By Jeff Shaara
Jeff Shaara is rapidly emerging as one of our finest historical novelists. Now in Rise to Rebellion he tells deftly the story of the initial phase of the American Revolution. From the Boston Massacre and John Adams' decision to defend a British officer in court (a key step toward the rule of laws which made the American Revolution so different from the French and Russian Successors), to Benjamin Franklin's desperate and patient ten year effort to be an Englishman while representing the colonies in London to the quiet emergence of Washington as the disciplined force on which the revolution would succeed, Shaara creates a tour de force.
Anyone who would seek to understand the origins of the American Revolution and the precepts of political order, private property, individual liberty and the rule of law which made this the keystone for human freedom will find this a compelling book. shaara captures with remarkable accuracy the process of how these revolutionaries placed themselves at enormous risk to create a new future. His portrait of how the Continental congress moves slowly and with great agony toward independence is worth the entire book.
His portrait of Franklin gradually becoming first disillusioned than embittered, then angry and finally defiant against the very British he had wanted to belong to is worth a dozen books. I cannot recommend this book too strongly if you would like to understand how America came to be. I am looking forward to the promised second volume.
Review by Newt Gingrich
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