Ward Moore 4 hr 14 min read

In a world where the South won the Civil War, a scholar of the defeated Union stumbles onto a machine that can carry him back to the moment it all turned.

Ward Moore's 1952 classic is one of the finest alternate-history novels ever written, following Hodge Backmaker through a shabby, second-rate United States to a time-travel confrontation with the Battle of Gettysburg itself. Elegant, melancholy, and profound. Read it for a landmark of the genre, alternate history and time travel woven into genuine tragedy.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

4 hr 14 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).