Jeff Shaara's Vision of Glory

During the 1970s and 80s, it became rather fashionable in academic and higher literary circles to dethrone our nation's heroes, particularly those from early American history. After all, so this prevailing wisdom went, these 'dead white males' were mostly wealthy slave owners who neglected the rights of women and Native Americans. Why should they receive our adulation and respect? And why should subsequent generations of more 'progressive' minded Americans have to look back (perish the thought) to such a primitive age for inspiration, since we've accomplished so much for the better since then?

While recent historians and authors (David McCullough, Joseph Ellis, etc.) have artfully chipped away at the edges of this still prevailing (though admittedly somewhat diminished) point of view, Shaara has opted for a more direct approach -- namely, an all-out frontal assault. His two-part epic novel is, quite simply, a passionate and shameless exaltation of our nation's Founders.

Cynics who cringe at any form of 'hero worship' will not enjoy these books. They would much more prefer Paul Lussier's dark and more seedy portrait of the Revolution in The Last Refuge of Scoundrels. Indeed, Lussier takes great pride in toppling the statues of our Founders with a sometimes vicious pen.

The dust jacket to Lussier's novel comes right at the reader with its aim and purpose:

It was a turning point in human history, brought about, so we've been told, by paragons of selflessness and democratic virtue - the Founding Fathers. But in this audacious and irreverent new novel, based on long-overlooked facts of history, Paul Lussier blows the dust off the American Revolution and its icons and takes us on a you-are-there journey into a lunatic underworld...a place where everyday American citizens find themselves opposing the self-interested Founding Fathers as much as the bumbling Brits.

Though no such "overlooked facts of history" are cited, Lussier does make a dizzying array of assertions that border on libelous slander, including the portrait of John Hancock as an abusive customer of prostitutes. And he certainly takes the worst possible view of Sam Adams, choosing to see him as a sinister conspirator that any aspiring villain could emulate.

The preference of many cynics for the Lussier version of history and their rejection of Shaara's interpretation perhaps means that they (more than any one else) should read Shaara's two-volume epic with full attention. They just might learn something, as Shaara makes a strong case that our

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