I was a bit disappointed in this collection, but it was mostly a personal taste. Some of the writers’ styles were not to my liking. But several of the stories seemed to fall short of their promise, focusing more on the history around their chosen event and just suggestions of alternate sequences of events. The history of the potato was very interesting and the author raised some real question about what could have happened if any of a number of events had varied, but he did not write any real alternate stories. I felt this story didn’t deliver what the book promised.
Some of the stories worked very well, exploring Churchill’s politics and his influence on WWII.
Overall, I suspect the scope of speculative fiction doesn’t work well with the short story format.