DBWI: Nations that Weren't

So... I just finished reading the John Barrowman book "Nations that weren't: 1800 - 1899" and for his first work of fiction I found it very interesting. (His factual work most of all "Origins of the Anglo World Order" are some of the most interesting things I've even seen)

But as for the book...

The most interesting nations he talked about were if the Thirteen Colonies had won their independence. And some how expanded west all the way too the pacific (I don't know how they could have done that through Mexico).

A Union later on of what would have been left of British North America. Which is so ASB I dont know where to start.

A union of the German States and Kingdoms under Prussia.

And a Republic of France. This one and the German one I like the most. Imagine a unified central Europe under Prussia!!!

What do you guys think about these? And if you read the book what nations did you think made the most sense? Or the least?
 
Mexico ? And Louisiane, you know, the French-speaking region across the american continent between the Thirteen colonies and Mexico ? How can they expand to the west coast, they are far to reach the Mississipi ! Seems to be some huge wank at work here.

I didn't read the book, but the part with Prussia seems more plausible.
 
Well, the French Republic is, strictly speaking, the most plausible; it's not a territorial change, after all, just a political one. You can make that happen however you want, really. Prussian one, that's a bit trickier, but Prussia certainly had the muscle to make it happen, provided no one too powerful butts in while they're doing it. That Thirteen colonies one, though...it's far from ASB, considering how much potential for population growth those areas had. Hell, I'm pretty sure that general area has more people now than Britain proper does, so don't go underestimating them. You'd have to give them Louisiane, which probably requires some elements of French screw in the TL, but it's not impossible for those to coincide. After that...they could maybe win a war with Mexico, but you'd need to throw in a Mexiscrew to make sure it all worked out properly.

I know this sounds like a tall order, but remember how OTL combines an Anglowank with a Spainscrew and an HREscrew and a general Catholic-screw pretty much simultaneously. The convergence of specific wanks and screws may seem implausible on paper, but it does happen. You know what I'd wanna see, though? A unified Italia would kick some major ass. Seriously, they haven't been unified since the Romans, why can't they go out and conquer some stuff? You could maybe have Venice or Milan gain the upper hand against the other Italian cities at a time when larger European powers are fighting amongst themselves elsewhere, see where that goes.
 
My issue with the American Colonial Revolution is not so much that they grew afterwards - that kind of works - but that they rebelled on such flimsy excuses in the first place. And then beat Britain, which already had, in that timeline as well as ours, the strongest military in the world. Maybe someone else can explain to me if there's a good reason Canada stayed loyal in Barrowman's timeline - is there some big cultural boundary along the St. Lawrence?

But honestly, the most unusual part of that book was how long the Ottomans survived. As in, they were still surviving. As the Ottoman Empire. By the end of the century. Even if a lot broke off, to have Constantinople still Istanbul by 1900 is a bit of a stretch.

You know what I'd wanna see, though? A unified Italia would kick some major ass. Seriously, they haven't been unified since the Romans, why can't they go out and conquer some stuff? You could maybe have Venice or Milan gain the upper hand against the other Italian cities at a time when larger European powers are fighting amongst themselves elsewhere, see where that goes.

Do you mean northern Italy, or southern Italy as well? Because if you mean the entire peninsula, you'd have to deal with Spain somehow.
 
Maybe someone else can explain to me if there's a good reason Canada stayed loyal in Barrowman's timeline - is there some big cultural boundary along the St. Lawrence?

Canada seems to have remained loyal because all the people that DIDNT want to fight the crown left after the "American Revolution" and went there. So they had this feeling that it made them "better" to be loyal, so that stuck... and BOY did it stick, most "Canadians" thought of themselves as British until around 1918
 
My issue with the American Colonial Revolution is not so much that they grew afterwards - that kind of works - but that they rebelled on such flimsy excuses in the first place.

Exactly; I think if he wanted to be truly plausible he should have used a PoD somewhere around the Slaver Rebellion rather than a spat over taxes.
 
But honestly, the most unusual part of that book was how long the Ottomans survived. As in, they were still surviving. As the Ottoman Empire. By the end of the century. Even if a lot broke off, to have Constantinople still Istanbul by 1900 is a bit of a stretch.
You have it the other way around. The name was Istanbul after the Turkish Restoration in the 20s. During the Ottoman Empire it was always known as Constantinople.
 
Another thing I found interesting was his description of the partition of Corea between Britain, Russia, and France. Apparently, the Corean government was in the middle of a major modernization effort when the OTL partitions began, and the Gordon Expedition caught them at the exact wrong time to properly defend themselves. Given some minor changes to Corean politics, or Gordon's expedition coming a few years later, Corea could very well have avoided the partitions.

Could a united Corea have survived, or was the current split more or less inevitable due to cultural differences? Would it have pursued a Thailand-style rapid modernization and expansion, or a more measured Japan-style balance of the various imperial powers?
 
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