Amber Taylor gives a thumbs down to Philip K. Dick's classic science fiction/alternate history novel, The Man in the High Castle, which is set in a world where the Axis won World War II and the US has been conquered and divided between Germany and Japan. I tend to agree. Dick's book is high on my list of most overrated genre classics of all time.
The idea of an Axis victory alternate history was somewhat more original back in 1962 (when the book was written) then it would be today. But Dick's execution was flawed in many, many ways. The characters are implausible, the alternate history scenario even more so. It is just barely possible to imagine the Axis winning World War II despite the many advantages of the Allies. It is utterly implausible to imagine them being able to conquer and occupy the entire US by 1947. Dick's benign portrayal of the Japanese occupation is belied by the horrendous record of the actual Japanese empire of the 1940s. And all the references to the I Ching quickly become annoying without (as far as I can tell) making any genuinely interesting points or advancing the plot.
For a much better Germany-wins-WWII alternate history novel, see Robert Harris' Fatherland.
I recommend this nonfiction book by Richard Overy. Overy points out that had the Germans been able to harness the economic outputs of the conquered territory at the peak of their expansion... and if the Russians had not been as effective in moving their heavy industry, those advantages might not have been so great.
Similarly, many have noted that a fair amount of luck went our way at Midway.
Vide supra re "utterly implausible."
I didn't say Apacheria was very plausible, just interesting.
Nick
Fatherland is a nice little thriller, but it too is overrated, Harry Turtledove's In the Presence of Mine Enemies has a better realized Third Reich and it is typical hack Turtledove work. Personally my favorite Nazi's win alt history has to be Brad Linaweaver's Moon of Ice, a genuinely spooky and disturbing story told from the perspective of one of Goebbels' daughters.
That's not all that persuasive. The Nazis with their appalling record and philosophy nevertheless allowed parliamentary elections and government in Denmark until 1943.
Likewise one can draw a distinction between the behaviour of the Soviet Army towards civilians during the war (where you were considered lucky if they only beat you up once) and the milder (but still pointlessly unpleasant) regimes they established in Eastern Europe after the war.
A case can be made in which Philip K. Dick's Japanese became kinder and gentler after the war but it's information that it would be fun to find in the book and we all know that Philip couldn't put plausible historical detail into his novels.
Um ... That was the situation in The Man in the High Castle The Japanese controlled the Pacific States of America (presumably California, Oregon, and Washington). The Germans controlled the rump U.S.A. (most of the country from the East Coast out to the western edge of the Great Plains). Canada and the Rocky Mountain States of America were independent but pretty much powerless. I seem to recall a reference to an independent South, but I'd have to reread the book to verify that, and my copy is packed away.
The point of departure in Dick's novel was the assassination attempt on Roosevelt in February 1933. In the novel Roosevelt had been killed, and John Nance Garner succeeded to the presidency. As a result, the United States was far less prepared for war.
The I Ching is essential to the novel for several reasons. One of my favorite elements of the story was The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, the book-within-the-book that was a controversial best-seller in Dick's world. It was an alternate history novel in which the U.S. and Britain had won World War II. Its author had written it by extensively consulting the I Ching (as, in fact, Dick had written The Man in the High Castle).
At one point in Dick's novel, a couple of his characters ask the I Ching about The Grasshopper Lies Heavy... and are informed that it depicts reality, and that their own world is imaginary. But the world of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is not our world ... a nice twist.
Japan just didn't have the yard space to construct a meaningful amphib fleet, the invasion of the PI was as much as they were ever able to do and that was in early 42.
Even if the US lost Midway, and the Alaskian Islands and Pearl Harbor, they just did not have the means to effect and support a foothold landing on the west coast.
At most, they could maybe have started into Alaska, but the season there is so short I don't see how they could have gotten far.
Maybe if we lost at Midway, and lost Pearl, and Hitler pushed into England...and Japan and Germany linked up for a push into Panama in the 1950s after signing a peace treaty with the US in 44, maybe then.
I see at least 500 items referred to where the "divergence point" (their term for where the alt-hist diverges from ours) is between 1918 and 1945. Not all of those will be "What if the Axis had won WW2?" works, but they do say that it is one of the two most explored topics (the other being "What if the South had won the Civil War?").
On the Japanese side, they would've had to catch the entire American fleet, including carriers, at Pearl Harbor and sunk most of the ships. That would probably prevent Midway and given the Japanese control of the Pacific for several years.
True, but suppose we'd lost our 3 carriers at Midway. The likely result would've been a huge outcry against "Germany First" and a focus of our efforts on the Pacific theater -- which would've led to the Japanese's being defeated a lot earlier than August 1945. (N.b. we didn't need A-bombs to break the Japanese -- blockade would've done it, at similar cost in dead noncombatants. The Japanese were very afraid of a Red revolution in case of blockade.)
