Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Alt-History question: What if the American Revolution had failed?
TigerHawk cousin and regular commenter GreenmanTim is writing an alternative history novel that wonders what the world would look like if the battles of Trenton and Princeton had gone the other way. TigerHawk readers, being more interested in history than most, will have some fun with it.
Harry Turtledove
7 Comments:
By 
antithaca, at
Tue Mar 25, 11:45:00 AM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail
By 
, at
Tue Mar 25, 11:55:00 AM:
Counterfactual analysis is a powerful method to increase theoretical knowledge.
The American Revolution's an interesting case.
By Sisyphus, at
Tue Mar 25, 01:04:00 PM:
Would the French Revolution, and the following Napoleonic era, even have happened without the American Revolution first?
North America would have been the scene of at least a couple of significant conflicts between France and the UK, since the Louisiana Purchase would not have divested France from North America. Presumably Spain would be involved on one side or the other, too.
But could the empires have kept their North American possessions much longer? Probably not. However, although in history the U.S. was first, it did not have to be. Mexico could have seceded first - but with what effects later?
By , at
Tue Mar 25, 06:31:00 PM:
The French Revolution was in part the result of horribly high taxes and a repressive regime to pay off financing the American Revolution and military assistance for the same.
Likely, Britain and France with Spain playing off both sides as the weaker power would have used cheaper proxies to struggle to control North America, the great prize. Britain would have been weaker, facing revolt in America even if quashed. Spain would have held Florida much longer, indeed it might still have it well into the Twentieth Century along with Cuba and perhaps Mexico.
France could have sent it's poor to the Louisiana territory to gain social peace, as England did with Australia and New Zealand and Canada.
It's possible even that without revolution and war, there would have been enough stability for France to more fully participate in the Industrial Revolution and become more powerful. Germany being more subject to French interference might not have become unified and the Austrian Empire been propped up by France.
By , at
Tue Mar 25, 08:01:00 PM:
In the grand scheme of history, it's the American Revolution that first signaled that the ends of the European Imperial states were coming. Without the example that 1) republicanism can work and that 2) a colony can be victorious in rebellion, and without America's later assistance to further rebellious efforts via the Monroe doctrine, a whole series of 19th century events (especially among the South Americans) would likely never have occurred. Republican movements in France, Italy, and Germany would have been more likely to fail and the revolutions of 1848 might have been colored differently, or not occurred at all.
And the mass migrations of peoples fleeing European turmoil and warfare would not have been able to escape to the United States, as they did historically.
Russia would still own Alaska, and Britain the Oregon territory. The race of settlers westward during the Manifest Destiny period would not have happened.
And lastly, without the slave-owning, cotton producing South (mother Britain pursued a solid anti-slavery policy dating from the beginning of the 19th century) the mammoth textile industries that drove the industrial revolution's early days could not have moved so rapidly.
You might have your hands full here, Greenman.
By GreenmanTim, at
Tue Mar 25, 09:08:00 PM:
No doubt about that, Dawnfire 82. The implications go on and on.
Luckily, the real dilemma in this first novel is that if my premise holds that the "American Insurrection" devolved into a prolonged occupation, civil war and bitter irregular conflict, then why would that in the end not have worn down even the most determined British hardliners (George III among them)? For us to come out on the other side still part of Britain, global events need to intervene. Not, I believe, on the side of the colonists, but against their common interest with Great Britain in North America and the Carribean, which was the real hemispheric prize in the 18th-century (see the end of the French and Indian War for details).
By , at
Wed Mar 26, 12:39:00 AM:
Then we would be a british subjects without guns terrorists by thugs and intimidated by the AL QUEDA,TELE BAN
