Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War: An Alternate History | 
 enlarge | Author: Peter G. Tsouras
Publisher: Potomac Books Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $14.97
You Save: $14.98 (50%)
New (12) from $14.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 12617
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.3 x 1.3
ISBN: 1574888234
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.7
EAN: 9781574888232
ASIN: 1574888234
Publication Date: September 25, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. 100% money back guarantee. All books shipped from Strand Bookstore, New York City, USA.
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Once too often in the War Between the States, Great Britain’s support for the Confederacy takes it to the brink of war with the Union. The escape of a British-built Confederate ironclad finally ignites the heap of combustible animosities and national interests. When the U.S. Navy seizes it in British waters, the ensuing battle spirals into all-out war. Napoleon III eagerly joins the British and declares war on the United States. Meanwhile, treason uncoils in the North as the anti-war Democrats, known as Copperheads, plot to overthrow the U.S. government and take the Midwest into the Confederacy.
Britannia’s fist strikes quickly and hard. Along with the Canadians, the British invade New York and Maine, and the Royal Navy strikes at the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. The clash at Charleston is history’s first great naval battle between ironclads. Meanwhile, a French army marches into Texas from Mexico, and the French Navy attacks the Gulf coast. In the Midwest, the Copperheads rise in revolt to liberate Confederate POWs and arm them with stockpiled weapons. Never has the Republic been in such peril.
Britannia’s Fist brilliantly describes not just a war of stroke and counterstroke but one in which new technologies—repeating weapons, observation balloons, advances in naval ordnance and armament—become vital factors in the struggle of the young country against the Old World’s empires. For one of the great missed stories of the Civil War was not the advance of military technology but its impediment by incompetence, disorganization, and in some serious cases outright refusal to contemplate anything innovative. This is also a war in which the Union finds a “combat multiplier” when it organizes history’s first national-level intelligence effort. Britannia’s Fist is the compelling story of powerful historical personalities who come together as the Union goes into total war mobilization in the fight for its life.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 A good start, but be wary October 11, 2008
Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War is not a book about the Trent Affair. And given the number of alternate history books released in recent years (1862: A Novel, Stars & Stripes Forever: A Novel of Alternate History (Stars & Stripes Trilogy), etc.) that have revolved around that subject, I immediately gave Tsouras extra points upon cracking this book open. Instead of just another Ameriwank fantasy that has Gatling guns, repeating rifles, and ironclad warships magically produced and used by the most effective commanders in the Union by the end of 1861, what I found was a well-researched, interesting story with at least a semi-plausible backstory. Any potential reader should be warned that this is just the first book in a planned trilogy, however.
Rather than the Trent Affair, Tsouras chooses the diplomatic conflict surrounding the construction of the Laird Rams, a series of ironclad commerce raiders constructed in British shipyards for the Confederate States of America. In our history, American diplomacy and the desire of the British government to avoid war caused the seizure of the rams before they could be turned over to the British government. Here, that government is slightly slower to act, and an American ship attacks the first of the ironclads in British waters before it can be outfitted with guns and a full crew. A British ship attempts to intervene, and is sunk in the process. The public on both sides of the Atlantic is inflamed, and the war is on.
Unusually for an alternate history novel, which tends to assume a bit of familiarity with the subject by its readers, Tsouras spends a good quarter of the book establishing backstory and setting the scene. Given the relative obscurity of his point of departure from our history, however, the words are well spent. Particularly nice is a foreward in which he partially explains why he chose this subject. I assume that we'll see future volumes building upon the backstory established in this first volume, as there isn't much character development in the book -- Tsouras balances his time among three different theatres of war, and two others are hinted at.
That balancing act forces Tsouras to spread himself thin in showing readers the overall course of the war, and at just 255 pages (including approximately 30 of appendices and footnotes), I felt I didn't get as much bang for my buck as I hoped. This can be made up in future volumes, but if Tsouras spends too much time in the next volume recounting what we've learned here, it may limit what he's able to cover in the overall series. The footnotes and appendices are extremely useful for someone hoping to find out more, and there are dozens of allohistorical notes that provide hints of the future story.
