Rise to Rebellion

 

 

Rise to Rebellion – by Jeff Shaara

I’ll give credit to the author since he seems to have come up with a genre that is rather unique. It also does seem that many of his readers enjoy his books. I really wish I could add my voice to the consensus, but this is his second “novel” that I have read, and they simply don’t do much for me.  The genre that he is famous for isn’t really historical fiction as some may claim.  There are many authors that fit that mold, and I love many of them – John Jakes, Leon Uris, Edward Rutherford, and Herman Wouk are a few that come to mind. What Shaara does in his books is a bit different.  He takes historical events (usually American wars) and tells the history of the event as if it were an actual story.  All of our main characters are famous historical people.  So if you know history, there’s nothing in these books that really surprise you.

In this case (volume 1 of a 2-volume series) it’s the American Revolution.  Our main characters are such figures as John Adams, Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Gage.  We see the unfolding events through their eyes. So, yes, there is some story here, but other than the facts and the important events, I really can’t say that any of these stories moved me at all.  Shaara gives good, detailed accounts of such events as The Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere’s famous ride, and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but it never made me truly enraptured.  Many know the facts of these famous occurrings, but I was left feeling like I really didn’t need all of this extra made-up fluff around said events.  Yes, reading about Paul Revere galloping on his horse warning colonists about the “British are Coming” is told in exquisite detail that makes you feel that you were actually there, but I honestly never cared about “being there”. 

Now, this sounds like I’m being harsh, but my main squabble is that the detailed accounts of these famous events are really all that is here.  I could see, for example, an author like a John Jakes giving a good detail of such an event, but Jakes would never make it a focus of his book.  He would include it as a chapter, maybe, but his focus would be on a well-crafted story about ordinary people who lived during the time. Jakes made me care about the people.  This is where Shaara just doesn’t do it for me. He tries to pepper his history with some “stories” about the famous protagonists but reading about John Adams and wife Abigail moan about their garden for a couple of pages just didn’t do anything for me.

This is the second book by Jeff Shaara I’ve read, and although I liked it much better than the first one (Gods and Generals) I can’t honestly recommend it. This thing was also almost 500 pages in hardback form and it just dragged on too long.  If you want a good story with history as a backdrop, I would recommend any of the authors that I previously mentioned.  If you really want to learn history though, stick with a history book.  There are plenty of volumes that detail the events here, and the American Revolution is a captivating story by itself. We really don’t need to slog through everything than Benjamin Franklin may or may not have “felt” over a multitude of pages.