Assuming we could still send enough trucks &stuff to the Soviets, I think they defeat Hitler regardless, though it might've taken longer and they might've ended up with the Iron Curtain pushed farther west.
-- But Dick is not terribly interested in working out the counterfactuals to the nth degree. It's not that kind of book, and shouldn't be judged that way.
It is just barely possible to imagine the Axis winning World War II despite the many advantages of the Allies.
Jim Hu wrote:
I recommend this nonfiction book by Richard Overy. Overy points out that had the Germans been able to harness the economic outputs of the conquered territory at the peak of their expansion... and if the Russians had not been as effective in moving their heavy industry, those advantages might not have been so great.
Similarly, many have noted that a fair amount of luck went our way at Midway.
My take on Overy's book was that the differences between mobilization and everything else were structural; as such they were inevitable. I think Overy's book storngly supports the idea that an Axis victory was inevitable.
As to Midway, it might have shortened the war by a couple of months, but even an American catastrophe would have had minimal long term effects. American carriers were rolling off the drydocks. Japan could not win.
Best,
Ben
I'm not sure this is true.
Had the 1939 Battle of Khalkin Gol (between the USSR and Japan) been a decisive Japanese victory, the Japanese wanted to grab Siberia and probably would have done so. Stalin would have been forced to send much of his military to the Eastern borders of the USSR to fight the Japanese. When the Nazi attack came, the USSR would have been in a much worse spot (much of it's army on the far side of the country fighting the Japanese) and fighting two enemies instead of one.
It is certainly conceivable the USSR would have fallen under this scenario.
You're seriously underestimating how devastating the German attack was in the summer of '41. The Russians were defenseless. Guderian paused after taking Smolensk in September. At that point there was not only no Russian defensive crust between him and Moscow, but no Red Army units of any kind. His plan was to renew his attack after a short two week pause for replenishment. We know now that the Russians could do nothing in that time to prepare for his next attack. When Hitler ordered him to help Rundstedt's Army Group South instead, the German threw away their one real chance of defeating the Soviet Untion.
And taking Moscow, unlike in Napoleon's time, was the real goal. All of the rail, supply, and political infrastructure in the Western portion of the Soviet Union ran through Moscow. With Moscow taken, Leningrad could not be reinforced and would fall. The troops coming from the Far East would not have Moscow to organize and rest in before being sent West or north or south to counter the Wermacht.
Arkady: I found SS-GB to be good in that it was both plausible and depressing.
John Steinbeck wrote a book, "The Moon is Down", presuming we lost, as did Stephen Benet, whose title escapes me. Something like "Judgment of The Mountains". Both were written during the war. It's worth remembering that we were not guaranteed to win. When my father took over his first platoon at Ft. Carson, with their poor equipment and sloppy uniforms, he wasn't sure who would win.
There's a story that, at Desert Center, near where Ft. Irwin now is, the transport issues were so serious that the Army drafted some senior movement guys from Ringling Brothers, gave them an extensive liquor ration and told them to do it. Because Ringling Brothers, with all their traveling circuses, moved more people more places than the Army was used to.
We probably wouldn't have been occupied. But that's not to say the Germans and the Japanese would not have been victorious overseas and put huge pressure on us.
Japan, on the other hand, never stood a chance against the US, let alone the US, British, and Nationalist Chinese combined. If Germany had taken Russia out of the war, Japan would have been in even worse shape, since Mao's sabotage of Nationalist Chinese efforts against the Japanese would have been vitiated.
The Man in the High Castle is a great SciFi novel for all the reasons mentioned by other bloggers. Even besides its pioneering of themes and techniques it explores many subtle ideas that the casual reader is likely to miss. If you think you are smart and literate and like scifi and you didn't like it on a first read or a quick re-read, I suggest that you give it another chance.
Without Russian help, Britain and the U.S. could never have defeated Germany and Japan, though that doesn't mean that the U.S. would have been occupied.
In the long run, however, both were historically too late. Advancing technology facilitates revolution, so neither Japan nor Germany had the manpower to become another Rome or Britain.
The book did not seem like it was trying layout a plausible historical narrative. It was more concerned with presenting one idea of what it might be like, while using the whole thing to examine the relationship and importance of real reality versus false reality.
My guess is that his weak grasp on reality fit the mood of the 1960s and 70s.
Fatherland is a great book. And Harry Turtledove is the devil. He's one of the people responsible for the current practice of writing three long books instead of one short one. He stretches ideas until they scream.
On the topic of whether Germany could win the war, of course they could have. They beat Russia in World War One. Surely the US and UK could have made enough mistakes to lose. Nothing is inevitable except in hindsight.
Umm, there's a difference between "a bit of the West Coast" and "all of the West Coast states".
Terrible. Bad alternate history, boring novel on its own terms.
