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The Man in the High Castle

The book is set after World War 2 had ended and depicts a very interesting perspective on how the life of average citizens could have been if the allied powers had lost the war to the axis powers. The Nazis draining the Mediterranean Sea is highly implausible. In the book, the Nazis drain the Mediterranean to make room for farming. This is a very hard task to complete as the Mediterranean is a big body of water and on top of that, the Atlantic Ocean flows into the sea. To drain the Mediterranean, you would have to pump out the water which would take thousands of years and in the 1960s the technology wasn’t advanced enough to do that. Or you could block off the flow of the Atlantic Ocean and dry up the sea, but this would still be too difficult as the Atlantic Ocean is so big and deep. The drained water was most likely dumped back into different parts of the ocean which would make the ocean’s level rise and cause the land to go underwater. Also, by doing this the environment gets affected as it messes up the ecosystem, millions of humans would starve, and countries surrounding the sea would dry up. With no Mediterranean, trade would take longer and be harder to do as there would be no passage as it is a primary trade route and countries would have to make new trade routes. This was the most implausible part of the book as it just makes no sense how it is possible to drain one of the biggest seas and not have any negative effects on the planet or people’s day-to-day lives.

Citation:

Kevin. 2020. “What If We Drained the Mediterranean? | What If Show.” March 10, 2020. https://whatifshow.com/what-if-we-drained-the-mediterranean/#:~:text=The%20water%20that%20the%20Mediterranean.

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“Mediterranean.” n.d. Oceana Europe. https://europe.oceana.org/mediterranean/#:~:text=Overview-.

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The Man in the High Castle

I enjoyed reading this alternate history novel as it showed me the life of multiple average citizens after the Allied Powers had lost World War 2, under the control of the Axis Powers. Trying to find and understand a plausible scenario from the book was a little difficult. This novel had some far-fetched and unrealistic scenarios that seemed almost impossible. But this is an alternate history novel where everything is hypothetical and the plausibility is one’s imagination. I believe the most plausible scenario from the book is that Franklin. D Roosevelt did get assassinated in 1933. While there was only one actual assassination attempt against him, there were multiple times throughout FDR’s political career when he was threatened to be killed. FDR being assassinated in the book seems very plausible as there has been a sufficient amount of threats and attempts to his life in reality. With FDR being dead, his biggest impact leading into World War 2 was that the “New Deal” would have never come into effect meaning the Great Depression would have lasted a lot longer than it did. The New Deal helped with the Great Depression by providing relief to the poor, reviving the economy, and forming an economic system to adapt to the depression. Since FDR was killed a lot earlier in the book, the New Deal was never created. The United States stayed in economic turmoil for a lot longer which left the country weak, financially unstable, and not ready to go into a war or give any type of support to allies in war. Another impact of FDR’s death in the novel was there was never an oil embargo on Japan meaning none of Japan’s oil would be cut off and there would be no reason for them to attack the U.S. This is a plausible situation as Pearl Harbor never gets attacked and the U.S never joined the war. In reality, FDR authorized the oil embargo on Japan which cut off 88 percent of Japan’s imported oil and in retaliation, they attacked Pearl Harbor.

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Citations

“Franklin D. Roosevelt Assassination Attempts.” 2017. History. April 18, 2017. https://www.historyonthenet.com/roosevelt-assassination-attempts.

History.com Editors. 2009. “FDR Escapes Assassination in Miami.” HISTORY. November 16, 2009. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-escapes-assassination-in-miami.

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Throughout this book, one key part that I found really implausible was the story of Freydis Eiriksdottir. During the time of Vikings, it was unheard of women being strong, outspoken, and independent. Women were supposed to be housewives who would take care of everything when their men would go into war or raids. In the book it explains how she is a strong warrior and a leader of a Viking tribe that voyages south to different countries and this seems very implausible since she is a woman. Starting off this part of the novel I was confused on how Freydis even got men to follow her and trust her to lead the voyage. After doing some research I found out she was the daughter of Erik the Red who was a feared Viking who first founded an European settlement on Greenland. I then understood why she was so trusted and so strong because of her ancestry. There were many times her men could have left her and stolen from her but they didn’t because Freydis was so confident in what she did. Freydis led her crew to many lands and made alliances with many different Skraeling’s that would let them into their homes. She was also very innovative, like when she got an idea to make a wagon to carry heavy objects just by looking at a wagon-like toy her daughter was playing with. I understand now why this is plausible for her to be such a great leader, but it is still very implausible in the Viking era for a woman to be so strong and confident and especially not a leader of a tribe.

Outside resource: “Erik the Red.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Accessed October 3, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Erik-the-Red.

Reading “Civilisations” gave me a lot of plausible ideas to write about. But the one story that stuck out to me the most was the Inca and European Dynasty part of the novel. The Incas and Europeans create an alliance. Later on in the novel, there is news that there is a bunch of gold washing up on a shoreline in South America, but the gold was being claimed by the Aztecs. A plausible event that seems believable and reasonable is that these dynasties got into a war over the gold because gold was considered as the richest treasure back in that time and the more gold you had the stronger of an empire you were. I would say the Incas and Europeans would beat the Aztecs in this battle as they are two empires combined against one. Say after the Incas and Europeans win the gold, these two empires could go into a battle between each other over the gold. When it comes to riches and treasure no one cares about alliances or friendships anymore and greed takes over one’s soul. I can relate this plausible event to a real invasion, Iraq invasion of Kuwait. Iraq accused Kuwait of stealing oil from them. Causing Iraq to attack Kuwait. Kuwait was overtaken by the Iraqis and Iraq took control of 20% of the world’s oil reserve because of this. No one really knows why Iraq attacked, but theories are that they needed money to pay off debts to other countries.