Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #762203 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 312 pages

Synopsis
It is not only Al Gore who is left to ponder what might have been...The day on which President Al Gore was assured his landslide 2004 re-election is widely held to be 30 August 2001. For it was on that day that his Republican critics organised a press conference to claim that he was playing politics with national security. The fateful events of 11 September 2001 rebounded on them so overwhelmingly that just two weeks later Gore was guaranteed victory in the next election. Of course, his global healthcare initiative was a masterstroke, and the boom created by his broadband-for-all investment got even his critics joking that he really did invent the internet...The march of history can often be diverted by the smallest of events. What would have happened, for example, if the Great Reform Act of 1832 had lost, rather than survived, its crucial second reading by one vote the previous year? What if Archduke Franz Ferdinand's driver had been informed of his new itinery and had not driven down the street where Gavrilo Princip was waiting, pistol in hand, on 28 June 1914? What if the Scots had voted for devolution in 1979 (as, in reality, they did)?

In this book a collection of distinguished commentators, academics and journalists examine a series of political what-ifs, when very little needed to have happened differently for the outcome to have been transformed, sometimes out of all recognition. Among them are Peter Riddell, who analyses the consequences of Britain's entry into the Common Market in 1957; Robert Waller, who asks whether the Labour Party would ever have got off the ground if their 1903 pact with the Liberals had not been agreed; and John Gittings, who considers the potential outcome of the meeting between Mao Zedong and President Roosevelt which Mao requested in 1945. The individual contributors are: David Broyle, Duncan Brack, R. J. Briand, Simon Buckby, Matt Cole, Byron Criddle, Matt Garnett, John Gittings, Richard S. Grayson, Rab Houston, David Hughes, Tony Little, York Membery, Jon Mendelsohn, John Nichols, Mark Pack, Jaime Reynolds, Peter Riddell, Helen Szamuely and Robert Waller. Praise for Politico's first book of political counterfactual, 'Prime Minister Portillo': 'A delicious book of 'What Ifs...'

A host of journalists, academics and politicos offer a tantalising glimpse into how things might have been, for better or worse, if fortune had smile differently.' - "New Statesman." 'A stellar examination that will appeal to both political junkies and the plain curious.' - "Good Book Guide."

Customer Reviews

Amusing sequel to "Prime Minister Portillo"
"President Gore and other things that never happened" is a collection of 19 essays each of which postulates one change to 19th or 20th century political history between 1831 and 2000, and looks at how a different sequence of events might have followed.

Counterfactual history is a rapidly growing market. Both "alternative history" fiction such as most of the novels of Harry Turtledove, and slightly more serious works of historical analysis of what might have happened, such as Cowley's "What If" or Niall Ferguson's "Virtual History" have been very popular.

Most works of counterfactual history have concentrated on what might have happened if wars had gone differently. "President Gore" and the previous volume, "Prime Minister Portillo and other things that never happened" are unusual in that they concentrate on political decisions or elections which might have gone differently.

Twelve of the essays in this book look at British political history, from what would have happened if the Great Reform Bill of 1831 had fallen instead of passing by one vote. The other seven look at world history, from the first world war - what if Gavrilo Princip had missed Archduke Franz Ferdinand - to the title essay on what might have happened if Al Gore had become U.S. President.

Anyone who buys this book for the title essay alone may be a little disappointed, especially if they are expecting it to concentrate on how Al Gore might have reached the White House. About one page of the essay is devoted to a retrospective of how the Democrats had followed a more subtle and less obviously partisan strategy in respect of the Florida ballot in November 2000: most of the essay is devoted to the subsequent battles in congress and how in the Republicans might have totally blown the 2004 election by accusing President Gore of exaggerating the middle east terrorist threat a few days before the 9/11 "twin towers" attacks. In my view this is one of the weakest essays in the book, and one of several in which the contributor indulges in fantasies about what he or she would have liked to have happen rather than a true "what if" which objectively works through what would have been the most likely outcome of a given situation.

The contributors cover an eclectic range of views and backgrounds, but not as wide as "Prime Minister Portillo." Where the first book in the series had a very good mix of people from the right, left, and centre of the political spectrum, the UK contributors to "President Gore" are predominantly Liberal Democrats or historians specialising in that part of the spectrum. Perhaps in consequence, "President Gore" has a slight bias towards the centre - this may sound like a contradiction in terms but it is the case.

However, where "President Gore" is good, it is very good indeed, both for the quality of the analysis and the entertainment value.

In readability, this book scores over its predecessor in two respects: there is more and better humour, and that humour is less prone to "in jokes" and more accessible to most people with an above average interest in politics. I found one or two of the essays to be literally "laugh out loud" funny, and would have considered the book worth buying for the amusement given me by one particular essay alone. Despite its somewhat boring title, the essay "What if John Major had become Chief Whip in 1987" was both hysterically funny and managed to convincingly argue that the course of events described was in many respects more plausible than the history we actually lived through.

If you have a strong interest in counterfactual history, or in 19th and 20th century politics, or both, you will probably greatly enjoy this book. If you don't have either of those specialist interests, leave it alone.