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Description
So a relatively easy little POD detailing a British victory in the War of 1812, as opposed to the stalemate of OTL. I'm a touch fuzzy on the details, but a breakout in New England facilitated a peace agreement whereby the US ceded two thirds of Maine and Michigan to Canada. This would facilitate a few changes in the short and long term, prime among the latter being New English enmity for the rest of America and Canada declaring itself a Kingdom when it came to self governance whilst in the former it saw an overconfident British expedition rush into battle against Napoleon and get slaughtered by an exasperated but still masterful L'Empereur. This fumble prolongs the War of the Sixth Coalition for another year into late 1815 when the Siege of Paris ends with Bonnie's abdication; with terms.
France keeps Piedmont and Belgium, as well as the Frencher parts of Switzerland, but loses all other territories. With a different disposition of forces Prussia gains Hannover, made tenable to the British via suzerainty on the elevated Kingdom of Sardinia, a far nicer plot of land that wouldn't drag them into the various conflicts between the German Principalities and allowed them to lord of the Mediterranean. A reduced Poland also came out of it alive, due to less Russian involvement after repelling Napoleon, with the proviso that Prussia, Russia and Austria receive joint suzerainty and administrate it as they please so long as it is by consensus and not de facto or de jure annexation. The Portuguese Court handled the departure from Brazil better, leaving a junior branch on the throne there and thus keeping bonds between the metropole and Brazil strong.
In the long term -say, the 1850s- New England would successfully fight a war of succession, citing historical grievances, a moral objection to the widespread use of slavery and anger over tax subsidies used to keep the impoverished south afloat after the price of cotton crashed. Everything from Pennsylvania to (mini)Maine seceded as the Republic of New England, and quickly latched onto the British.
Austria lost it's transleithanian territories in the 1860s after it failed to account for Hungarian qualms when it inherited the Kingdom of Bavaria. The Hungarians demanded autonomy lest they be dominated by the now doubly-strong Cisleithanian Germans -Venice being completely incorporated into the Hapsburg realm didn't help either- and Vienna said no. There was a war, and Hungary seceded. This also facilitated the expansion of Polish territory.
Colonialism came out weaker, due to no massive French defeat seeing Paris attempt to regain it's prestige via oppressing black people and spurring other people to do the same. There were more puppets, proxies and protectorates as a result, often at the behest of private interests, and Africa retained more autonomy.

There haven't been any World Wars, but a few big brush ups and revolutions that set the tone for the 20th Century. Brazil invaded Peru, for example, and after a grueling eight year war subdued the republic after drawing Bolivia to it's aid. Ironically for their prior history this would put Brazil and later South America at the cutting edge of military technology. China had it's development forcibly fast tracked with aid from the British when Russia invaded and snatched everything from East Turkestan to Manchuria. A less developed Japan was invaded and partitioned between a less patient US, an even more expansionist Russia and a sympathetic China trying to save it's Sinic cousin. (Sino-Japanese relations are weird af ITTL) Probably the most dramatic of conflicts occurred internally; when poor whites, oppressed Latinos and enslaved blacks rose up in the 1910s to overthrow the slavocratic oligarchy that had ruled America for some seventy years. What arose was a strange, segregationist yet collectivist technocracy that would eventually adopt an internationalist approach to it's ideology, and successfully primed France and allied Prussia with a similar -albeit more peacefully occurring- civic philosophy.

The world is strange, with the prime difference being that collectivism won out against individualism. How this is administered is the main point of conflict between the various world powers; with the British employing a sort of two pronged philosophy called Consociationalism whereby their subjects' cultural autonomy is preserved but made secondary to the overriding imperial identity proliferated across their federation. This is enforced by an omnipresent bureaucracy dominated by Londoners so that the imperial identity is fairly 'English' in character. The Americans, by contrast, believe in the complete segregation of culture and race that instead operates on a basis of rational consensus, making theirs the more democratic of the two.
America has an eclectic collection of allies, the clerical royal fascists of the Hispanian Compact and the military-mercantilist complex of Prussia, the Wahhabi Arabs and perhaps most noticeably a France that seems to pride itself on it's revolutionary roots despite many scholars pointing out that the current state of affairs was brought about in a democratic way and that their history of revolution has usually been co-opted for some other nefarious means; or they would do if they hadn't been purged by the Republican Guard. They're also trying to get Hindustan on board, who discarded the British yoke in the 1920s for a fairly bland and ideologically utilitarian union, so far with little success.
The Imperial British Federation is a collection of increasingly frustrated Dominions who all would like more say as to the actual running of the Empire given it all seems to be run out of London, even with the Federation legislature. Aside this are an oligarchic and inflation prone New England, a bureaucratic-socialist* Sweden-Norway, a conservative league of Islamic kingdoms + Turkey, and the ideologically divergent Austria and China who are big on internal autonomy and the rights of ethnic minorities.

