Alternative History

While I was dusting and re-arranging my books collection, I have unearthed something that I bought many years ago in Amsterdam and than promptly forgot about it. The book is called "What if?" and its actually very interesting, it is a collection of essays about moments in history where simple accident forever changed everything that happened later (kind of "butterfly effect") - its written by military historians and fiction writers, covering everything from ancient world to WW2, truly my kind of book because its entertaining and informative at the same time. Man I love non-fiction!

The first few chapters deal with ancient battles that seriously shaped world back than, but curiously also had effect on present time - for example,Assyrian army had raised to the ground everything in front of them but somehow did not destroy Jerusalem. Mysterious disease attacked Assyrians just as they camped around city walls (plague?) and they left Jerusalem intact (for time being) therefore giving chance to rise of Christianity which otherwise might have been completely destroyed. And so on trough battle of Salamis where Greeks won and got to rule over Mediterranean (imagine if Persians had won!), Alexander the Great (who might have died much later in old age) and Mongol army that came right in front of Vienna in 13.century. Very interesting. When I came to the story how ever-expanding Roman empire was abruptly stopped by German tribes who simply destroyed three legions somewhere in Forrest trap beyond the Rhine I really got excited and remembered that I actually have a TV documentary that deals with this story.

"Terry Jones' Barbarians" is excellent documentary (and a book) about people who old Romans called "barbarians" - in fact everybody who was not Roman, including me and you.
As Terry Jones points, historians were mostly Roman and they described all those kingdoms as savage, brutal, unwashed and primitive, but archaeology shows that they were everything but primitive. Celts for example had very interesting culture where society took care of elderly, sick and children - they did not write as far as we know, but passed knowledge from generation to generation trough oral tradition (I also learnt about recently discovered "Coligny calendar" that was Celtic and far superior to Roman calendar). Goths on the other hand were fierce warriors who had gold and this is why Julius Caesar decided to "protect" them by killing and enslaving some 263,000 people (and this is just one tribe) which of course Romans welcomed happily at home. Right now I watched episode about rich kingdom of Dacia (present Roumania) that emperor Trajan completely and utterly destroyed because, guess what, they had gold mines - as one of the historians in this documentary points, there is nothing new under the sun, every time when certain country had geological wealth it brings occupation and troubles. More I watch this, more I learn about these "barbarians" and how history was shaped by winners - I actually feel for "barbarians" and despise Romans who enjoyed killings in arena's for fun and had built Rome on looting their neighbours.