In 1861 the American Civil War was in its first lethal year. Britain favoured the Confederacy - and the United Kingdom's hostility to the North increased to flashpoint when a Union warship stopped a British vessel at sea. At that moment, there was a very real risk of war between Britain and the Union.

Would Britain have invaded the United States? And if she had - what would have happened? This brilliantly envisaged alternate history shows on a truly epic scale the terrible consequences of such an action. For by the middle of the last century, warfare was already industrialized. Steam-powered ironclad ships at sea and trench warfare, powerful cannon and rapid-firing guns on land had revolutionized the business of mass slaughter. Men died in battle on a scale never before seen.

In the vividly dramatic and expertly researched Stars and Stripes trilogy, peopled by a huge cast of characters both historical and fictional, Harry Harrison, master of speculative fiction, explores with compelling skill one of the most fascinating "What ifs?" of world history.