Then of course there's Russia, a surprisingly chipper autocracy with qualms regarding both blocs and that adores spooking both of them.

Technology is truncated, with many areas being particularly backwards and others more advanced than the same period IOTL. Mechanical engineering is stunted and no one has yet invented the jet engine; airships aided by advanced rotors are endemic and the broad bowl of space is still a dream few believe can be penetrated. Medicine at the same time is more advanced, as what would become known as the Mississippian Flu swept the Americas in the 20s, and diseases as malaria and some STDs are all but wiped out. Communications technologies are beholden to the radio, television having not been invented, but said radios are incredibly efficient and there are handhelds that can operate hundreds of miles from an associated node. A Russian invented the computer in the 50s but they are bulky, inefficient, largely analogue and utilised solely by the militaries and intelligence agencies of various nations.

The world is fairly conservative, but at the same time not. Dress senses are somewhere between the colonial era and the 50s, and eugenics is still an important part of every day life. The church wields incredibly authority, and intermarriage between those of differing races is taboo in all but the most intermixed areas of the world as South Africa, Kenya, India and Thailand. But gay rights are more advanced; there is one country that has marriage equality, New England, and they are accepted in some respect as either comrades in the revolution or party to the Consociationalist order. Ditto for women, and there are females in many high positions of power, though this is more prominent in the Accord than in the Alliance.
Ironically for a world where communism never arose, it is dominated by the people.

---

This was more an exercise to get back into the habit of making alternate history maps, as I've been focusing on future history and alternate planets. I get that the writeup's a bit implausible and maybe doesn't wholly make sense, but that's fine. I hope you enjoy it.

EDIT: Made a few changes that have been bothering me for ages, because I really like this world and I think of all my maps it's probably the one I would most enjoy living in. The world is by no means perfect, but livable.

EDIT 2: In fixing problems I made some problems; so I had to solve those as well.

Description
So a relatively easy little POD detailing a British victory in the War of 1812, as opposed to the stalemate of OTL. I'm a touch fuzzy on the details, but a breakout in New England facilitated a peace agreement whereby the US ceded two thirds of Maine and Michigan to Canada. This would facilitate a few changes in the short and long term, prime among the latter being New English enmity for the rest of America and Canada declaring itself a Kingdom when it came to self governance whilst in the former it saw an overconfident British expedition rush into battle against Napoleon and get slaughtered by an exasperated but still masterful L'Empereur. This fumble prolongs the War of the Sixth Coalition for another year into late 1815 when the Siege of Paris ends with Bonnie's abdication; with terms.
France keeps Piedmont and Belgium, as well as the Frencher parts of Switzerland, but loses all other territories. With a different disposition of forces Prussia gains Hannover, made tenable to the British via suzerainty on the elevated Kingdom of Sardinia, a far nicer plot of land that wouldn't drag them into the various conflicts between the German Principalities and allowed them to lord of the Mediterranean. A reduced Poland also came out of it alive, due to less Russian involvement after repelling Napoleon, with the proviso that Prussia, Russia and Austria receive joint suzerainty and administrate it as they please so long as it is by consensus and not de facto or de jure annexation. The Portuguese Court handled the departure from Brazil better, leaving a junior branch on the throne there and thus keeping bonds between the metropole and Brazil strong.
In the long term -say, the 1850s- New England would successfully fight a war of succession, citing historical grievances, a moral objection to the widespread use of slavery and anger over tax subsidies used to keep the impoverished south afloat after the price of cotton crashed. Everything from Pennsylvania to (mini)Maine seceded as the Republic of New England, and quickly latched onto the British.
Austria lost it's transleithanian territories in the 1860s after it failed to account for Hungarian qualms when it inherited the Kingdom of Bavaria. The Hungarians demanded autonomy lest they be dominated by the now doubly-strong Cisleithanian Germans -Venice being completely incorporated into the Hapsburg realm didn't help either- and Vienna said no. There was a war, and Hungary seceded. This also facilitated the expansion of Polish territory.
Colonialism came out weaker, due to no massive French defeat seeing Paris attempt to regain it's prestige via oppressing black people and spurring other people to do the same. There were more puppets, proxies and protectorates as a result, often at the behest of private interests, and Africa retained more autonomy.

