Customer Reviews

The Glorious Cause

5 star:		(63)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is perhaps the finest novel Jeff Shaara has written to date. I am a fan of all of Mr. Shaara's novels but this is the best one in my opinion. He does a great job making the mythical figures of the Revolution come to life. There has been alot written about the major players of the Revolution but Mr. Shaara puts a human character with these individuals that show the fears and concerns they must have felt during these trying times.
The novel looks at the Revolution through the eyes of Washington,Greene,Franklin, and Cornwallis and their reactions to the events that transpire. I particularly like the way the author focuses on Hathaniel Greene who is an often overlooked but integral part of this period. He also does an excellent job looking at the war from the British General Cornwallis' perspective. Often times books about the American Revolution focus completely on our point of view and its good to get some insight into a British soldiers life.
Shaara's characters jump off the page and make this a hard book to put down. You will not be disappointed with this book and it most likely will energize you to find more information on our Revolutionary period.

The fifth novel by Jeff Shaara is perhaps his best work to date. Many people, including yours truly, waited what seemed like many years for the release of 'The Glorious Cause.' It was well worth the wait.

The American Revolution poses an interesting challenge to an author, since the action sequences and attitudes of the day are so different from later times. However, this challenge was masterfully met by Mr. Shaara, who truly surpassed my expectations. Shaara truly explored the personalities of the key players in the Revolution (Washington, Franklin, Cornwallis, et al). A few scenes in this novel actually moved me to tears.

The American Revolution has all but disappeared from today's historical landscape. Besides names we were all taught in school who were important to America, like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, most people are still (and woefully) unaware of the struggles these men and others faced to bring into existence the United States of America. Mr. Shaara's unique abilities as a storyteller have served to make this and future generations understand the conflict and those involved in it. While this is still a novel, historical fiction, Shaara transports the reader back in time over 200 years, and helps us grasp the vast complexities and heart-wrending hardships that faced our gallant ancestors as they forged the American Experiment.

I would highly recommend 'The Glorious Cause,' along with volume one 'Rise to Rebellion.' Both novels can easily be read time and again, each time opening up more of our hallowed past. I'm sure each reader will gain a greater appreciation for the events that changed the world forever, and brought us to our current place in history.

I never realized how little I knew about the Revolutionary War until I read this novel. The battles, the strategy, the leaders were all a blur to me. The story in this volume begins after the first clashes of the war near Boston and continues on until the end with the surrender of General Corwallis at Yorktown.

Shaara makes George Washington into a real person -- and the results are impressive. Washington's patience and perseverance, his management of his army, his steadfast ability to avoid disastrous military defeats and take advantage of small opportunities for victories reconfirm him in my heart as the greatest of Americans. Other characters are the aged Benjamin Franklin practicing diplomacy in France, Generals Greene, Wayne, Lee, Cornwallis, and foreign volunteers such as Lafayette and Baron von Steuben. I particularly enjoyed a brief scene in which von Steuben, a Prussian, confronts the job of turning an unruly mob of American soldiers into an army. This is a miitary history. Short shrift and unkind words are given to the political efforts of the Continental Congress and its members.

Shaara writes fiction about as close to fact as it can be. The book includes all-essential maps of major battles and the descriptions of battles can be taken as authentic -- although Shaara gets inside the head of major characters to sketch motivation and character. This is one of few books I have read on the American Revolution -- and certainly is the best I have read.

Smallchief

This is a splendid book. I thought that Jeff Shaara did a great job in Rise to Rebellion, the first book in this series, that began with the Boston Massacre and ended with the Declaration of Independence. In The Glorious Cause, we see the infant United States facing the might of a furious King George and an aroused British people. The Americans are ill-trained and ill-equipped, but they have two things going for them - their determination and their military leader, George Washington. He is the dominant figure in Shaara's picture of the revolution. I think we sometimes forget how great this man was, but he was every bit as great as most Americans regard him. Shaara protrays Washington's courage, his moral standards, his kindness, his sometime doubts in himself, and above all, his brilliance on the battlefield, where he successively outmaneuvered British Generals Howe, Clinton, and Cornwallis. We also see how the Americans used guerilla tactics to kill British soldiers at every opportunity all over the nation in bitter, little fights. Finally, the French make America's independence possible by supplying powerful aid to bring Cornwallis, and really the British Army, to defeat at Yorktown. In 638 pages, Jeff Shaara tells a fascinating and inspiring story.

