Carr, Caleb. "William Pitt the Elder and the Avoidance of the American Revolution"
Divergence: 1766 CE
What if: William Pitt refused or postponed enoblement as the Earl of Chatham but instead remained in the Commons and continued to prevent the various acts which attempted to extract funds from the colonies.
Summary: Essay which isolates Pitt as the person most able to avert the rebellion in America, then sketches an outline of the next 150 years in which the Americas, both North and South, become progressively more important to the British Empire, abolition takes holds in the 1830s, and British-model democracy gains a stronger grip around the globe.
Published: In What Ifs? of American History: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Might Have Been (ed. Robert Cowley), q.v.