Rise to Rebellion was published by Ballantine Books in 2001, the first volume of Shaara’s American Revolution duology. The novel covers the six years from the Boston Massacre (1770) through the signing of the Declaration of Independence (July 1776), using the perspectives of Benjamin Franklin (in London, attempting diplomacy until he realizes it is futile), John Adams (the intellectual engine of revolution in Congress), George Washington (transforming from Virginia planter to commander-in-chief), and General Thomas Gage (the British commander who understands the colonists better than his superiors in London but cannot prevent the catastrophe).
Shaara’s insight is that the Revolution was not inevitable — that most colonists did not begin as radicals, that many of the principals (including Washington and Franklin) spent years trying to find accommodation with Britain, and that the process of radicalization was driven as much by British incompetence and arrogance as by colonial principle. The Gage perspective is particularly effective: a reasonable man trapped in an impossible position, receiving orders from ministers who have never seen America and cannot understand why their subjects refuse to comply.
The novel covers the Stamp Act crisis, the Boston Tea Party, the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, and the Continental Congress’s agonized debate over independence — each event rendered through the people who experienced them, with all the uncertainty and contingency that hindsight strips away.
Collecting Rise to Rebellion
First edition (Ballantine Books, New York, 2001): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $8–$20
- Signed first edition: $25–$60