Rating: 
Summary: A Worthy Effort
Review: I've always been leery of historical works of fiction in which an author attempts to put words and thoughts into an established historical figure. This is treacherous territory.If the reader is lucky the author strikes fairly close to the mark. The other side of the coin, however, is when the reader comes across a passage and thinks, "Now where in the world did the author come up with that!" "The Last Full Measure" has both elements. On one hand Jeff Shaara appears to have bought into the Lee-as-suffering-saint syndrome. If it were Stonewall Jackson Shaara were writing about it would have been a bit easier to digest. On the other his portraits of Grant and Chamberlain ring fairly true although Ambrose Burnside comes off more as a caricature than a living breathing person. These minor criticisms notwithstanding, the book is good read which most Civil War buffs will certainly enjoy and any one looking for a good read should give a try.
Rating: 
Summary: An intensely readable book about our darkest years
Review: Jeff Shaara completely captures the sentiment of the period by showing us Grant's tactic of chasing Lee instead of capturing Richmond. Few authors have realized and explained why this was the only possible way to defeat the south. Mike Shaara would be proud of his son for the justice he has done in honoring these past leaders in our history. Congratulations Mr. Shaara on a job well done.
Rating:
Summary: An unqualified addition to American Literature
Review: Rarely can we find a triology so well written and covering such wide scope of topics that the works of the father and son team of Michael and Jeff Shaara have put together in "The Killer Angels", "Gods and Generals" and "The Last Full Measure". Despite the fact that over a generation has passed since "The Killer Angels" was originally released, the next two segments hold up extremely well. As an avid reader of historical fiction and historical reviews, I cannot recall any similar works exceeding this collection's ability to capture and maintain a reader's attention. I know there are numerous text books available on the period covered, however, I cannot think of a better way for students of the conflict to study the personalities involved than in these three novels. Like many other readers, I could not put them down, and many nights I fell asleep trying to finish one more chapter. I do not know what Jeff Shaara's next writing project will be, but I can honestly say I am waiting for it to be published, so I can continue to read his masterful story-telling. Good Job!
Rating: 
Summary: Highly enjoyable for those interested in Civil War history.
Review: I found the Michael Shaara / Jeff Shaara trilogy very enjoyable and would highly recommend all three books to anyone interested in the period. I found the novel format to have much more impact in relating the human-emotion element of the Civil War, from both sides of the battle lines. I have always wondered at the conviction of soldiers that could march in file into the muzzles of rifles and cannons. I think these books have given me a better understanding of those soldiers and their time.
Rating:
Summary: Not quite his father, but close
Review: I came away from Gods and Generals a bit disappointed. It wasn't bad but it was pedestrian, an illustration that Jeff Shaara clearly wasn't his father. The Last Full Measure changes my mind. No, it's not Michael Shaara's "The Killer Angels'' _ very few books are_ but it's hardly pedestrian. And its central theme is far darker _ that war is about killing. Sherman ("War is Hell'') got it right and was instantly misunderstood. Sherman's total war was an effort to win quickly by destroying everything around him,anticipating all too well the next century's horrors. What Jeff Shaara captures here is the same sentiment in Lincoln and Grant, who realized by 1864 that the more men killed on both sides, the more quickly the North would win because of its manpower advantage. It's rarely presented that way, perhaps because history has so mythologized Lincoln that to state it might tarnish his image. Shaara doesn't overstate the philosophy, instead simply puts it in Grant's thoughts. Finally, Shaara captures the personal links his father used so well. In fact, he may do it better _ one of the few weak spots in "The Killer Angels'' is the oversentimental Armistead-Hancock relationship. In this case, it's there in the prewar friendship between Grant and Longstreet, the reminisences between Grant and Hancock and the thoughts of Lee on the abilities of George Thomas and of Grant and Lee on John Bell Hood. There are weak spots. Except in the scene before Petersburg in which he's used to demonstrate the ineptness of Meade's chain of comman, he has little use. He's there, I suspect, because he was the central character in The Killer Angels. If Shaara's trying to balance the professional soldiers (Grant and Lee) against the volunteer, it doesn't quite come off. But this is a solid, solid effort, far better than Gods and Generals and not too far from Michael Shaara's masterpiece, which is probably the best piece of fiction written on any war.
Rating:
Summary: Besides the the other books in the series, I LOVE THIS BOOK
Review: I loved the Killer Angels. I read it in 3rd grade. I cannot explain my happiness when Michael Shaara's son, Jeff, wrote Gods and Generals. Last summer I met Jeff at the re-enactment at Gettysburg. He talked to me and my father about writing The Last Full Measure. The second the local library put it on the shelf, I got it. I read it in 2 days. This book vividly explains the last segement of the war like no other book ever has. I highly reccomend this book!!!
Rating: 
Summary: This book is the most boring book I've ever read.
Review: It would be a waste of your time to read and my time to write this review.
Rating: 
Summary: Great reviews for THE LAST FULL MEASURE!
