For Want of a Nail ... is a dual history of the Confederation of North America and the United States of Mexico by Robert Sobel, an Australian business historian who has lived and worked in both countries and currently makes his home in Taiwan.
For Want of a Nail ... is 441 pages long, and includes a preface dated 19 February 1972; a contemporary map of the North American continent; a bibliography listing over four hundred works; three appendices listing the Governors-General of the C.N.A., the leaders of the U.S.M., and the Presidents of Kramer Associates; an index; and a critique by Professor Frank Dana of the University of Mexico City dated 17 July 1972.
In his critique, Professor Dana notes that For Want of a Nail ... is the fourth dual history of the C.N.A. and U.S.M. to appear in the last decade, and suggests that Sobel has drawn much of his material from the three earlier works.
Sobel begins his history with the Treaty of Paris of 10 February 1763, while the most recent historical event recounted is the U.S.M.'s lack of an atomic bomb as of 1 November 1971.
The Sobel Wiki includes an errata page for For Want of a Nail ... listing factual errors and contradictions in the book.
| Map | ii | ||
| Preface | xi | ||
| 1 | Prelude | 1 | |
| 2 | The Rebellion Begins | 12 | |
| 3 | Victory in America | 24 | |
| 4 | The Britannic Design | C.N.A. | 37 |
| 5 | The Wilderness Walk | U.S.M. | 44 |
| 6 | The Trans-Oceanic War | BOTH | 55 |
| 7 | The Era of Harmonious Relations | C.N.A. | 64 |
| 8 | The Crisis Years | C.N.A. | 76 |
| 9 | The United States of Mexico | U.S.M. | 88 |
| 10 | The Taking of the West | U.S.M. | 98 |
| 11 | California Gold | U.S.M. | 111 |
| 12 | The Rocky Mountain War | BOTH | 125 |
| 13 | The C.N.A.: The Corruption of Progress | C.N.A. | 137 |
| 14 | The People's Coalition | C.N.A. | 149 |
| 15 | Recovery and Progress | U.S.M. | 160 |
| 16 | The Kinkaid Interlude | U.S.M. | 170 |
| 17 | The Bloody Eighties | BOTH | 182 |
| 18 | An Age of Renewal | C.N.A. | 190 |
| 19 | The Crisis of Mexican Republicanism | U.S.M. | 203 |
| 20 | The Mexican Empire | U.S.M. | 214 |
| 21 | Ezra Gallivan's Creative Nationalism | C.N.A. | 223 |
| 22 | The Great Northern War | U.S.M. | 235 |
| 23 | The Starkist Terror | C.N.A. | 248 |
| 24 | The Years of the Pygmies | BOTH | 258 |
| 25 | The Moral Imperative | U.S.M. | 272 |
| 26 | A Time of Diffusion | C.N.A. | 283 |
| 27 | The Dewey Era | C.N.A. | 296 |
| 28 | The Slave Dilemma | U.S.M. | 307 |
| 29 | Manumission and Expansion | U.S.M. | 317 |
| 30 | The Fuentes-Jackson Duel | U.S.M. | 326 |
| 31 | The Fight for Peace | C.N.A. | 334 |
| 32 | The Global War | BOTH | 345 |
| 33 | The Ashes of War | C.N.A. | 355 |
| 34 | The Guilt Question | C.N.A. | 364 |
| 35 | The Mercator Reforms | U.S.M. | 372 |
| 36 | The New Day | C.N.A. | 381 |
| 37 | The War Without War | BOTH | 388 |
| 38 | Scorpions in a Bottle | BOTH | 396 |
| Critique by Frank Dana | 402 | ||
| Appendix I: Governors-General of the C.N.A. | 407 | ||
| Appendix II: Leaders of the U.S.M. | 408 | ||
| Appendix III: Presidents of the Kramer Associates | 409 | ||
| Selected Bibliography | 411 | ||
| Index | 427 |