Rating: 
Summary: History Comes Alive
Review: In "The Glorious Cause" author Jeff Shara tells a fascinating tale of the fight for indepedence. In this dramatic and suspenseful story Shara keeps the reader on the edge, wondering what will happen next. The book is so enjoyable to read because Shara takes the reader into the minds of revolutionary figures such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Benedict Arnold, and Charles Cornwallis. In doing so, Shara reveals the personal, political, and military challenges these men faced in their everyday lives as well as the sacrafices they made in order to achieve success on the battlefield. By telling his story from the perspectives of the men who experienced the birth of the United States, Shara forces the reader to consider the complex world these men lived in before judging them. Finally, it is worth noting that Shara inserts excellent maps during his discussions of crucial battles. These maps guide the reader through the military decisions made by the opposing generals and illustrate the military strategies of the opposing sides. After reading "Rise to Rebllion" and "The Glorious Cause", I wonder which era of American history Mr. Shara will write about next.
Rating:
Summary: glorious book
Review: Shaara's The Glorious Cause gives personality and sustaining interest to the American Revolution. I am a US History teacher and will direct my students to this historical novel. Shaara's style of writing makes historical characters come alive. He makes the dialogues and thoughts of Washington, Cornwallis, Franklin, etc... seem extremely plausable, almost as if he had interviewed them personally! This is another fine entry in the Shaara file that builds on his father's excellent Killer Angels. What will be his next topic???? The War of 1812 maybe??? Get the book and enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: More Glorious
Review: I anticipated this read the moment I shut the back cover to the marvelous _Rise to Rebellion_. Having read his father's works (on baseball and war) and all of Jeff Schaara's previous works, I was somewhat disappointed with this one. Perhaps my expectations were too high because their previous historical novels brought each character and critical event to life. The Schaaras were next to Kenneth Roberts and MacKinlay Kantor in making American history come alive. This one falters a bit. I was disappointed in Schaara's descriptions of life at Valley Forge. He seemed to hold back on the details of the actual suffering that occurred there. Everyone knows about the tattered rags, bloody feet, and horrible cold. He could have done so much more to make the suffering of our first troops more vivid to readers as Roberts did with Roger's Rangers in _Northwest Passage_, _Arundel_, or _Oliver Wiswell_. Schaara didn't relate accounts of frostbite, or contending with frozen ground when burying a friend who froze or starved to death. Other than one account of making stone soup, their ragged dress, and hewing timber for shelter, this story could have described any hunting party's winter camp instead of the horrors of Valley Forge. The good natured response of the men who had to eat stone and pine needle soup seemed to discount their suffering despite revealing the awesome character of revolutionary soldiers. Also, apart from Nathaniel Greene and Von Steuben, Schaara seemed to falter in his usually outstanding character development. Perhaps because he had already done an excellent job developing Washington and Franklin in his previous work, he felt he could rest upon his well-deserved laurels. Still, this book is well worth buying and reading. I wouldn't have wanted to miss his version of our great story.
Rating:
Summary: A Glorious Book
Review: This novel, as novels by Jeff Shaara, is truly a remarkable work of not only literature but fiction. Everyone who fell asleep in history class during school or even those of us who loved history, will find men come alive who before were nothing more then names in a text book.A book like this really causes one to think about what exactly these men were fighting, and dying for. Today's America has become a place of handouts and a place where people think they deserve security and prosperity by right of birth. They forget that this is not the attitude of the men Shaara so brilliatnly portrays. The men in this novel these men weren't concerned about handouts. They didn't believe they deserved anything by birth. They fought a long hard battle for freedoms and liberty that many people today take for granted and cast aside so easily. I wonder what our founding fathers would have thought of having their country become a place where politicians only care about power instead of keeping a small government that owuld be the servent of the people. I wonder what they'd think of people who don't care about personal liberty as long as they're secure and are getting enough handouts from the government to make life easy. I hope that this brilliant novel will make many people think of what price was paid for our freedoms and hopefully it will make them less likely to vote for politicians on either side of the aisle who would ignore our Constitution and throw away our liberties. True, we may lose some of the free handouts and may have to work a little harder but isn't that what America's all about?
Rating:
Summary: Anything but dry history!!!
