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To: YourAdHere

It isn't based on the novels by Harry Turtledove, is it? He did a whole series...the Civil War not ending the bloodshed on American soil but leading to war after war as in Europe. There was one where an embittered Confederate soldier becomes an American Hitler.

Mrs VS


15 posted on 04/01/2006 6:09:16 PM PST by VeritatisSplendor
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To: VeritatisSplendor
I'm just finishing up re-reading the first Turtledove alternate history take on the Civil War, The Guns of The South, where die hard Apartheid proponents from South Africa in 2014 manage to get a time machine that brings them back to just before the Battle Of The Wilderness.  By providing Rober E. Lee with AK47s they manage to tip the war in the Confederate's favor.

It's a rather drastic left turn to get to where he did, which is Lee succeeding Jefferson Davis in an independent CSA after defeating Nathan Bedford Forest in the presidential election.  Lee (who really had freed all of his slaves before the war) had decided that the South couldn't wait for a violent end to slavery, which he concluded was inevitable, and was set on a gradual elemination (with compensation) over a couple of decades.  That led to a break with the men from the future and a violent conclusion.

It was interesting enough and well researched enough that Shelby Foote, the late Civil War historian, wrote the forward for it.  The idea itself was worth another look, with a less drastic left turn this time.  That would be the series you are referring to.  In that set of books he used a simple change in history, a set of plans lost by a Confederate general which in reality fell into the hands of the Union, is instead retrieved by a rebel soldier.  He takes off from that change and imagines a whole series of stories all the way up at least through mid 20th century, with North and South competing at everything, such as who will reach the Pacific with a railroad first.  Interesting premise, but not as satisfying a conclusion as the single volume of Guns of The South.

16 posted on 04/01/2006 6:24:17 PM PST by Phsstpok (There are lies, damned lies, statistics and presentation graphics, in descending order of truth)
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To: VeritatisSplendor

Nah, not based on Turtledove. I can see why you'd say that though. That's a series I've been meaning to read myself.


19 posted on 04/02/2006 4:32:26 PM PDT by YourAdHere (Bradypalooza. Available at Amazon.Com)
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