Two days ago I finished Simon Winder's Danubia (second in his trilogy) -- a tremendously fascinating and enjoyable summary of the history of that region over th

Two days ago I finished Simon Winder's Danubia (second in his trilogy) -- a tremendously fascinating and enjoyable summary of the history of that region over the past millennium. That whole region is chock-full of fascinating counter-factual / alternative-histories based on the tiniest 'what ifs' (someone lived an extra year, didn't die of smallpox, didn't choose to build the wrong church in that town that year, didn't stupidly assume an entire foe nation could be defeated in 6 weeks, etc). From here (Australia, with a generally pro-British syllabus at school) Napoleon is taught as a generally successful, but ultimately bad, force.