.
So far, I know that
- it's 1936
- the CSA survived in some way.
- there's a recession going on
- the A-H empire survived
- the not so freedom loving Freedom Party just won the elections

Anyone wanna fill me in on need to know stuff?
- like the POD would be nice
- what happend to WW1? did it get cancelled due to bad weather?
- CSA-USA relations seem neutral or better ... is this correct?
- what's the tech level like ... it seemed ~1936 OTL

Anything else?

 

[Matt]

The American Empire series is a continuation of the Great War series, so the POD was a CSA victory in the Civil War. They clashed it out again in the 1880s over a couple chunks of Mexico. The USA lost, pretty bad too. When the 1st WW breaks out the US sides with Germany, and the CSA with Britain and France. The Central Powers win eventually, in 1917 I believe it was. The US is happy it finally won. The CSA is very mad it lost. And thats the gist of it...

 

[ljofa]

The American Empire series is a continuation of the Great War series, so the POD was a CSA victory in the Civil War. They clashed it out again in the 1880s over a couple chunks of Mexico. The USA lost, pretty bad too. When the 1st WW breaks out the US sides with Germany, and the CSA with Britain and France. The Central Powers win eventually, in 1917 I believe it was. The US is happy it finally won. The CSA is very mad it lost. And thats the gist of it...

I'll expand it a little - as I'm anal.

The CSA victory occurred in early 1862 so Stonewall Jackson survived and not as many Southerners were killed off. The Emancipation Proclaimation was burnt. They clashed again in 1881 upon the election of the Republican President, James Blaine who was itching for revenge. Alas, the CSA had learned the ancient art of diplomacy and got Britain and France onside. The USA were humiliated but made diplomatic arrangements with the Germans.

The Great War breaks out in 1914 as per OTL. The Entente (Britain, France, CSA, Russia) are slowly pushed back and are defeated. The only major US gain is Washington DC but even this is lost as the war winds down. During the war, there is a rebellion by the Mormons in the USA and by the Blacks in the CSA. This has important implications on future policy. The USA, despite a lenient peace in 1882 after the Second Mexican War, imposes the harshest peace treaty possibly on the CSA and leads to a lot of resentment and the rise of extremists.

The USA and the CSA hate each other but the USA has other things to think about - namely Japan. The CSA are being really quiet about rearming and engineer a number of incidents to make themselves a military power again.

Technology? No difference between this and OTL.

 

[BrianP]

To expand on the above a little.

Jake Featherston and the current CSA are running a close parallel to Nazi Germany; so close that the 1936 Olympics were held in Richmond. Featherston seized power legally, but also by using strong-arm methods and eliminating opponents. In the end, he shoves a constitutional amendment through Congress allowing him to run for two consecutive terms, giving him the time that he needs to become a dictatorship. There is a new holocaust occuring, in that camps are being set up to ultimatly exterminate the blacks in the CSA. The first such camp opened in Louisiana. Yeech. Other parallels to Nazi Germany include Featherston being a veteran of WWI and falls on hard times after the war, much like Hitler, and the Freedom Party coming to power during the Depression much like the Nazis.

 

[Thande]

I think it may be a bit misleading to equate Featherston's Holocaust with Hitler's - I mean, the blacks DID rise up in the CSA during WW1, so Featherston does at least have a LITTLE 'reality' behind his declaring that they were the reason why the CSA lost the war - whereas the Jews didn't rise up against Germany in WW1 so Hitler had absolutely no reality whatsoever behind him holding the Jews responsible for the lost war.

 

[Fiji]

thanks guys, that fills in quite a few blanks

I'm up to the part now where CSA is starting up it's first camp
bombs are exploding in Canada
raceriots in CSA
Mormons are itching in USA
Japan and the USA are in the half time of their war
and the socialists just grabbed congres in Philly

as a side question/remark ... Houdini exists?
in a world with a POD before the man's birth?
naughty Harry!

 

[Thande]

You know Turtledove and his butterfly net. He also has Groucho Marx, George Patton, Douglas MacArthur (albeit with a different name), etc...I mean, come on, in "The Two Georges" with a 1760 POD he had Richard Nixon!

 

[Melvin Loh]

Well, Thande, there is the fact that OTL the Jews did dominate in the Communist movements in 1918-19, which was why Hitler felt he could target them all as a perceived 5th column wishing to overthrow the German ppl, but which of course offers no moral justification for his genocidal ideas and plans.

Fellas, i flicked thru the most recent book in the series while I was in Brum- can't remember the exact name now, but it's got a picture of a B17 with the Stars and Bars on the front cover, with the theme being Featherston's militarised CSA deciding to invade the US.

 

[robertp6165]

as a side question/remark ... Houdini exists?
in a world with a POD before the man's birth?
naughty Harry!

You know Turtledove and his butterfly net. He also has Groucho Marx, George Patton, Douglas MacArthur (albeit with a different name), etc...I mean, come on, in "The Two Georges" with a 1760 POD he had Richard Nixon!

Turtledove is obviously of the opinion...and I think he is probably correct...that one of the "interesting" and "fun" things about alternate history is the opportunity to see historical people thrust into totally different and unfamiliar roles. This type of thing also will tend to make the story more accessible and understandable for "mainstream" readers. We can quibble that such a thing would not happen due to butterflies, but it does make for a more interesting story.

Fellas, i flicked thru the most recent book in the series while I was in Brum- can't remember the exact name now, but it's got a picture of a B17 with the Stars and Bars on the front cover, with the theme being Featherston's militarised CSA deciding to invade the US.

Is that RETURN ENGAGEMENTS? The cover art here in America is different...

 

[Thande]

Turtledove is obviously of the opinion...and I think he is probably correct...that one of the "interesting" and "fun" things about alternate history is the opportunity to see historical people thrust into totally different and unfamiliar roles. This type of thing also will tend to make the story more accessible and understandable for "mainstream" readers. We can quibble that such a thing would not happen due to butterflies, but it does make for a more interesting story.

Personally, I agree...but here on AH.COM it seems there is a 'hardline AH' culture which is opposed to having historic charactes involved if they were born after the POD. I think there are two possible views here: either births are only affected if they are DIRECTLY affected by the POD, or the more extremist one which says the probability of any one sperm meeting any one egg, etc., should be governed by chaos theory, so even if the POD is in England then all the births in Australia should IMMEDIATELY be affected.


And the book Melvin saw is indeed Return Engagement (British cover art, hooray they actually did a good one this time) but to nitpick the B17 has Confederate battle crosses rather than Stars and Bars.