Historians and philosophers alike have pondered the crucial turning points of history--the events that forever altered the course of civilization and set the stage for the world in which we live today. In these essays, some of the most respected minds of our time as the question "What if ... ": Pontius Pilate hadn't ordered Jesus Christ's crucifixion? Abraham Lincoln hadn't abolished slavery? A Confederate aide hadn't accidentally lost General Robert E. Lee's plans for invading the North? The Allied invasion of D Day had failed? Pope Pius XII had spoken out against the Holocaust? The Mongols had succeeded in conquering Europe? --From publisher's description.

Previously published as: What if? and What if? 2 in 1999 and 2001.

Infectious alternatives : the plague that saved Jerusalem, 701B.C. /William H. McNeill -- A good night's sleep can do wonders / Barbara N. Porter -- No glory that was Greece : the Persians win at Salamis, 480 B.C. / Victor Davis Hanson -- Conquest denied : the premature death of Alexander the Great / Josiah Ober -- Furor Teutonicus : the Teutoburg forest, A.D. 9 / Lewis H. Lapham -- The dark ages made lighter : the consequences of two defeats / Barry S. Strauss -- The death that saved Europe : the Mongols turn back / Cecelia Holland -- If only it had not been such a wet summer : the critical decade of the 1520s / Theodore K. Rabb -- If the Holy League hadn't dithered / Peter Pierson -- The immolation of Hérnan Cortés : Tenochtitlán, June 30, 1521 / Ross Hassig -- The repulse of the English fireships : the Spanish Armada triumphs, August 8, 1588 / Geoffrey Parker -- Unlikely victory : thirteen ways the Americans could have lost the Revolution / Thomas Fleming -- George Washington's gamble / Ira D. Gruber -- What the fog wrought : the Revolution's Dunkirk, August 29, 1776 / David McCullough -- Ruler of the world : Napoleon's missed opportunities / Alistair Horne -- Napoleon wins at Waterloo / Caleb Carr -- If the lost order hadn't been lost : Robert E. Lee humbles the Union / James M. McPherson -- A Confederate Cannae and other scenarios : how the Civil War might have turned out differently / Stephen W. Sears -- Vietnam in America, 1865 / Tom Wicker -- The what ifs of 1914 : the world war that should never have been / Robert Cowley -- Bismarck's empire : stillborn / James Chace -- Thanks, but no cigar / David Clay Large -- The armistice of desperation / Dennis E. Showalter -- How Hitler could have won the war : the drive for the Middle East, 1941 / John Keegan -- What a taxi driver wrought / Williamson Murray -- Triumph of the dictators / David Fromkin -- Our midway disaster : Japan springs a trap, June 4, 1942 / Theodore F. Cook, Jr. -- The case of the missing carriers / Elihu Rose -- D Day fails : atomic alternatives in Europe / Stephen E. Ambrose -- The Soviet invasion of Japan / Robert Cowley -- Funeral in Berlin : the Cold War turns hot / David Clay Large -- China without tears : if Chiang Kai-shek hadn't gambled in 1946 / Arthur Waldron -- A quagmire avoided? / Ted Morgan -- The end / Robert L. O'Connell -- Socrates dies at Delium, 424 B.C. / Victor Davis Hanson -- Not by a nose : the triumph of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, 31 B.C. / Josiah Ober -- Pontius Pilate spares Jesus / Carlos M.N. Eire -- Repulse at Hastings, October 14, 1066 / Cecelia Holland -- The Chinese discovery of the New World, 15th century / Theodore F. Cook, Jr. -- Martin Luther burns at the stake, 1521 / Geoffrey Parker -- If Charles I had not left Whitehall, August 1641 / Theodore K. Rabb -- Napoleon's invasion of North America / Thomas Fleming -- If Lincoln had not freed the slaves / Tom Wicker -- France turns the other cheek, July 1870 / Alistair Horne -- The election of Theodore Roosevelt, 1912 / John Lukacs -- The Great War torpedoed / Robert L. O'Connell -- No Finland Station / George Feifer -- The luck of Franklin Delano Roosevelt / Geoffrey C. Ward -- The War of 1938 / Williamson Murray -- Prime Minister Halifax : Great Britain makes peace with Germany, 1940 / Andrew Roberts -- The boys who saved Australia, 1942 / James Bradley -- rEnigma uncracked / David Kahn -- Pius XII protests the Holocaust / Robert Katz -- VE Day--November 11, 1944 / Caleb Carr -- The Führer in the dock / Roger Spiller -- No bomb--no end : the Operation Olympic disaster, Japan 1945 / Richard B. Frank -- The presidency of Henry Wallace / James Chace -- A tale of three congressmen, 1948 : America without Nixon, Johnson, and Kennedy / Lance Morrow -- What if Pizarro had not found potatoes in Peru? / William H. McNeill.