What Might Have Been? Leading Historians on Twelve 'What Ifs' of History
Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Andrew Roberts took a first in Modern History at Cambridge. He has been a professional historian since the publication of his life of Lord Halifax , The Holy Fox, in 1991. He contributes regularly to the Sunday Telegraph. Lives in Knightsbridge, London, and has two children. His Salisbury won the Wolfson History Prize in 2000. He published Napoleon and Wellington in 2001.Stimulating, provocative and playful, WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, is everything one looks for in a collection of essays
LITERARY REVIEW
A gifted team of authors envisages alternative historical scenarios. As has become the custom of the genre, some of the contributors submit sober and measured assessments, while others spot a chance for playfulness
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
Roberts himself contributes both the best essay in the collection ... and an affable, perceptive introduction which he deploys to muse on the nature of such virtual historical projections
THE SCOTSMAN
Andrew Roberts has recruited a dozen historians to pose, and answer, some of these What If, and some of their answers are as good as the questions
SPECTATOR
All twelve essasy are good fun, and they will make the reader think - and that is, after all, what all good history, "factual" or "counterfactual", should be about
TLS
The role that chance can play (in history) is well worth reasserting, and it is done here with much vigour and expertise
DAILY TELEGRAPH
An intriguing and entertaining anthology
SUNDAY TIMES
Buy the book and read it for fun
OBSERVER
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN is a highly enjoyable read
SUNDAY BUSINESS POST
Counterfactual history, when deployed as expertly as it is here, reminds us that what seems inevitable is actually often a matter of chance
MAIL ON SUNDAY
The main object of these essays is to entertain, and they do so handsomely. This book is a hymn to the accidental and the erratic
- Philip Ziegler, DAILY TELEGRAPH
Great fun. I enjoyed some of the chapters so much that I shouted praise for its frivolous merits at my television set when a young historian - arguing on <i>Newsnight</i> with my old friend Christopher Andrew - denounced the whole idea of 'alternative history'
- Roy Hattersley, OBSERVER
Thought-provoking entertainment.
DAILY EXPRESS
Antonia Fraser's essay stands out for its intelligence.
THE GUARDIAN