Because the book is mostly written from the angle of a history recounting the war, we don't get much characterization. That fact may have prevented Tsouras from falling into the typical alternate history author's trap of giving past characters modern morals -- or Tsouras may be savvy enough to avoid falling into that trap. I simply can't tell at this point. That isn't the case with Tsouras' non-human characters -- the weapons used by the combatants.
I use the phrase "non-human characters" for the simple fact that far more attention is devoted to the details of Dahlgren Guns and Armstrong cannon than President Lincoln or the other figures who appear in the story. Tsouras' attention to these "characters" extends to the point of him seeming to set the stage for faster technological development of weapons -- Gatling Guns, repeating rifles, etc. -- in future books. He does manage to put this into the context of historical characters, however, and gives at least some basis for the movements in that direction.
In doing so, Tsouras avoids falling into the trap of Harry Harrison's Stars and Stripes Forever trilogy -- to which I think this series can be compared. Both deal with British/American conflicts during the Civil War, both will involve the quicker development of technology, and both (likely) deal with American victories. Although this is only the first book in the trilogy, Tsouras' writing heavily foreshadows an American victory in the war, even at this early point in the overall story.
Fortunately, the foreshadowing and characterization isn't absurd as it was in the Stars and Stripes trilogy. Tsouras seems to have a well-researched series in the works here, and if it can keep from advancing technology too quickly (or if it can at least provide enough justification for such a move) and if it can avoid falling into the bombastic Americanism of Harrison's series, this could be Tsouras' best work yet.
I'd recommend alternate history fans with an interest in the Civil War pick this up, but I'd warn alternate history fans in general or Civil War history fans in general to be wary of buying this at full price.
Fiction, yet so fast-paced and believable! October 10, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
British troops barrelling through Maine on U.S. railroads. Russian, Union, and British naval vessels fighting it out near New York City. Citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, lining up behind P.G.T. Beauregard to greet a battered Royal Navy ship. Confederate flags flying freely over the Windy City of Chicago. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in his greatest battle since Little Round Top at Gettysburg. French troops march through Texas to relieve Union-held New Orleans. Lincoln and Stanton fighting a war on multiple fronts. Troops and ships rushing all over the map to confront one another.
Britannia's Fist, the first in a new trilogy from Potomac Books, can best be described as a believable and well written alternative history that "might have been." Replete with fictitious and real footnotes and references, George Tsouras's latest work at first glance might repel the die-hard Civil War buff who is looking for facts. However, this fascinating book is written in the fast-paced, free-flowing, "you are there" style developed so wonderfully by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Shaara in his masterful book, Killer Angels. Both books start a little slow as they set up the background and characters, but both build to a crescendo. Unlike Shaara's book, this one leaves you hanging and desperately awaiting the second installment.
Tsouras, an analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, writes this book in a believable fashion, using actual Civil War characters and situations as the basis for his alternative fiction. He begins in the fall of 1864 after the Battle of Gettysburg and the New York Draft Riots. Diplomatic blunders and errors by overagressive military officers collide to set up a chain reaction that draws Britain, France, and Russia into combat in North America, while the Confederate army licks its chops and awaits the orders to advance on Washington. William Rosecrans is bogged down in Georgia and Tennessee, and secret CSA operatives match wits with George Sharpe, the Union head of intelligence.
What results is a fast-paced, action-packed book that frankly reads like a TV mini-series in the waiting. Alternating between the main )and some lesser) characters' point of view, Tsouras has fashioned a book that is sure to fascinate most readers, and especially those who enjoy this kind of alternative history. To me, it's much better written and more enjoyable than Newt Gingrich's series or even Harry Turtletaub's extensive line of "fictional history." At slightly over 200 pages, I read the book in a couple plane rides while on business this past two weeks, and, frankly, the flights whizzed by and I was disappointed to land and put down the book.
As you dive into the book and begin to get drawn into the action, be warned that the book ends abruptly, a ploy that is certain to draw fans back to their wallets for rounds two and three of this trilogy.
All in all, I was throughly entertained, something I cannot say for much of the alternative history that has crossed my desk in recent years.