Review: Jeff Shara has made the American Revolution finally come to life for present day readers- it's almost as good as watching "The Patriot"! We've studied these men and women of the Revoltionary times as students in school and found it hard to identify with them until now- Mr. Shara has put feelings and faces on them to the point where you feel the devastating winter in Valley Forge, soldiers reduced to boiling rocks for food, and wrapping their shoeless feet in rags, all in the name of the cause and for their general, Washington, who they idolized. You begin to understand how precarious our position was and how the war counld never have been won, at that time, without the aid of France.These are all facts I never really understood until reading this book which I feel should be a required text for our upper level high school students.This is a must read!
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful read, makes history come to life
Review: I read Glorious Cause just after reading the non-fiction Battle for New York. I found Shaara's Glorious Cause to add the texture and human element to the excellent Battle for New York. Shaara is a marvelous writer whose prose flows seamlessly. I have read many non-fiction books on the Revolution. Shaara's narrative is historically accurate and his fiction adds to the historical context. It is a fast read and captivating in style. I found it better than his first book on the Revolution, which itself was good.
Rating: 
Summary: A rich and detailed piece of work, but hardly revolutionary
Review: If THE GLORIOUS CAUSE has one virtue, if it does anything well at all, it describes the grand strategy of the English and American generals in the Revolutionary War. A map of the major battles does little to reveal exactly what the people who were in charge at the time were thinking. Why did the British spend so much time and energy in capturing New York? Why then move across New Jersey to Philadelphia, with Washington's army nipping at their heels all the way? If Valley Forge was such a horrible place for winter quarters, why did Washington choose it? Why did Cornwallis allow himself to be bottled up at Yorktown? The reader with a passing interest in these tactical mysteries will find the answers in THE GLORIOUS CAUSE, but little else. Jeff Shaara is a writer with limited talent, but the one thing he does quite well is describing the movements of armies on the march. Washington's evacuation from New York is lovingly described, as is the assault on Trenton and a score of lesser conflicts. (The battle of Saratoga, for some incomprehensible reason, is given comparatively short shrift.) In terms of strict military history, in terms of analyzing the battles and leaders of the war, Shaara does a good, workmanlike job here. But any novel about the Revolutionary War must, inescapably, be about more than the armies and the bloodshed and the strategy. More than anything else, a book like THE GLORIOUS CAUSE ought to be about, well, the glory of the cause and the brave men and women who fought for American liberty. Shaara, however, shortchanges the reader by removing the battles from the cause, by turning most of his fascinating real-life characters into little more than boxes and arrows on a map. Shaara fails primarily because he chooses many of the wrong characters. We hear little, if anything, about Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, John Paul Jones, Francis Marion, Samuel Adams, or even Benedict Arnold or King George. There is little attention paid to the ideas and ideals that drew men to the battlefields and that in turn inspired a revolution in liberty across the globe that continues to this day. The characters that are presented are not done so with skill or style or anything else to make them memorable. For example, Shaara focuses a lot of attention on Nathaniel Greene, a Rhode Island general who spends an inordinate amount of the novel as the army's quartermaster. The only truly memorable character in THE GLORIOUS CAUSE turns out to be, surprisingly, General Cornwallis. The English general is best known for his surrender at Yorktown; he seldom appears elsewhere in accounts of the war. Shaara rescues Cornwallis from the ash heap of history and makes him a likable, almost sympathetic, character, struggling against incompetent and vain commanding officers. However, the true hero of THE GLORIOUS CAUSE is not its pleasant enemy but its righteous hero: General George Washington of Virginia. Shaara's characterization of Washington is the book's largest and most unforgivable flaw. Shaara never presents Washington as anything but a bloodless icon, the man on the dollar bill with the wooden teeth. What we find out about his character --- arguably the Continental Army's most important asset --- is done through inference and anecdote. Washington is a cold and remote figure to too many Americans; Shaara's work does little or nothing to change that. THE GLORIOUS CAUSE succeeds only in its mastery of the fine points of military maneuver and the explication of high strategy. In the more important area of characterization and inspiration, it fails badly. It is a rich and detailed piece of work, but hardly revolutionary. --- Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, Readable History
Review: I just finished the novel; it was terrific. Jeff Shaara has a real talent in bringing history to life. I believe that The Glorious Cause is Jeff Shaara's best novel yet. I was really interested in the portrayal of Cornwallis. In most history texts, Cornwallis is portaryed as a bumbling British officer.I did not want the novel to end.
Rating:
Summary: Like history? Like American heroes? You'll love Shaara
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A Novel Worth Reading
Review: 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.
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