Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives! by Richard Ned Lebow

Author:Richard Ned Lebow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2013-11-11T05:00:00+00:00

Thrills and Chills

Every world is entertained or threatened by unexpected developments of all kinds. In the historical world the immediate post–World War I decade witnessed the influenza pandemic, flappers, radio, Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic, and a few years later the kidnapping and murder of his baby son. In 1936 Edward VII abdicated the British throne. Also during the 1930s sports fans in Europe and America were riveted by great contests in baseball, cricket, boxing, bicycle racing, and the 1936 Berlin Olympics with its notable track-and-field events. The highlight of the Olympics was the phenomenal running and jumping of the black American athlete Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals. Host Adolf Hitler failed to acknowledge Owens’s victories and refused to shake his hand. The 1940s were dominated by the world war, which actually started in 1937 with the Japanese invasion of China. Many less deadly events engaged postwar publics. They included the integration of baseball, Elizabeth II’s inauguration, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s successful assault on Everest in 1952, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ first World Series victory in 1955, and Sputnik in 1957. In the world of entertainment Elvis Presley, Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, and Alec Guinness became headliners. Terms like hepcat, bebop, beatnik, H-bomb, Salk vaccine, and pizza entered the American and British lexicons or came into wider usage.

In the space I have available, I cannot offer even a bare bones account of similar developments in my alternative world. It is equally rich in human accomplishments, grand events, and pageantry, as well as gripping adventures on and off the world’s playing fields, golf courses, tennis courts, and tracks. More interesting than recounting the names and feats of otherwise unknown adventurers, entertainers, and athletes might be some observations about the ways in which adventure, entertainment, and sport differ in this better world. This requires great restraint because I must refrain from having the Dodgers and Giants stay in New York, the Red Sox win a World Series in 1946, 1967, 1976, 1986—or in all four—and Arsenal triumph consistently in key matches against the Hotspurs and Manchester United. “Man U” would also avoid the 1958 Munich air disaster that claimed twenty-three lives, including eight of its players.

I referred earlier to the film industry and how Hollywood fails to gain hegemony in my better world. Many of Hollywood’s key figures stay in Europe, as they do not have to flee Fascists or Nazis. With no Great Depression the public has less need for escapist entertainment, and Hollywood can attempt to address more serious themes. Social conservatism is nevertheless stronger than in the historical world, and well until the 1960s the American movies are hobbled by production codes and racial constraints that liberals and Europeans find laughable or offensive. The British film industry prospers as it helps to fill a vacuum. Ealing Studios, famous in the 1950s for films like Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob, and The Ladykillers, receives an infusion of American capital and comes to rival Warner Brothers, MGM, and 20th Century Fox.

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