Stars and Stripes (3)

In , Harry Harrison began the story of the war that never was, but might so easily have happened: the war of the 1860s between the United States of America and the British Empire. It began with an ill-considered seizure of a British ship, escalated with an ill-considered letter to Abraham Lincoln, and continued with an ill-starred invasion of the territory of the USA by an incensed British government. The first modern war — with iron-clad ships, rapid-firing guns, trenches, mass armies and massive casualties, was taking place, not between the industrial northern states and the agricultural southern ones, but between the two great English-speaking nations. Who happened also to be the two most powerful nations on the planet. In the stunning conclusion to this series, the Irish become involved and a most surprising ending is the culmination of the ill-fated war.

This title follows a what if path of the British Empire pitted against her American colonies. The second title in the trilogy, only a brilliant plan by General Robert E. Lee enables the USA to attack the British forces where they least expect it and broaden the war for independence.

Acclaimed for his historical knowledge and his literary craftsmanship, the author of imagines what history might have been like if Great Britain had attacked America at the height of the Civil War.