Alternate History has never been closer to reality October 8, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
When I heard about Peter Tsouras's new alternate history book, I had to read it. His compilations have always been varied and provocative, but always grounded in a good sense of historical possibilities. His latest book, Brittania's Fist is no exception. Solidly grounded in a shudderingly possible outcome, the author takes us to the dark days of America's Civil War. Following the defeat of the South at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, things looked up for the Northern cause. However, relations with Great Britain, never rosy due to their ill-concealed support for the Southern cause, reach a breaking point not seen since the Trent Affair. In an odd twist of fate, the two nations are suddenly battling at sea, shredding Lincoln's dream of "One War at a Time".
Not seen from the perspective of the iconic generals like Lee and Grant, instead we go down to the lower levels of command, from Garnet Wolseley, later one of England's greatest generals, to Thomas Meagher, the retired commander of the Irish Brigade, recalled to the colors when the redcoats are coming again. Faced with a three headed hydra of the Confederacy, England and France, the latter coming up from Mexico, the North seems ready to collapse, but unlikely allies like Russia and innovative designers like Dahlgren and Lowe prove that technology had give the edge to the underdog.
Still, its an uphill battle as British soldiers pour down from Canada and the mightiest ships in the British navy appear on the Atlantic Coast. At the end of this first book, the issue is still in doubt, but the North is not the house of cards its enemies expected.
Tsouras breathes historical figures to life for us, showing their hopes and dreams along with their grit and determination. Spies, Copperheads, inventors, government bureaucrats and others have their parts to play in this tightly woven tale of a nation at war on all sides. Technological matters of warfare are explained in detail so that the reader understands how battles can be won or lost if soldiers and sailors make full use of the equipment they are provided with.
The battle scenes, whether on land or sea, are breathtaking and terrible to behold. You feel the shudder of the deck as huge guns erupt in broadsides, with flame and splinters flying. Tsouras has given us an alternate history tour de force and I will be unhappily chafing for the next installment. Great read, highly recommended to buffs of history and alternate history
Andy Nunez
Editor, Against the Odds Magazine
Great book October 7, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is another great about. A good old "What if". I didn't realize this would be a series of books when I purchased it, can't wait for the other books. Well worth your money.
A fascinating look at what could have happened. October 1, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Peter Tsouras provides the reader with a fascinating look at "what could have been" during the American Civil War in his latest book "Britannia's Fist". His true mastery is the identification of events and characters from today's footnotes to history that could have had profound influences on history if only the winds of fate had blown differently. Most importantly, Tsouras' gift as a storyteller makes this book a fantastic read.
As a responsible historian, Tsouras provides the reader with the actual historic accounting of events. He identifies the two points where America and Britain came dangerously close to armed conflict - the Trent Affair and the open construction of the Laird Rams, two ironclad commerce raiders destined for the Confederacy. Cooler heads prevailed in both instances ensuring the two nations would not begin open hostilities. Tsouras' story pivots on the question of what would have happened if the English government did not stop the trial runs of the two Laird Rams?
Tsouras cleverly intertwines historically accurate technology development, international relations policy, and actual events with the story of what could have happened. The story is told so well only historians will be able to discern where history and fiction diverge.
The main plot begins by centering on the events leading up to the release of the Laird Rams. President Lincoln, anticipating their escape during their sea trials, sends an adventurous young officer to intercept them before the ships can be married with their Confederate crews and weaponry. The intercept takes place in British international waters, instigating the implementation of the British warplans for a ground invasion from Canada and blue water naval operations. Tsouras also explores the opportunistic possibilities of two other world powers after the initiation of hostilities.
The one major sub-plot not fully developed in this story revolves around the Copperhead movement. Tsouras creates "Big Jim" Smoke as the fictional leader of the Copperhead movement in Indiana, who among other things leads a prison break at Camp Morton. The overall concept of a massive Copperhead uprising in the mid-West is visited often, but never fully developed. It looks to play a much larger role in subsequent books of the trilogy.
Leaving no detail unturned, Tsouras includes historic references for both the actual events and he creates fictitious references for documents that most likely would have been written if events had turned out differently. They are clearly marked to prevent the curious readers from pursuing non-existent documents.
This book is an absolute page-turner. I greatly anticipate the next book in the series.
|
|
|
