Rating: 
Summary: A great way to learn about our history
Review: For people who may find history "boring". This is a great way to learn about our Revolution in the form of a great novel! Do not mistake this for a history lesson. You will be stuck on this book from the first page!
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite to his usual standard
Review: Jeff Shaara can always be depended upon to provide well-researched, well-structured historical fiction, and this book is no exception. Unfortunately, the half-decade leading up to the Declaration of Independence provide a chronicle that is too scattered and developments that are too incremental to make for a compelling, focused narrative. If you're like me, you will find yourself reading this book in fits and starts, alternately pulled along and hacking through. As he has in other books, Shaara gives us a thorough introduction to the leading players - from Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to British General Thomas Gage. Despite spending a lot of time inside their heads, however, we never seem to get as close to these characters as we do to the mid-19th Century personalities that populate The Last Full Measure and Gone For Soldiers. Probably the best-realized character is Franklin, whose eccentricities and odd family dynamics - his son was the royal governor of New Jersey, for instance - make interesting reading. Bottom line: This is a good book, but not as fine as Shaara's other novels. I suspect that any follow-up books about the Revolution will be better, as the action intensifies and personalities polarize to opposing sides of the conflict.
Rating: 
Summary: Immerse yourself in the Revolution!
Review: In the attempt to encompass this dynamic time period Shaara has limited the book to the first person viewpoints of a handful of men (Franklin, Adams, Washington, Gage, Warren). The novel format of RISE TO REBELLION refreshingly breathes life into these men and their lives. As it is written in novel format, liberty is taken with dialog, thoughts and some events. This style draws you directly into the characters' minds and events unlike reading a detached textbook viewpoint. The novel style is enjoyable and Shaara has done his research well. (FYI - Another excellent historical novelist from this time period is Allan W. Eckert!) The time was one enraptured in a radical war of ideas with the action resulting from this conflict of beliefs and the culmination of these ideas, which led to the action, resulted from the untold hours of frustrating debate and inner struggle by the members of the Continental Congress as well as the common man, loyalists and rebels, on the street. This book covers and captures a time period that changed history and the balance of world power to this day. Shaara rightly focuses not on battles but on why the battles were fought. (The battles are covered in THE GLORIOUS CAUSE.5 STARS!!!) For those that have read JOHN ADAMS by David McCullough I think you will be delighted, as I was, to read more in RISE TO REBELLION on Adams' early revolutionary relationships, especially with Franklin and his cousin Sam Adams. All in all, a great book worth spending time and money on!
Rating:
Summary: Not many writers do a better job than this...
Review: This is an author who obviously knows what he's doing, not just in relating historical facts but also by giving life to people whose names have previously just been data that we had to memorize. On the surface, he's teaching us about the Revolution, but at a deeper level, he's showing us human nature and how ordinary people rise to the occasion and become capable of doing extraordinary things. The news media spotlighted many of the heroes of September 11th; Shaara performs a similar function for our heroic Founding Fathers from more than 200 years ago.
Rating: 
Summary: Painfully slow and disappointing
Review: The American Revolution is my favorite time period in American history. Having read Shaara's previous books, I eagerly awaited his latest. Unfortunately, I was greatly disappointed by "Rise to Rebellion". If I had to sum it up concisely, I would say that there was too much talking and not enough action. I recognize that in the first part of a two-book series on the American Revolution, Shaara had to set the stage for the conflict, but I felt he spent too much time on men sitting around tables pontificating. I felt the book was sorely lacking in the rich imagery that has so drawn me in to his earlier books. Unlike other times when I actually felt like I was "in" the period, with this book I never felt like I got to know the characters or the era at all. I didn't get any sense at all of what it was like to live in the colonies during the late 18th century. Instead of seeing events first hand, we are told about many of them in narrative or in letters. I will still read the second book in the hopes that there is more action and less talk.
Rating:
Summary: Easy to forget it's fiction
Review: This book is a great read for anyone interested in American history. Jeff Shaara really brings the colonial times to life and explores the reasons, whether American or British, that the Revolutionary War HAD to happen. He does, at times, spend a lot of time in his character's heads letting you watch as they painstaikenly think through every anvenue of a problem. But I found that this approach drew me into the situation and helped me to understand it better. This book is would be a great starting place for anyone interested in this part of our country's great history. It gives you a way to look on the past that is more interesting than a history book. And while it's not 100% true (it is fiction, after all), it gives you insight into situations in ways that history books cannot.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: This is the first book I have read by Jeff Shaara, and I must say I was pleasently surprised.
In the past year, I have taken an interest in this era with the John Adams biography and Founding Brothers. This book, while not nearly as scholarly, is a very entertaining way to learn about the beginnings of the US. I'm looking forward to the sequel.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Job
Review: Shaara, as usual, does a good job in making a cohesive story out of a lot of information by highlighting the key players and key events, and fortunately with historical fiction the subject matter is strong on its own. The weakness is in the actual writing. While some of the dialogue is excellently conceived and written, much of it is mediocre. It is surprising that a writer of Shaara's advanced experience is still consistently using sophomoric adjectives like "amazing", "extraordinary" and "wonderful". Still, I look forward to his next book which should be about the war itself.
Rating:
Summary: No Caricatures or Propaganda
Review: The subject and characters of the American Revolution are dangerous ground for an author. It's so easy to lapse into platitudes, write the founding fathers as caricatures, and present the conflict between the British and the colonists as one-sided and one-dimensional. In fact, most stories I've read based in this time have done just that. So, this book was a really pleasant surprise for me. The characters had real depth. What's more, the reader gets a real sense of their motivation, their passion, and we understand why they felt they had to go to war with their king. But, even better, we see the conflict through the eyes of Englishmen and loyalists without making them mere foils for our revolutionary heroes to play off against. A first-rate story. I'm looking forward to the next one.
Rating:
Summary: Rise to Rebellion is great!
Review: A really good book. You read an exciting book while having a history lesson.
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