Cowley, Robert [editor]. What If? 2. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Date: 20 January 2005

Commentary: This collaboration describes historical crossroads and offers speculative alternate timelines that might have resulted. Some case studies are much more creative and reasable than other. Below, I summarize both an insightful case study, as well as a poor case study that was clearly not thought out. Although some of the contributors are unable to think both critically and creatively about alternative possibilities, that very lack of meaningful analysis can actually ignite the reader's creativity.

Jang Hua: I found this to be the most interesting case study. Jang Hua was a Chinese military leader who built a navy of ships that were much larger and far ranging than those of their contemporary counterparts in the Portuguese navy. The Chinese began to explore the Indian and even African coasts. The author explores several fascinating possibilities if the Chinese navy had been the first to discover Europe and even the New World with its superior navy. The key historical wrench, that precluded these possibilities, was the interference of the religious bureaucracy, which was afraid that outside influence would threaten its power.

The Crucifixion: The author properly acknowledges that the death of Christ is the cornerstone for Christian faith in redemption, but points out in an intellectual exercise what might have happened if the Roman Governor of Judea Pilate had upheld his verdict of innocence at Jesus' trial. The author describes a timeline in which Jesus lives to old age, is supported (or at least not harassed) by Rome, and gathers a following leading to an alternate form of monotheism that is substantially different from current Christianity. The author lacks creativity in forecasting the timeline, however. For example, the author describes an apostle Paul who becomes a close friend and colleague of Jesus. The story of Paul is that he was a Pharisee (fundamentalist Jewish cleric) who persecuted followers of Christ, but converted after a supernatural experience while traveling from Israel to Damascus (Syria) in which he had a vision of Christ after the crucifixion. It is quite likely that if Jesus had lived then Paul would have never converted. And since Paul wrote two third of the New Testament and was the first apostle to carry the message of Christ to the Gentiles (non-Jews), it is quite likely that Christianity would have simply become a Jewish sect, or died out altogether. The author fails to account for such cascading impacts on history; demonstrated most disappointingly an ever so slightly altered description of Constantine (who adopted Christianity for the Roman Empire). By the time of Constantine, there are so many more interesting possibilities. Imagine that Nero never burns Rome, the Orthodox church never unites the eastern Slavic and Russian peoples, a different path of Roman conquest, no crusades. The author completely fails to address the more likely possibilities stemming from the verdict of the trial of Jesus.

J. Sprigg