There haven't been any World Wars, but a few big brush ups and revolutions that set the tone for the 20th Century. Brazil invaded Peru, for example, and after a grueling eight year war subdued the republic after drawing Bolivia to it's aid. Ironically for their prior history this would put Brazil and later South America at the cutting edge of military technology. China had it's development forcibly fast tracked with aid from the British when Russia invaded and snatched everything from East Turkestan to Manchuria. A less developed Japan was invaded and partitioned between a less patient US, an even more expansionist Russia and a sympathetic China trying to save it's Sinic cousin. (Sino-Japanese relations are weird af ITTL) Probably the most dramatic of conflicts occurred internally; when poor whites, oppressed Latinos and enslaved blacks rose up in the 1910s to overthrow the slavocratic oligarchy that had ruled America for some seventy years. What arose was a strange, segregationist yet collectivist technocracy that would eventually adopt an internationalist approach to it's ideology, and successfully primed France and allied Prussia with a similar -albeit more peacefully occurring- civic philosophy.

The world is strange, with the prime difference being that collectivism won out against individualism. How this is administered is the main point of conflict between the various world powers; with the British employing a sort of two pronged philosophy called Consociationalism whereby their subjects' cultural autonomy is preserved but made secondary to the overriding imperial identity proliferated across their federation. This is enforced by an omnipresent bureaucracy dominated by Londoners so that the imperial identity is fairly 'English' in character. The Americans, by contrast, believe in the complete segregation of culture and race that instead operates on a basis of rational consensus, making theirs the more democratic of the two.
America has an eclectic collection of allies, the clerical royal fascists of the Hispanian Compact and the military-mercantilist complex of Prussia, the Wahhabi Arabs and perhaps most noticeably a France that seems to pride itself on it's revolutionary roots despite many scholars pointing out that the current state of affairs was brought about in a democratic way and that their history of revolution has usually been co-opted for some other nefarious means; or they would do if they hadn't been purged by the Republican Guard. They're also trying to get Hindustan on board, who discarded the British yoke in the 1920s for a fairly bland and ideologically utilitarian union, so far with little success.
The Imperial British Federation is a collection of increasingly frustrated Dominions who all would like more say as to the actual running of the Empire given it all seems to be run out of London, even with the Federation legislature. Aside this are an oligarchic and inflation prone New England, a bureaucratic-socialist* Sweden-Norway, a conservative league of Islamic kingdoms + Turkey, and the ideologically divergent Austria and China who are big on internal autonomy and the rights of ethnic minorities.

Then of course there's Russia, a surprisingly chipper autocracy with qualms regarding both blocs and that adores spooking both of them.

Technology is truncated, with many areas being particularly backwards and others more advanced than the same period IOTL. Mechanical engineering is stunted and no one has yet invented the jet engine; airships aided by advanced rotors are endemic and the broad bowl of space is still a dream few believe can be penetrated. Medicine at the same time is more advanced, as what would become known as the Mississippian Flu swept the Americas in the 20s, and diseases as malaria and some STDs are all but wiped out. Communications technologies are beholden to the radio, television having not been invented, but said radios are incredibly efficient and there are handhelds that can operate hundreds of miles from an associated node. A Russian invented the computer in the 50s but they are bulky, inefficient, largely analogue and utilised solely by the militaries and intelligence agencies of various nations.

The world is fairly conservative, but at the same time not. Dress senses are somewhere between the colonial era and the 50s, and eugenics is still an important part of every day life. The church wields incredibly authority, and intermarriage between those of differing races is taboo in all but the most intermixed areas of the world as South Africa, Kenya, India and Thailand. But gay rights are more advanced; there is one country that has marriage equality, New England, and they are accepted in some respect as either comrades in the revolution or party to the Consociationalist order. Ditto for women, and there are females in many high positions of power, though this is more prominent in the Accord than in the Alliance.
Ironically for a world where communism never arose, it is dominated by the people.

---

This was more an exercise to get back into the habit of making alternate history maps, as I've been focusing on future history and alternate planets. I get that the writeup's a bit implausible and maybe doesn't wholly make sense, but that's fine. I hope you enjoy it.

EDIT: Made a few changes that have been bothering me for ages, because I really like this world and I think of all my maps it's probably the one I would most enjoy living in. The world is by no means perfect, but livable.

EDIT 2: In fixing problems I made some problems; so I had to solve those as well.