Review: "Shaara artfully blends novelistic license with a deep reverence for history. . . . Shaara's story centers on the war itself. But his novelist's exploration of the thinking that shaped that conflict feed our own thinking. This conflict still has something to teach us." --Christian Science Monitor "Shaara . . . succeeds in his . . . effort to show the last two years of the war as a blood, grinding saga . . . . . . The general's-eye view is a strength, humanizing the legendary figures . . . . . . A later scene at White Oak Road, where the chaos grows to the point where Chamberlain no longer knows where his blood ends and his horse's begins, is the best in the book." --The Denver Post "Jeff Shaara's second and latest book, THE LAST FULL MEASURE, is like a view from the Bloody Angle. It's war made personal. . . . THE LAST FULL MEASURE isn't sweeping, it's intimate. So let the textbooks tell you how the Civil War was fought. Through Lee, Grant and Chamberlain, Shaara helps you feel it. And really, what's the more important lesson?" --The Gazette (Colorado Springs) "The challenge for a modern author is to bring readers to such an understanding [of the inevitability of the Civil War]. Jeff Shaara has admirably accomplished that with THE LAST FULL MEASURE. . . . THE LAST FULL MEASURE primarily follows three men--Lee, Ulysses S. Grant and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a Union hero at Gettysburg--through the last two years of the war. Shaara picked them because 'each, in his way, rose to a higher level, not just as a war hero, but as a man of character and dignity and honor." Shaara's work similarly rises. His achievement in LAST FULL MEASURE is showing us through these three characters how a nation was forever changed." --Detroit Free Press " . . . an ambitious work spanning the period from Gettysburg to Appomattox and beyond. . . . [Jeff Shaara] writes with considerable sensitivity and skill, setting! vivid scenes and adding drama and suspense to a familiar tale. . . . THE LAST FULL MEASURE . . . is good entertainment--a dose of fascinating history served up in a sugarcoating of fiction." --The Seattle Times " . . . the chaos that was the Wilderness, Cold Harbor and Petersburg will keep historical purists flipping the pages. Similarly riveting are Shaara's vivid depictions of Union indecision and of Confederate incompetence on the general-officer and political levels . . . But the novel's strength is that Shaara has accomplished something that no writer before him has--put a human face on and a compassionate heart within one of the war's most vilified warriors, Sam Grant. And nowhere is this more brilliantly depicted than at the siege of Petersburg when Grant weighs the wages of total war against his oldest son's desire to join the crusade . . . " --The Atlanta Journal-Constitution " . . . Shaara captures the humanity of the men involved and the raw power and sorrow of hand-to-hand combat." --Memphis Commercial Appeal "Ideally, the Homeric Civil War Epic that Americans have longed for depicts both sides even-handedly and compassionately, encompasses major battles led by major leaders, and appeals to all readers, North and South, young and old, men and women--the trilogy begun by the father and finished by the son is that epic, and Jeff Shaara's THE LAST FULL MEASURE brings the monumental trilogy to a triumphant conclusion. The Shaara vision of its origins in blood and courage illuminates America's future on the threshold of the new millennium." --David Madden, Director, The United States Civil War Center "The Last Full Measure is often exciting and poignant, and fans of The Killer Angels and Gods and Generals won't be disappointed." --John Miller, Military History, Amazon.com "After reading THE LAST FULL MEASURE, I know Michael Shaara is smiling in Heaven." --Gabor Borritt, Director of the Civil War Institute, Gettysburg! , PA "Shaara is careful to hew closely to the historical record. . . Shaara's battle episodes nicely balance and admirable grasp of strategy with an understanding of the war's horror and cost. . . . swift pace and great accuracy do make for a vivid--and sometimes moving--review of a defining moment in American history." --Kirkus Reviews "Impressively researched . . . deeply affecting . . . Shaara has produced a stirring epigraph to his father's remarkable novel." --Publishers Weekly "Perhaps the feature that makes the Shaaras so popular is their credible re-creation of the interior dialogue and attitudes of the Civil War's famous military figures; here, they are Lee, James Longstreet, Grant, and Joshua Chamberlain. . . . This aspect of the novel is supported by the texture of his battle scenes, rendered loudly, muddily, and bloodily. That's a captivating combination . . . . . . biblio-quartermasters should stockpile accordingly." --Booklist "Exhaustively researched, infused with a prfound understanding of the great issues of a nation and the small quirks of the human heart and ego, THE LAST FULL MEASURE is fiction that brings history brilliantly to life." --Newsday
Rating:
Summary: I couldn't put the book down. Engaging and powerful
Review: I truly enjoyed God and Generals and the same goes for The Last Full Measure. Having a glimpse into the emotional lives of prominent figures in the Civil War adds a whole new dimension to this earth shattering event. I have read many books dealing with the tactical aspects of the war. Shaara's books take you beyond the tactical and into the lives of the people who fought the battles. I look forward to the movies to follow on both books.
Rating:
Summary: The Shaara spotlight shines on new characters.
Review: We have long lived with the popular opinion that Robert E. Lee was a complex and fascinating individual while his counterpart, Ulysses S. Grant was an unimaginative counter-puncher. True students of the Civil War have long known that Grant was a much more fascinating and complex individual than his popular charicature allowed. In The Last Full Measure, Jeff Shaara focuses the same searching spotlight on Grant that we saw focused on Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, Hancock, and Chamberlain in his book "Gods and Generals" and his fathers definitive work, "The Killer Angels." This book covers the post-Gettysburg war including the ugliness of the Wilderness Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg. It is hard to find nobility in the human cruelty and violence of that type of war, but Shaara finds it in the charactes of these commanders including Grant. Grant had an uncanny way of keeping his true character and personality from interfering with his strategy and tactics. He knew with certainty as soon as he entered the eastern theater that his strategy had a high probability of success -- nearly certain. But to have the courage and fortitude to pursue such a demoralizing and horrible type of war demanded a strength few Union generals ever showed. Shaara shows us the men inside these marble statues and how they struggled and wrestled with the horror and violence of their trade, yet still maintained all that was noble about men. This is a brilliant book, historically accurate and moving. It shows us our real heroes, complete with moments of weakness and human feelings. Jeff Shaara has taken a step closer to dupliating his father's fantastic work in Killer Angels. He is to be congratulated.
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