91´«Ã½

This Shaara is the son of Michael Shaara, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels (1974). This prequel is a robust, thoughtful novel which focuses simultaneously on the lives of four men who played significant roles in the military side of the Civil War in battles leading up to the great one at Gettysburg’s. The novel follows Stonewall Jackson, Winfield Scott Hancock, Joshua Chamberlain, and Robert E. Lee from 1858 to 1863, giving the reader splendidly detailed witness to how the war drew them into commanding positions. As should be the case with good historical fiction, Shaara, in taking actual figures from the past, rekindles them; he uses the personal experiences of these four men to meaningfully explore the political and military issues of the day.