3 Review(s)

The grand passage of political history is steered by a combination of events great and small, assessing how matters might have turned out under different circumstances is one of the most intriguing - and entertaining - historical exercises. Counterfactual history is a growing market. Both alternative historyA" fiction such as most of the work of Harry Turtledove, and slightly more serious analysis of what might have happened, such as Cowley's What IfA" or Niall Ferguson's Virtual HistoryA" have been very popular. This book imagines such tantalising political questions and scenarios as what if Lloyd George had joined Kitchener on that fateful boat to Russia in 1917? What if Nixon had beaten JFK in 1960? What if Margaret Thatcher had won the 1990 leadership election? What if Arnold Schwarzenegger had been able to run for President? What if Pope Benedict had been assassinated during his visit to the UK in 2010? What if Gordon Brown had called an election in October 2007? And, of course, What if Boris Johnson were to become Prime Minister in 2016?