History That Never Happened

I've always wanted to teach a course in Historiography.  It would explore the "stuff" of history:  types of sources and their reliability, bias in recording and writing history (and it's not always "bad"), the influence of factors such as geography and personalities, etc.  But that will never happen.  For one reason, what students would take such a course?  For another, I don't want to do the paper work. There's always paper work that is required.   (When the former dean at one of the colleges discovered I was teaching Michigan History at the other college, she asked if I'd teach it there.  I balked, saying, "I don't do paper work."  She must have really wanted the course to be offered; she did the paper work herself and rushed its approval through the administration.  I've taught it every semester since.)

But, if I did teach it I wouldn't have a textbook per se, but, like my Amherst courses in history (and most other courses) we'd use a half dozen or more books.  One might be "History According to the Movies."  Others would be "George v George:  The American Revolution as Seen from Both Sides" and "The Geography Behind History."  Certainly I would include, "History That Never Happened."  It is subtitled, "A Treatise on the Question, What Would Have Happened If?"  When I discuss this book in class, I joke with students, "I have enough trouble getting students to read history that did happen.  How will I get them to read history that didn't happen?"  Regardless, the book offers some really great opportunities for meaningful discussions.

For instance, Winston Churchill was named, even in many American polls in 1999, the "Person-of-the-20th-Century."  I have no quibbles with that, but won't go into right or wrong choice.  But in the early 1930s, Churchill was leaving a play in NYC.  Heading out, he stepped into the street.  But he looked the wrong way for traffic.  (Remember, in Britain they drive on the wrong sides of the roads.)  He was nailed by a car he didn't see.  He was injured severely, vertebrae broken, pelvis shattered, and other fractures.  He almost died.  OK then, what if he did die after that accident?  What happens to the Second World War, that is, its outcome?  Many believe he helped forge an Allied victory by sheer dint of his personality.  (Again, I won't go into my views of that, but that's why even in the US he received "Person-of-the-Century.")  If Britain negotiated a peace treaty (likely an unfavorable one from a position of either near defeat or appeasement) with Hitler's Germany, then what?  Where does that leave the rest of Europe, namely the Soviet Onion?  And, after Pearl Harbor and Germany's declaration of war on the US a few days later, what about any US involvement in Europe?  Bases?  Perhaps the US wouldn't have felt a need (pressure from Churchill to divert some US forces from the Pacific and Japan?) to fight at all in Europe?  Does the USSR then fall, making Germany the unquestioned master of Europe and all the evil that would have entailed?

In 1833, Britain abolished slavery in the Empire.  That's 30 years before the Emancipation Proclamation and, two years later, the 13th Amendment and Northern victory in the Civil War.  But let's go back to 1775 or so.  What if, both in the colonies and London, cooler heads (such as John Dickinson and Edmund Burke) had prevailed and there'd been no revolt?  Everyone kissed and made up and the colonies continued on as, well, British colonies.  In 1833, the British  abolition of slavery (although it was a gradual emancipation/abolition) in the Empire would have meant the American southern colonies would lose their slaves.  Or would they?  Would they, as they perceived matters 20-some years, resisted and fought to preserve the "peculiar institution?"

Had the southern colonies chosen to go to war with the British over this in 1833, how would the northern colonies have reacted?  Would they have joined their fellow Americans to the South?  If not, would a Southern colonial victory have resulted in an earlier Confederate States of America?   Those who say, "Surely they North wouldn't have aided the South to preserve slavery" ignore some factors.  The abolitionist movement in the North at the time was very fledgling, no Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 (since no American government and almost two decades hence), no Uncle Tom's Cabin yet, etc.  And, although gradual emancipation laws were passed in the Northern states earlier, effective abolition didn't come in many of them until the 1840s and "the badge of slavery" existed beyond then.

In the end, some might argue, such mental gymnastics is fruitless, even frivolous.  I don't think so.  In examining what happened and what might have happened "if," we are granted insight into our options and how they might result in different outcomes.