Stars & Stripes Forever (Stars & Stripes, Book 1) Review

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(More customer reviews)I have been a big fan of the alternate history genre for years, and this probably comes from the fact that I love history and have the kind of mind that always asks "what if?" The premise of this book is an excellent and plausible one - Britain and the United States going to war in 1862 following the "Trent Affair". However, as I read along in the book I was disappointed by how improbable some of the twists and turns in thestory are.
- Would the British have dared to mount an invasion of the US from Canada when they had only a few thousand troops whereas the US could send tens of thousands and still have plenty to face the Confederates (even if they had to go on the defensive vs. the CSA)?
- If the British had accidentally attacked a Confederate fort and gone on to sack the town nearby, wouln't they have tried to patch up relations with the CSA who were, after all, their allies. Even if they were overly confident, it is extremely improbable that they would have just thrown up their hands & said "what the heck, we'll just go to war against the CSA too!"
- The USA and CSA would not have been able to resolve their differences so quickly, even if they were up against a common enemy. This is the most improbable point in the book. Having a common enemy does not necessarily make nations (or people) friendly toward each other. Also, the Confederacy agreeing to give up slavery so readily - not likely! Harris seems to think that all the US needed to solve its sectional and racial hostilities was a good foreign enemy for everyone to fight! Its never been that easy.
- Even if US ironclads like Monitor had better armor and could beat anything in the Royal Navy, the Union only had 1 or 2 of them at the time (same for the CSA and its ironclads). Furthermore, these ironclads could only operate in coastal waters. In any deep water, the US had only wooden ships which were greatly outnumbered & outgunned by the British. The US got a couple of deep ocean ironclads by the end of the Civil War, but that would take quite a while to build and by the time they were finished the British could have built better oceangoing ironclads to match the US.
- Would French/Quebecois in Canada rise up in favor of an invading US army? They didn't much care for the British but they hadn't shown any interest in supporting the US cause in the American Revolution or War of 1812, so why would it suddenly be different? The English speaking Canadians would certainly have been against the US, considering that many of them were descended from Loyalists in the American Revolution who had all their property in the US confiscated for supporting the British cause.
I don't think that the author is anti-British in the sense of being against the whole British people, but he definitely has a hstrong hostility to the elite aristocracy. He portrays them almost universally as extremely arrogant, overconfident, anti-American, and completely ignorant of the technological changes going on in warfare. No doubt there were quite a few who matched the above description (all you have to do is read a little about the Crimean War!), but not every officer/gentleman in the British army was a pompous, drooling moron. The USA and CSA had their share of officers who were ignorant and owed their commission to social background & political influence too. In short, the premise is fascinating and certain parts but the direction the story takes is too improbable and too slanted against the British to make this a really good work of alternate history.

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