So he consulted the I Ching, and used the casting of coins &the sticks to formulate the plot of the novel! That's why the story really jumps around and is confusing. He rolled the Oriental equivalent of a 100-sided die to write the novel!
That's why the story is disjointed, and honestly, kinda sucks. I like some of the characters, like the well-fleshed-out Japanese administrator, and I enjoyed some of the what-if scenarios, like the disturbing imagery of a depopulated Russia and African continent.
It doesn't hold up as well today, but back when it came out, it touched quite a raw nerve. He's written much better (and some worse) novels. I like his writing better than Heinlein, about the same as Asimov, and less than I like Clarke for sci-fi.
I said it yesterday on the Phillip Dick stolen android head thread here, but Valis, Transmigration of Timothy Archer, and Divine Invasion are a great theological take on sci-fi.
And the Palmer Eldritch novel is a very creepy "where is your God now?" sort of novel. That was a lot of fun.
a substantial number of the Japanese WWII atrocities were against Chinese civilians-particularly those in hospitals.
here is a good site by an a academician studying who the Japanese carried out heir crimes on....soldiers were not even a significant group:
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM
First, Japan didn't really grab Taiwan by conquest directly. Japan defeated China in Sino-Japan war without any fighting in Taiwan. Then Chinese sold out Taiwanese to save their own hide in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. There was a three year transition period. So every Taiwanese had the choice of move to China or become Japanese.
Second, Japan did spend a lot of effort build up Taiwan and incorporated Taiwanese into the empire. There was Taiwanese appointed to Japanese House of Peers/Lords. Toward the end of the war, there were Taiwanese been elected into Japanese Imperial Diet. There were Taiwanese(including a family member) in Imperial Army/Navy Officer Corp. Were there any Filipino/Porto Rican officers in U.S. Army/Navy at same time frame?
Third, that's not to say it was all nice and peachy either. A lot of older Taiwanese praised Japanese rule because they hated the Chinese mainlander more, mostly for very legitimate reasons. Under martial law/white terror period, it was unsafe to criticize Chinese rule. So opening praise the "good old days" when Taiwan was still part of Japan was a backhand way criticize Chinese rule.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "occupied." I don't recall any evidence that the Japanese occupied more than the large port cities -- say, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle -- nor would they have needed to. The West Coast wasn't densely populated before the war.
Remember that the Pacific coast would have been relatively easy to isolate -- the Rockies, the Sierras, and the deserts were formidable barriers back then. Bomb (or sabotage!) a few bridges and rail lines, and we'd have been cut off. Destroy the California Aqueduct while we're at it, to really hurt Southern California.
Let's suppose the attack on Pearl Harbor had been delayed a few years, until after Germany, victorious in Europe, had entered into war with the United States. (Perhaps they attack us, perhaps we finally declare war on them as Europe is losing.) In our timeline, the West Coast port cities undertook massive industrialization and exploded in population during the war. Would this have happened if the East Coast had been attacked first? Suppose Einstein and Szilard had been ignored by President Garner, and suppose Heisenberg's A-bomb project had succeeded by 1947 or so. New York or Washington might have been nuked early on in the war. Things might have been very different, and very, very bad for us.
... or suppose, by the 1940s, that it was President Lindbergh or President Long or President Wallace (Henry, not George).
--shiver--
The elder Kennedy had a massive stroke in 1961 and lived feebly another eight years. By 1964 he would have been out of office. The alternative history would have also required an alternative physical history for Joseph Kennedy.
I don't recall ... Was this definitely Joe Senior? Or might it have been his son, who died in World War II in OTL? Joe Jr. was being groomed for the presidency, and when he was killed Joe Sr. turned to JFK, the next in line.
Maybe if Normandy had failed and Stalin's side had broken down, the Allies would have accepted German control (vassalization, not direct rule) of most of Continental Europe. The US did eventually accept vassal-control of the USSR over E. Europe, and at that point the US wasn't in the totally demoralized state they would have been if Normandy had been a POW-filled bloodbath.
The effects on society of turning on and nuking Russia are traumatic, hence the rise of wrack music.
Additionally, we should also remember the counter factual began in 1933. The US military in 1933 consisted of a 100,000 person army, 2 aircraft carriers and a number of old battleships. Most of the ships that fought the Japanese in 1942 were built starting in 1938 or later. What if Nimitz only had two aircraft carriers to fight the Japanese with? Remember, the industrial capacity of Britian and France was significantly larger in 1940 than Germany. Potential only matters if you have time to use it.
Additionally, we should also remember the counter factual began in 1933. The US military in 1933 consisted of a 100,000 person army, 2 aircraft carriers and a number of old battleships. Most of the ships that fought the Japanese in 1942 were built starting in 1938 or later. What if Nimitz only had two aircraft carriers to fight the Japanese with? Remember, the industrial capacity of Britian and France was significantly larger in 1940 than Germany. Potential only matters if you have time to use it.
