The fictional history includes a full scholarly apparatus, including a bibliography of 475 works and 860 footnotes citing imaginary books and articles; three appendices listing the leaders of the Confederation of North America, the United States of Mexico, and Kramer Associates; an index; a contemporary map of the alternate North America; and a preface thanking imaginary people for their assistance with the book.

Attempts by the British government to impose direct taxation on the American colonies provokes resistance by the colonists, which escalates into open rebellion in 1775.

After driving British troops from Boston and declaring independence, the American rebels suffer a series of reversals and lose control of New York City, Albany, and Philadelphia by the end of 1777.

The rapid industrial development, however, fosters resentment between rich industrialists and the working classes, and a financial crash in 1835 leads to a series of social upheavals, including the abolition of slavery in the Southern Confederation for economic reasons.

The CNA eventually wins approval from London for a second Britannic Design to transform itself from a loose conglomeration of states to a unified nation with a governor-general, a central executive office of which General Winfield Scott is the first holder.

Meanwhile, its parliamentary democracy stabilizes into a two-party system with a pro-industrialist Liberal Party and the social democratic "People's Coalition" routinely trading power.

Multicultural diversity occurs by the immigrant exodus from the ongoing turmoil in 19th-century Europe, and one confederation, South Vandalia, becomes majority African American after ex-slaves move there, and Quebec and Nova Scotia are given a devolved, semi-independent status.

As recurrent strife continues in the 1920s, the country embraces the Galloway Plan, which subsidizes travel to settle new areas of the Confederation while relieving overcrowded cities and diffusing politically opposed groups.

[2] Another aim of the book was to spoof the growing trend in academic history for heavily footnote-laden, unreadably dense prose (the more outrageous the assertion made in the text, the denser the footnotes).

Each chapter was written in the style of a different academic historian, and the final critique by Frank Dana was based on the savage reviews commonplace in historical journals.