Reviews for Twentieth-Century Europe A Brief History

The average rating for Twentieth-Century Europe A Brief History based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-03-14 00:00:00 Tanya Estrada Wildly uneven, and serving as little more in many cases than an excuse for authors to ride their pet hobbyhorses, few of the counterfactuals in this collection are terribly thought provoking, largely because they fail to illuminate the differences and what they mean well enough. There are exceptions, and interestingly, the exceptions are mostly the pieces that most experiment with the form (one uses a parallel narrative of actual and counterfactual history to great effect, another is framed as a series of documents illuminating different points of view in the counterfactual). The sheer obscurity of some of the change points is part of the problem, making it hard to really grasp what's at stake in the pieces (it's notable that one of the strongest pieces in the book tackles the Dismissal), and some of the overlooked points at which our history could have gone another way are conspicuous by their absence (no what if Harold Holt lives or West Australia had not joined Federation here). Indeed, the book as it stands poses a range of counterfactuals, most obviously, "what if this had been a better book?"

Review # 2 was written on 2014-04-04 00:00:00 Ryan M Cool An interesting (and for the most part fun) thought experiment on how Australian History may have played out if an event turned out different (e.g France colonises TAsmania, Whitlam avoids the dismissal, The northern rivers are directed to LAke Eyre basin). The scenarios swing from fascination to bland academic studies but overall I enjoyed it. Thumbs up to the What if......there had been a school of figure painting in colonial Sydney. No background in art history but I found it a thought provoking scenario. Never considered Australia cultural history in that way.