Rise to Rebellion

"No event in American history which was so improbable at the time has seemed so inevitable in retrospect as the American Revolution." So begins 2001's Pulitzer Prize-winner for History, Joseph Ellis's Founding Brothers, a fascinating portrait of six pivotal moments in the nation's first quarter-century.

The Revolution also offers perfect material for coin dealer-turned-novelist Jeff Shaara. The son of Pulitzer-winning writer Michael Shaara (whose The Killer Angels provided the source material for Ted Turner's miniseries, Gettysburg), Jeff inherited more than a trilogy in the making from his father. In fact, he brings a wealth of storytelling skills to his adopted profession, and a heartfelt compassion for historical figures with which he turns dry history into compelling personal drama.

Rise to Rebellion, not surprisingly, reads much like the print original of a television movie, but here's the thing: with few exceptions, books are better than their cinematic adaptations — fuller, more subtly shaded, more pleasingly detailed — and Shaara's first novel set in colonial times will inevitably outshine the film someday based on it. The book is true to history — no accepted facts are knowingly contradicted, no lines of dialogue have been altered to suit Shaara's needs — but the story is wholly the author's own, his fictional reckoning of scenes as experienced by their participants: Ben Franklin's revelatory discovery of malnourished Irish peasants suffering under British rule; John Hancock's disappointment upon learning that George Washington has been chosen to lead the rebel army; General Gage's impossible home life, caring for his American wife while attempting to destroy the spirit of her neighbors and family. Characters' personal conflicts drive the novel forward (why does Franklin insist on eating breakfast naked, anyway?), while the heart of the book explores one inescapable question: How ever did a handful of colonists, most of whom hadn't met before the first Continental Congress, convince themselves and then a continent to attempt what never before had been done, to break from the world's most powerful nation?

So the Revolution interests you, but where should your reading start? With Rise to Rebellion? But what then of Founding Brothers, or else John Adams, David McCullough's massive biography of perhaps the most intriguing — and most overlooked — founding father? The answer simply depends on your taste. Each book will satisfy its audience, but if you like your history full of character and short on academic bluster, Rise to Rebellion serves as an ideal, easy-reading introduction.

• Read more about this book