Japan winning in the Pacific islands and SE Asia was far less likely, but not impossible. If Halsey's carriers had been anchored at Pearl Harbor, the luck in the first major sea battles after Pearl Harbor had been as lopsidedly with the Japanese as it was with the USA at Midway, and the Germans had been able to offer more substantial support, the Japanese might have been able to drag it out until the USA settled for a draw, and returned to isolationism. OTOH, with an isolationist US President rather than FDR, the Japanese might not have felt the need to start a war in the first place.
But a successful German or Japanese invasion of the 48 states? Not possible unless the way was paved with nuclear bombing - and even then, holding large areas of the USA against guerilla warfare would likely have been beyond the capability of any army that ever existed. (Of course, if the Nazis could have achieved and held a nuclear monopoly for long enough, they could have rendered all the territory they couldn't hold uninhabitable, but that's a whole different story than Dick was telling.)
As for Dick's reputation:
1) He got these ideas first, even if he wasn't the best at expressing them, and often didn't work out the logical implications.
2) His stories seem to translate to film better than most SF writing. (Logic and facts don't have much to do with filmmaking...)
"The onset of World War II cut off U.S. access to 90 percent of the natural rubber supply. At this time, the United States had a stockpile of about one million tons of natural rubber, a consumption rate of about 600,000 tons per year, and no commercial process to produce a general purpose synthetic rubber. Conserving, reclaiming, and stockpiling activities could not fill the gap in rubber consumption."
Fortunately for the world, synthetic rubber isn't as "hard" a problem as curing cancer, or synthetic oil.
Sincerely,
Corkie the Dog
WRT to the different imagined occupation policies of Japan and Germany: Dick wrote TMitHC in 1962. Much of what is well-known today about Japanese crimes (Nanking, "comfort women", Unit 731) had not been publicized then. The war crimes trials of Japanese leaders were almost an afterthought. German crimes were much more in the public view, and the Nuremburg Trials were only a few years past. The capture and trial of Eichmann were recent headlines.
As for Japan, their assumption was that the US was to culturally weak to sustain a hard war and would quickly negotiate. Suppose Washington was more explicit in its war warnings to Kimmel and Short? Suppose those two had a better integrated defense plan, manned radar coverage 24/7 and constant air patrols and most of all a war is imminent mind set? Supposed the military was on its game on the morning of December 7th? Japanese planes being meet out at sea by Army aircraft, the fleet managing to sorties out of Pearl and our carriers engaging the Japanese carriers while the Japanese air fleet was inbound to Pearl Harbor? Add to this MacArthur being on the ball in the Philippines, having his B17's attack the Japanese airfields in Taiwan?
Any plausible alternative scenario is the ones where the Allied forces acted more rationally prior to the war. The central conceit of the Axis was that the Allies were not capable of acquiring the war mindset, that is the emotional acceptance to fight and win no matter the cost. A fatal (and fortunate for us) conceit.
But this is a good example of why I find time-travel alternate-history to be a pointless genre. If the South had succeeded in making the Union give up trying to reunite the nation by force, who would have intervened in May and June 1918 to stop the Ludendorff Offensive?
And if the Germans forced a French capitulation in 1918, no Nazi Germany.
What's the point?
Indeed. Resolute moves by the French and British during the Rhineland reoccupation might have brought down the Nazis in '36.
Think how different the 20th Century would have been if Gavrilo Princep had missed.
After Pearl Harbor, Japan could not have won the war under any plausible scenario. Even a reversal of fortune at Midway only causes a significant delay in the inevitable. Since the US took the Philippines from Spain, war planning had always presumed that we would be cleared out of the western Pacific, and have to fight back in.
US production, manpower, and technological capacity was eventually going to bring American power to the Japanese Home Islands. And as a result of Pearl Harbor, there was never any doubt that Americans had the will to do so, however long it took.
Perhaps the USAF--or whatever we would have had at the time--would have had to wait until the late 40s to begin eradicating Japanese cities. But there was no way for Japan to prevent America from developing and building long-range bombers, fighter-escorts, a hundred aircraft carriers, and atomic bombs.
Japan never had the capacity to develop and produce enough interceptors, carriers, radar installations, command-and-control, etc., to stave this assault off. They had simply assumed that Americans would not and could not fight. This is why the Devastators at Midway and the Marines at Guadalcanal spooked Yamamoto so badly.
What's the Japanese for: "Oh Shit! Can we get a do-over?"
With Germany, it seems a different story. In the second half of 1940, if Churchill isn't leading the Brits . . .
Hitler guaranteed his defeat by making stupid decisions once things started looking bad in Russia. But if Britain had capitulated in 1940, the North Atlantic Lend-Lease route would not have existed. Things could have grown very dicey for the Sovs.