For Want of A Nail (novel) - Literary Significance & Criticism

Literary Significance & Criticism

When it first appeared in 1973, For Want of a Nail was unique: a book-length history of an alternate world. Over two hundred years' worth of people, places, economics, finance, technology, politics and war was spelled out.

Despite being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, the book gained little notice from Sobel's fellow historians. Alternate history was considered a subgenre of science fiction, so it was from fans of science fiction that the book gained its initial audience, and For Want of a Nail gained the status of a classic work of alternate history. It was not until the formation of the soc.history.what-if Usenet newsgroup in the 1990s that a body of alternate history enthusiasts came into existence that was diverse and knowledgeable enough to provide For Want of a Nail with a proper critical evaluation.

The first critique of For Want of a Nail was that provided in the book's final section by imaginary USM historian Frank Dana. Among the other complaints in his scathing review, Dana decries the book's anti-Mexican bias. He traces this bias back to Sobel's central thesis that the North American Rebellion represented a conflict between moderation and extremism, with the extremists represented by the American rebels who declared independence and later left to found Jefferson and the USM, while the moderates remained to build the CNA. This conflict, Dana believes, creates a false dichotomy that runs through the book, coloring Sobel's view of the histories of the two nations to the advantage of the CNA and the disadvantage of the USM.

Ian Montgomerie, a regular contributor to soc.history.what-if, reviewed For Want of a Nail in 1998. He praises the book's attention to detail, noting that Sobel has created by far the most detailed alternate history in existence, but finds fault in two areas. First, he finds the rise of Kramer Associates unbelievable, insisting that a company used to enjoying an economic monopoly in one country would find it impossible to compete with other companies in a global market. Second, he feels that Sobel's picture of technological development is faulty, since the scientific knowledge needed to allow the invention of television in 1903 would necessarily require that nuclear power be discovered decades before Sobel permits it in 1962. Montgomerie's review seems to be the source of the legend that the book's bibliography includes a small number of "real" works that predate the point of divergence.

John J. Reilly, an occasional contributor to soc.history.what-if, reviewed For Want of a Nail in 2003. He believes that Sobel's intent was to separate out two strands of American nationalism and create separate countries for them. The CNA got the utopian impulse, resulting in a penchant for social reform and "quixotic experiments in economic equality," while the USM got the "Jacksonian tradition" (along with Jackson himself) that is "very keen on liberty and indifferent to equality". Reilly also observes that For Want of a Nail is limited by Sobel's own imagination, which he believes makes "a floor to villainy and a ceiling to genius that are lacking in the real world".