XX-Rated

In his rant against 'grognerdish merde,' TFSmith laid out a big, bold statement of purpose for his timeline:

Anyone who has actually read any thoughtful history understands human agency is a bigger factor than almost anything else... A huge element of those historical examples is, of course, the impact - as you say - on the individual, large or small, man or woman.

Sadly, he is no better at understanding these aspects of social history than he is at understanding the aspects of military history which he bungles so abominably. Through a combination of excessive laziness and inadequate foresight, he creates a completely nonsensical world without even realising that he has done so. How did he manage this?


TFSmith has a very sophisticated and complex way of creating books in his alternate history: he takes an existing book, changes the author's gender, and it's good to go. Observe:

• Jeanne Dickinson and Brigit Young [John Dickinson and Brian Young], A Short History of Quebec (McGill-Sutherland University, Montreal & Kingston, 2003)
• Josephine Lehmann [Joseph H. Lehmann], The Model Major General: A Biography of Field-Marshal Lord Wolseley (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1964)
• Irma Werstein [Irving Werstein], Kearny the Magnificent – The Story of General Philip Kearny (The John Day Company, New York, 1962)

Sometimes he even goes to the length of tweaking the title,:

• Irene Musicant, Contested Waters: A Naval History of the Anglo-American War (HarperCollins, New York, 1995) = Ivan Musicant, Divided Waters: the Civil War at Sea
• Josephine Glatthaar, Forged in Battle: The Colored Volunteers and Their Officers in the Great War (The Free Press, New York, 1990) = Joseph Glatthaar, Forged in battle: the Civil War alliance of Black soldiers and White officers
• Sarah Weintraub, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli: Hero of Two Nations (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993) = Stanley Weintraub, Disraeli: A Biography
• Paula Kennedy, The Rising Powers: Europe and the Americas in the Nineteenth Century (Random House, New York, 1987) = Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000
• Stephanie Sears, Landscapes Turned Red: The Chantilly and Occoquan Campaign (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1983) = Stephen Sears, Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam
• Stephanie Sears, The Gates of Quebec: The Campaign in Lower Canada (Ticknor & Fields, New York, 1992) = Stephen Sears, To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign
• Stephanie Sears, The Young Napoleon: George B. McClellan, (Ticknor & Fields, New York, 1998)= Stephen Sears, George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon, (Ticknor & Fields, NY, 1988 [sic]) 
• Aaron Foreman, A World Aflame: The Anglo-American War (Random House, New York, 2010) = Amanda Foreman, A world on fire: Britain's crucial role in the American Civil War

There is even an instance where he bothers to invent a new publisher, presumably hinting at a more radical Reconstruction settlement than seen historically:

• Geraldine J. Prokopowicz, All for the Regiment: the XII Corps in British North America (University of Appalachia Press, Chapel Hill, 2001) = Gerald Prokopowicz, All for the regiment : the Army of the Ohio, 1861-1862 (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2001)

There is, however, only a single exception where an author does not change gender: Nels Fredericksen, Historia Virtua: Counterfactuals and Alternatives (Macmillan Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh, 1997). This is intended to be Niall Ferguson, Virtual history: alternatives and counterfactuals. Why Niall does not change gender is rather a mystery. This is certainly very early in the timeline, perhaps before TFSmith decided to change all his authors' genders. Alternatively, TFSmith did not check to see whether 'Nels' was a female name, assuming it was akin to the English 'Nell'. It may even be linked to TFSmith's belief that Niall Ferguson is a 'jingo,' that he lacks 'intellectual honesty' and professional standards, or that he 'gave up being a historian a long time ago'.

Whichever of these it is, the overall implication of the change should be clear. In effect, military history is apparently a majority female profession from 1960 onwards. However, does this really fit with our picture of the US?

This is a country which went to war with Britain in the 1860s and possibly again in the 1880s. This is a country which builds steel warships in 1872, with the debt of a war with Britain as well as of the Civil War hanging over its head, when it took a decade longer to do so historically. This is a country which was prepared to drop nuclear weapons on an English-speaking Anglo-Saxon nation, rather than the Japanese as they historically did. This is a country where the military historian Samuel Eliot Morison is a 51-year-old retired Captain in the US Naval Reserve by 1938, whereas historically he only joined the naval reserve in 1942 and was retired in 1951. Clearly the US is intended to be a much more militaristic society than it was historically. And yet by the 1960s, military history is a predominantly female profession. Does that sound right?

Where TFSmith really proves himself to be clueless is in not understanding the effect that the development of the contraceptive pill had on female participation in tertiary education. To be brief, women's involvement in higher education on any significant scale is largely due to the widespread availability of the Pill. However, TFSmith has provided no rational counterfactual proposition that would suggest the Pill would be available earlier. What kind of militaristic society looks with equanimity on its birth-rate falling? Indeed, in the light of the poor relations between Britain and America, it is unlikely that the birth control advocate Margaret Sanger would have been able to flee to Britain to avoid prosecution for her support of contraception. Imprisonment would butterfly away Sanger's support for the contraceptive pill, and, most likely, butterfly away the Pill itself.Without the Pill, university education would still be male-dominated- a fact which renders TFSmith's litany of female authors completely nonsensical.

TFSmith rarely thinks things through, as we found when he had 'an irradiated, diseased wasteland' with a thriving publishing industry. However, when he proclaims himself capable of raising above the herd of 'grognerds', and writing sophisticated alternate history for sophisticated readers, it would be nice if he spent a little time finding out about the world he currently lives in as well as laboriously researching West Point graduates.