WARD MOORE'S OVER AMERICANIZED JUBILEE

Anyone here ever read the alternate history novel 'bring the jubilee'? Even though I love the book, reading it kept me lamenting about how self-absorbed Americans were (the book was published in 1953) and still are. In this book, even though it's the 1940s people still go around on horseback, ride trains [or 'minibles'- steam powered personalized conveyances) and fly by balloons. All presumably because the Confederacy won the war and the internal combustion engine was never invented. I assume the Yankee who'd have designed it died in the "Southron war of Independence". PLEASE, GIVE ME A BREAK! What of all the engineers in Europe, Canada and Australia? If there were no Wright Brothers in America we could have had 'Benz Brothers' in Germany, 'Tesla Brothers' in Romania, 'Jean Baptiste Brothers' in France or 'Royce Brothers' in Britain. America is not the source of all invention! The book is imaginative, well researched and touching [especially towards the end] but Ward Moore didn't do his homework well enough. The internal combustion engine was actually invented in 1860-before the Civil War. So whether the Yankees won or the Confederates won, we'd still have gotten the motor car.