American history is full of difficult choices that could have gone the other way. Now Steve Tally sends you back to the most important moments in our nation's history -- and takes the other fork in the road. What if the President Nixon had refused to resign and instead faced impeachment. - What if George Bush had dropped Dan Quale from the 1992 Republican ticket? - What if Teddy Roosevelt had outlawed the new American sport of football as he threatened to do in 1906. - What if IBM hadn't asked Bill Gates and Microsoft to write computer code for its first personal computer? Decisions were made. The rules were set. The battles were won. But there was always the possibility of another outcome. Almost America unravels the threads of our nations history -- from the Puritan preachers of the 1970's to the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton -- and takes you to America ( or Americas) that might have been. With less restraint and more whimsy than exhibited in editor Robert Cowley's What If? The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (1999), Tally proffers 28 sketches of alternative courses in American history. His queries about Babe Ruth, had the Red Sox not sold him to the Yankees, and about TR, had he succeeded in outlawing football, add a lighter tone to the weightier substance beneath his scenarios about politics and war. Judging by frequency, Tally is most attracted to counterfactuals about presidential succession: in the actually deadlocked 1824 election, he posits John C. Calhoun manipulating himself into the presidency; Tally knocks off Andrew Johnson, as was intended by the Lincoln assassins; and he spins off the famous Chicago Tribune blunder, "Dewey Defeats Truman." There is more about chief magistrates, several about warriors Washington, Tecumseh, and Lee, and but one on social conditions, which keys off Upton Sinclair's The Jungle . In all his creations, however, Tally brings a solid grounding in the actual history that supports his suppositions. His populist pitch will certainly strike with history buffs ready for light diversion. Gilbert Taylor Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved American history is full of difficult choices that could have gone the other way. Now Steve Tally sends you back to the most important moments in our nation's history -- and takes the other fork in the road. What if the President Nixon had refused to resign and instead faced impeachment. - What if George Bush had dropped Dan Quale from the 1992 Republican ticket? - What if Teddy Roosevelt had outlawed the new American sport of football as he threatened to do in 1906. - What if IBM hadn't asked Bill Gates and Microsoft to write computer code for its first personal computer? Decisions were made. The rules were set. The battles were won. But there was always the possibility of another outcome. Almost America unravels the threads of our nations history -- from the Puritan preachers of the 1970's to the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton -- and takes you to America ( or Americas) that might have been. Steve Tally is the autor of Bland Ambition: From Adams to Quale - the Cranks, Criminals, Tax Cheats, and Golfers Who Made it to Vice President. He lives with his wife and family in Indiana.