Form: Non-fiction
Year: 1964
Publication history:
- 1964 : 1066 (hc) , Dial, 212 pp., 64-12291
Interestingly enough, the final chapter of this book is called "What If--?" and offers a bit of alternate-history speculation. "What if William had lost at Hastings? What if there had been no Norman Conquest of England?" Silverberg develops a number of possibilities, picturing a world in which England remained isolationist and never went abroad to found colonies. North America would almost certainly have become a French colony, though it may have attained at least some measure of independance. It's an interesting fancy, and worth considering, since there are so many ways in which William's success rested on good luck and timing rather than strength or skill.