What If? The World's Foremost Historians Imagine What Might Have Been
Putnam, 1999, $27.95, ISBN 0-3099-14576-1, 395 pgs.

What If? Offers a collection of 20 essays evaluating the woulda-coulda-shoulda aspects of historical warfare. The very best of them delve into alternative actions and follow through with their ramifications. The worst simply retell history and add a couple paragraphs of afterthoughts. As you can expect, it's uneven in quality.

Certainly some big names are in there--Stephen Ambrose, John Keegan, David McCullough, and James McPherson to quote the ones on the cover. And they do a good job of exploring the "might have beens."

Others, especially the first four or five essays, simply retell history without much thinking. The absolute worst is Lewis Lapham's Teutoberger Forest piece. Although a competent if unspectacular recitation of the battle, it offers zero insight other than to flatly state a Roman victory would prevent Adolf Hitler from dancing a jig in the French forest in 1940. Maybe he should have read some of the other essays before submitting his own so he'd understand the premise of the book. FYI: Lapham is not a historian.

Those of us who recreate battles upon computer screens and table tops inherently search for "what ifs" all the time. While this book is a little too uneven to recommend buying the hardcover version, if it ever sees a $6.99 paperback version, or appears in the discount bin, What If? is worth picking up.