Following
in the footsteps of his father, Michael, Jeff Shaara writes historical
novels about the United States. He added two books to
Michael’s Pulitzer Prize–winning The Killer Angels
to make a Civil War trilogy. He turned next to the Mexican War and then
the American Revolution. The Rise to
Rebellion is
the first of two novels about the latter epoch.
Like his father, Jeff Shaara presents history through its principal
characters. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, George Washington, and
British General Thomas Gage are the primary players in The
Rise to Rebellion,
with supporting
characters including John’s wife, Abigail; his firebrand
cousin, Samuel Adams; and John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry
Lee, Joseph Warren, and Paul Revere.
The story begins with the Boston Massacre in March 1770 and continues
through the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
It moves from the beleaguered city of Boston to London, where Franklin
represents the colonies, to battlefields, to the halls in Philadelphia
where the Continental Congress meets and the Declaration of
Independence is debated and signed.
Some people do not like historical fiction because of the difficulty of
separating fact from fiction. But Shaara stays true to the historical
record and does not attempt to embellish characters or events for
dramatic effect. Writing in a clear, easy-to-read style, he brings out
themes that enhance our understanding of pivotal incidents and
opinions. He is especially effective on the theme of identity:
Colonists a century and a half removed from the mother country had
developed independent identities (of which the English were clueless),
but merging their separate identities into united states was not an
assured course.
The
Glorious Cause, the second
volume in Shaara’s Revolutionary saga, features Washington
and Franklin again, along with the American general, Nathaniel Greene,
and his British counterpart, Charles Cornwallis. It takes the story up
to Cornwallis’s surrender in 1781.
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