In
The Atlantic back in 2014, Uri Friedman
interviewed Harry Turtledove about alternate history, starting with the possibility of a failed War of American Independence.
I'm not sure about Turtledove's thesis that a British Empire including the Thirteen Colonies would necessarily have been an unchallengeable world power.
"If the British Empire included all of North America north of the Rio Grande as well as India, it would be incontestably the strongest state in the world," he responded. "The French Revolution wouldn't have happened, both for lack of example and because it began when a political crisis and a famine coincided with a government bankruptcy that sprang from the money the government paid out helping the American colonists gain their independence—and giving perfidious Albion a shot in the eye."
This potential does exist, true, but it doesn't seem to be inevitable. Other people have recently pointed to the OTL example of British North America, which had transitioned fairly easily to self-government and democracy and eventually became Canada, as useful for an ATL British North America. I'm skeptical as to the relevance of the Canadian model, not least because OTL's British North America was arguably less heterogeneous.Would there even necessarily have been this flexibility if not for the negative example of American independence?
Especially if there was an attempted war of independence that was ended only by a reconquest of the Thirteen Colonies, a British Empire including most of North America might be more likely marked by profound instability. Somehow Britain would need to create a framework that could accommodate the desires of large and populous colonies to be self-governing while keeping the empire functional. Perhaps it might happen upon the idea of the dominion a half-century before OTL, or perhaps it might not. Late 18th century Britain did make generous allowances for the Province of Quebec, but it also oversaw the misery of the Kingdom of Ireland.
(If the French Revolution was averted, would the British Empire necessarily evolve towards a more flexible model? Or might we instead have a British Revolution?)
Thoughts?