It borders on being a grave injustice to classify this monumental work as historical fiction. It is also a rarity for a sequel to surpass the original, but Shaara accomplishes just that in this sequel to his tremendous Rise To Rebellion. I have to place both of these wonderful books among the best I have read.

I call it an injustice to call it historical fiction because Shaara's work is well researched and historically accurate right down to the minute details of battlefield formations. The only 'fictional' part is where the author has brilliantly imparted conversation between the characters, which adds to the drama and gives the reader a true sense of the character of the individuals involved. And who is to say that many similar such conversations did not actually occur? By taking the reader into the very thoughts of Washington, Greene, Cornwallis and many others, the reader is cast into a spell of compelling concern and compassion for the characters.

If only such fine work were implemented into public schools, our students would find interest in American history where none currently exists. Shaara presents a solid foundation to the claim that history doesn't have to be boring. Given that, I would encourage all parents to have your children learn from these fine works. These would also be a tremendous asset for the home schooler.

As the first volume takes the reader in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War, 1770 - 1775, this volume picks up and continues the journey through the surrender of Cornwallis and farewell of Washington to his devoted staff and eventual return to Mount Vernon.

Throughout the book, the reader is taken deep into the details of our war for independence. Such details as the conditions which were endured at places such as Valley Forge. You will feel the anger and anguish felt by General Washington as he witnessed a sentry standing on his hat to shield his bare feet from the frozen ground, while Congress and the Quartermaster Corps drug their feet on lending badly needed supplies and support. You will feel the excitement felt by Daniel Morgan as he meticulously lured Tarleton and the British into his trap at Cowpens.

I can go on and on about this fine book, but suffice it to say, if you only read two books this year, make them Rise to Rebellion and The Glorious Cause. You can thank me later.

I wonder if I would have liked "The Glorious Cause" more if I had never read "The Killer Angels." Of course, the great irony is that Jeff Shaara has been writing his historical novels because of the critical success of his father's Pulitzer Prize winning novel. However, having read Jeff Shaara's prequel and sequel on the Civil War, his volume about the Mexican War, and these two novels about the American Revolution, I keep coming back to the conclusion that the wrong lesson has been learned from "The Killer Angels." What the books all share in common is the shifting of narrative perspective amongst key participants in the events under consideration. For the Battle of Gettysburg in the original that meant Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, and Lewis Armistead on the Confederate side, and John Buford and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain on the Union side. Jeff Shaara has followed Michael Shaara's example in using the same technique, albiet by including many more characters who are often reduced to a single chapter to tell their story from their perspective. But an important consideration in the success of "The Killer Angels" was that it focused on a four day period. Consequently, we followed Longstreet and Chamberlain throughout the entire battle. There were not gaps of weeks and months like you will often find in "The Glorious Cause."

This becomes a concern for me because "The Killer Angels" was more about psychology than history, per se, detailing what these men were thinking during the pivotal battle of the Civil War. Most people who read the book knew the basic particulars of what the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac did from June 30 to July 3, 1863. At the very least they know about Pickett's Charge. When it comes to the American Revolution my historical knowledge is probably average, which means that "The Glorious Cause" really did teach me more about that war than I knew previously. But it lacks the impact of "The Killer Angels" because the story is full of giantic gaps. It would not have bothered me if Shaara had done more volumes in this series than just the two. Single books devoted to the Second Continental Congress writing the Declaration of Independence, the embassy of Benjamin Franklin and others to the French court, the failed defense of New York City, the winter of Valley Forge, or the siege of Yorktown all could have worked in a similar manner. This would be why "Gone For Soliders" is probably my favorite of Jeff Shaara's books, for the simple reason that it offers up the smallest time frame.

I would think that most readers will get a better understanding of how the American Revolution was fought and the changing strategies on both sides. But there will be a few chapters, such as Chapter 49 Morgan, which makes the battle at Hannah's Cowpens a memorable experience, clearly reminds us of what this approach to historical fiction can do at its best. We get glimpses of similar insights to George Washington and Nathaniel Greene, but the gaps in the chronological narrative get in the way of providing a complete portrait. Ironically, by the end of the book, I think we have a better idea of the mind of British General Charles Cornwallis more than any other figure.

Certainly "The Glorious Cause" is worth a read, even if you have not read "Rise to Rebellion" first, but the expanded breadth of the scope of this novel necessarily sacrifices depth. However, I am optimstic because whether Shaara continues to go back in history, to the French & Indian Wars or goes back to following up the Civil War by looking at either the Plains Indian War or the Spanish-American War, there is the opportunity to deal with a much more limited historical frame of reference than he has done to date. Furthermore, I think this could only be a good thing.

