Sun 30 Apr 2006
The Glorious Cause by Jeff Shaara
Posted by Matthew Davis under Fiction, History
[4] Comments
The Glorious Cause by Jeff Shaara is a novel of the Revolutionary War, told through the eyes of the major participants: George Washington, Nathaniel Greene, Charles Cornwallis and the Marquis de Lafayette, just to name a few. This novel, like most of Jeff Shaara’s novels, falls into the style of his father’s Pultizer-prize winning work, The Killer Angels, that is to say, transforming historical events into drama with the major players as the stars.
As in all good dramas there is a hero, and unsurprisingly, it is George Washington, the stoic, intrepid leader who is beyond reproach (by the reader, at least). Although Shaara somewhat falls into a bit of hero worship when it comes to Washington, the depiction of the strong, decisive leader is not too far off the mark.
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by C.S. Forester is an excellent portrayal of a young English boy (Horatio Hornblower) entering service into the Royal Navy during the era of Napoleon. It is the first of eleven books Forester would write about the life and times of Britain’s most famous (fictional) sailor. Naturally, as he is only 17 and hasn’t any previous maritime experience, he is a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ Midshipman and is treated as such by his shipmates.
