Jim, I just happened to think of a problem with Kantor's treatise. As I recall, he theorized that, after losing the Civil War, a bruised and battered North would ratchet down its expansionist policies in order to restore its economy. Being less westward-looking, and strapped for cash, Secretary of State William Seward would not have pulled off the purchase of Alaska from Russia. This, of course, would alter the history of Russia, which Kantor doesn't take into account. If Russia's history was thus altered, it follows that the Bolshevik revolution would not have occurred. If that happened, then the National Socialist movement in Germany would probably not have developed -- its was originally, after all, an anti-communist movement. That's how it got the support of the German industrialists and bankers. Without the leadership of the Nazis, it is improbable that Germany would have kicked off the Second World War by invading Poland. If war in Europe had not occurred, and Britain, France and the Netherlands were not thus exposed as the paper tigers they turned out to be, then Japan would not have started the war in the Pacific. The Pearl Harbor attack, after all, was a preemptive strike to cripple the U.S. fleet long enough to secure and consolidate their planned conquest of the European colonies in southeast Asia. Therefore, whew!, if the Second World War had not happened, then his scenario of the three American nations getting back together again to fight a common enemy would not have happened. This messing with history business is pretty tricky. The "Butterfly Effect" I think they call it.

Have you read any of Harry Turtledove's "alternate histories"? Very interesting and entertaining stuff.