The Alternate History Novels of Newt Gingrich

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, currently the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president, is also a well known writer of alternate history and historical fiction, in partnership with William Fortschen.

If anything can be derived from Gingrich's essays into fiction, it is his fascination about how history can be shaped by individual decisions by people who happen to be in the right place at the right time.

Gingrich's first essay into fiction was "1945," which was published in 1995 with a large print run to capitalize on his recent elevation to the House Speakership. The novel is acknowledged to have been hastily written and sloppily edited, but the scenario it presents is interesting nevertheless. The point of departure is that Hitler does not declare war on the United States in the wake of Pearl Harbor. As a result, the United States deploys the full weight of its military against Japan, crushing it in a conventional campaign. The Manhattan Project is put on hold. In the meantime, Nazi Germany is free to conquer most of Europe, including Russia, as well as developing a number of wonder weapons such as intercontinental bombers and missiles.

The novel concerns a Nazi raid on American nuclear research facilities, particularly Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in an attempt to prevent the restart of the Manhattan Project. The raid is fought off and the novel ends with the planning for an American armada to help Great Britain ward off a Nazi invasion. This would presumably have taken place in a sequel novel. Unfortunately, sales of "1945" did not justify the production of a sequel.

Much better written and more well received were the three books of the "Gettysburg" trilogy, including "Gettysburg," "Grant Comes East," and "Never Call Retreat." Positing a Confederate victory at the Battle of Gettysburg due to a change in strategy, the series depicts familiar Civil War figures such as Robert E. Lee and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in an altered Civil War. Most awe inspiring is a scene in which the 51st Massachusetts Regiment, the African-American unit made famous in the film "Glory," stops the Confederate attack on Washington under the eyes of President Lincoln.

Gingrich's second alternate history series consists of "Pearl Harbor" and "Days in Infamy," which turns on a worse Pearl Harbor attack in which a third wave of Japanese bombers wreck the American dry docks and fuel depots, rendering the base in Hawaii useless. This leads to a major battle between the Japanese fleet and Admiral Bull Halsey's carrier task forces in the second novel that ends somewhat inconclusively. The two books constitute the beginning of a multi-book series about an alternate World War II.

More recently Gingrich and Fortschen have published a number of straight historical fiction, including "To Try Men's Souls" about Washington's crossing of the Delaware, "Valley Forge," and "The Battle of the Crater," about a Civil War battle involving the detonation of explosives behind Confederate lines.

Sources: 1945, Newt Gingrich and William Fortschen, Baen, 1995

Gettysburg, Newt Gingrich and William Fortschen, St Martins, 2005

Grant Comes East, Newt Gingrich and William Fortschen, St Martins, 2006

Never Call Retreat, Newt Gingrich and William Fortschen, St Martins, 2007

Pearl Harbor, Newt Gingrich and William Fortschen, St Martins, 2008

Days of Infamy, Newt Gingrich and William Fortschen, St Martins, 2009