Bring the Jubilee

Bring the Jubilee, by Ward Moore, is a 1953 novel of alternate history, set in a United States in which the Confederacy won the American Civil War (referred to in the novel as The War of Southern Independence). The novel deals with the state of the Confederacy, the United States and the rest of the world.

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler The narrator of the novel is Hodge Backmaker, a Northern boy with a thirst for reading and a strong back, but (to his parents' misfortune) little skill at anything requiring manual dexterity. At age 17 he travels to New York, the largest city of the Union, in a desperate attempt to get into a college or university. After being robbed of his few possessions, he comes into contact with the "Grand Army," an organization working to restore the United States to its former glory through violent nationalism. The Grand Army fulfills some of the same social functions as the Ku Klux Klan of the postwar South in our timeline. Despite remaining critical of the activities of the Army, Hodge accepts work and lodging with a member working from a bookshop. Content to work for food and the opportunity to read at every waking hour, Hodge stays in the bookshop for six years before leaving New York.

Hodge's aspirations of becoming a historian researching the war (which ended with the occupation of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania after the Confederate victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863) become reality as he joins a self-sufficient collective of scholars and intellectuals. Here he meets a couple of research scientists who are developing time travel. Taking the opportunity to finally see the battle in person, the narrator travels back in time -- only to cause the death of the Confederate officer who occupied the Little Round Top hill (where Vincent's Brigade, including Joshua Chamberlain's 20th Maine Regiment, repulsed attacks in our timeline). As this single event alters the course of history and establishes a new timeline (history as we know it), Hodge cannot go back to his own future.

The World of Bring the Jubilee

The world of Bring the Jubilee. CSA territory denoted in bright green; USA in dark green. German Empire in black; British Empire in red; French Empire in blue.

After the war, the South has conquered Mexico and controls much of Latin America. Leesburg, formerly Mexico City, is one of the greatest and most prosperous cities in the Confederacy. The nation is one of the world's two superpowers, along with the German Empire, and living standards, economic growth and political and military strength are reminiscent of the post-WW2 US in our timeline. Although slavery has been abolished, to a large extent because of the efforts of men such as Robert E. Lee, conditions are still poor for minorities. Technology and indeed the laws of physics are different in this world; the internal combustion engine and the incandescent light bulb are two examples of inventions never invented in that timeline. Steam-powered automobiles, locomobiles, are the primary powered means of personal transportation but are uncommon in the United States; most people still ride horses for short distances or take the train for long. Despite this, the world also has inventions that can only be described as superscience, such as the time machine which is the device on which the resolution of the plot rests.

The North is depicted in a state of perpetual recession, with an occasional glimpse of prosperity for wealthy landowners and the few lucky winners of the very popular lottery. Corruption (or at least allegations thereof) is widespread. The two main political parties are the Whigs and the Populists. The North is more hostile to African Americans than the South, both for being seen as a major cause of the war which ruined the Union and because of rampant unemployment. Thus the general sentiment towards black people is that all who do not make their way to one of the free countries of Africa deserve whatever comes to them.

World War I, in the novel referred to as the Emperor's War of 1914-1916, ended with the expansion of the German Empire (presumably because of the non-intervention of the Confederacy). The position of the British Empire is weakened accordingly, although it is revealed that British America (Canada) still remains their territory.

Major themes

Themes of the novel include love, race, scholarship and coming of age, and perhaps most prominent; the relationships between concepts such as determinism, free will, chaos theory and morality.

Trivia

Reading this book inspired Philip K. Dick to write his own alternate-history novel, The Man in the High Castle, in 1962.

The alternate-history trilogy Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War, Grant Comes East and Never Call Retreat, published by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen in 2003-2005, seems to be a counterpoint to Moore's book (published precisely fifty years after it). In the trilogy, losing Gettysburg is a grave setback to the North, but it by no means spells the end of the war or determines its outcome, and the North still has a lot of fight in it.