by Erik Durschmied
It's actually a pretty good book, if
you're looking for PODs, but Durschmied doesn't exactly prove his premise with it very well.
Oh sure, he shows how various battles would have gone differently had "X"
happened/not happened – where "X" is some piece of stupidity or chance – but then
when he sums, in most of the cases, he makes it seem like the sole effect
of this change will be in what dates/locations later generations of school children will have to remember for
history class. The rest of history, in most cases, just toodles right on, pretty much the same as on our timeline.
So his "Hinge Factor" changes history all right, but in the most superficial manner possible. Not only is this unlikely
(especially given some of his PODs), but it's pretty much a cheat if that's what you bought the book for.
And the Trojan War "hinge" is just plain silly. He's basically using Homer's Epic
on it as a source – poetic, but hardly solid history. In fact, given how little we know about the real
Trojan War, going "here's how history would be different if the Greeks lost" is just plain silly.
Mind, I think anyone of the members of "Point of Divergence"
could take one of these PODs and run with it, coming up with a really interesting AH (I honestly don't think creating realistic AH's is Erik's forté – and his summations are annoyingly short), so if you're searching for ideas, this may be a good book to have.