Jeff Shaara has really come into his own with this impressive follow-up to "Rise to Rebellion". Powerful in it's character depiction while maintaining an amazing historical accuracy, Shaara sheds new light on many "entrenched" myths of the Revolution and comes away with what I feel is a masterpiece.

We follow Washington, Cornwallis, Nathaniel Greene and Franklin from the invasion of Brookyln Heights through Yorktown with a first-person perspective that adds depth and immediacy not seen in other accounts of the Revolution. Battle tactics and surprisingly plentiful maps further reinforce Shaara's story and ultimately gives a vivid and heroic picture to our "founding fathers".

Shaara comes across as a damn fine storyteller and his descriptions of the Battle of New York, Trenton, Brandywine, Valley Forge and Monmouth using this first-person perspective gives a masterful picture of these battles and lets the reader see what it may have been like to be on these distinguished battlfields. The Southern theatre (the real turning point of the War) gets detailed treatment as well with the accounts of Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse and of course Yorktown.

But the overwhelming thread throughout this entire work are the character developments and the human drama that these conveyed. We see Howe as an early version of the Civil War's George McClellan, Clinton as the arrogant successor, Tarelton as the "butcher" and Cornwallis as possibly the most capable of all the British Senior commanders. On the American side, Greene is plausibly portrayed as Washington's "right-hand-man", Laffayette as the young phenom, Charles Lee and Horatio Gates as the conniving and undermining subordinates, Arnold as the persecuted traitor and, finally, Washington as the true leader and savior of the revolutionary cause. His thoughts, feelings and frustrations (fictional though they are) from Harlem Heights to Yorktown come alive and Shaara is to be applauded for bringing these out in a realistic and entertaining manner. Minor character development (Von Stueben, Rochambeau, Daniel Morgan and Knox) abounds and adds needed depth to the narrative while also giving accurate historical perspective.

From the initial chapter where the young colonial fisherman is stabbed as a suspected spy to the emotional departure of Washington at Fraunces Tavern in New York, Sharra brings to light all the drama of the Revolution while maintaining the history in an epic account thats sure to classified as essential Revolutionary War reading. Very highly recommended.

If you love American History, this is a book you will love! Jeff Shaara has such a wonderful way of bringing history alive and he has done it once again with this story of the Revolutionary War. I would almost swear that he followed the characters, taking detailed notes as to what they thought and believed. While many may think he takes license by putting words into the mouths of people such as Washington, Greene, Cornwallis, Franklin and others, it's done in such a way as to bring the historical event to life. I believe his research is accurate and the events are set forth as they happened. By writing in such a style the characters become alive once more and we seem to be right there with them as they endure this difficult time of our history. Additionally, the author makes frequent use of maps throughout his story telling. This is especially helpful as it allows the reader the follow where these battles took place. As an avid reader of history I can think of no other author who brings history to life better than Mr. Shaara. He has a real gift and you'll not be disappointed in his latest work.

Jeff Shaara's writing style (patterned after his father's) is simply breathtaking. Normal history books recite events, dates, and facts. Shaara gets into the characters minds. He has researched personal correspondence, memoirs, etc. to formulate how such men as Washington, Franklin, Cornwallis, and many more felt, thought, and what they said during the battle for American Independence. Shaara's Civil War trilogy is exceptional, this two book story is even better. A must read for any history buff or anyone in need of real American heroes.

'The Glorious Cause' is the second in Shaara's two volume piece historical fiction concerning the Revolutionary War. 'Rise to Rebellion' was the first, and I believe the superior of the two, but 'The Glorious Cause' is an excellent novel as well.

'Rise to Rebellion' was the superior of the two novels due to the changes of heart that the readers sees in John Adams and Benjamin Franklin concerning the issue of independence from England. 'The Glorious Cause' has little of that type deep soul-searching. However, it is a fantastic portrayal of the difficulties encountered by the Continental Army and George Washington, in particular.

If I were to have my druthers, I would have preferred that Shaara had broken this 600+ page novel into two novels and expanded them both by delving more into the politics of the day and the difficulties of fighting a war with the governmental structures and restrictions that the Contintenal Congress was hampered with.

In addition, more battles and fronts could have been explored, such as the ill-fated American invasion of Canada and Benedict Arnold's naval adventures on Lake Champlain.

That being said, these are still a highly recommended novels - either for the American Revolution novice or the enthusiast.

Well done, Mr. Shaara.