People's account of what the world would have been like without WWI

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All Things Considered has been underlining the war's historical importance by imagining the world if it had never happened: How would politics, science, literature and music have been different without that conflict?

We asked listeners to carry this idea of a counterfactual history and received more than 1,500 thoughtful — and often hilarious — stories.

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Josef Stalin would never have been more than a hairy, disaffected Georgian coffee shop habitue. He might have owned a shop in Tbilisi, and helped to care for his aging parents. He would have married a village girl and possibly become a drunken lout. At best, he would have become a town alderman.
— Marcy Troy

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Benito Mussolini eschews teaching and politics, choosing instead to open up a small coffee/pastry shop in Switzerland called "Bene, Bene!" He goes on to write several dessert cookbooks, which become very popular in Spain and Italy. While on a book signing tour he is given the nickname "Il dolce" by his fans.
— Charles Foerster

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