Product Description

A modern master of the historical novel, Jeff Shaara has painted brilliant depictions of the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, and World War I. Now he embarks upon his most ambitious epic, a trilogy about the military conflict that defined the twentieth century. The Rising Tide begins a staggering work of fiction bound to be a new generation’s most poignant chronicle of World War II. With you-are-there immediacy, painstaking historical detail, and all-inclusive points of view, Shaara portrays the momentous and increasingly dramatic events that pulled America into the vortex of this monumental conflict.

As Hitler conquers Poland, Norway, France, and most of Western Europe, England struggles to hold the line. When Germany’s ally Japan launches a stunning attack on Pearl Harbor, America is drawn into the war, fighting to hold back the Japanese conquest of the Pacific, while standing side-by-side with their British ally, the last hope for turning the tide of the war.

Through unforgettable battle scenes in the unforgiving deserts of North Africa and the rugged countryside of Sicily, Shaara tells this story through the voices of this conflict’s most heroic figures, some familiar, some unknown. As British and American forces strike into the “soft underbelly” of Hitler’s Fortress Europa, the new weapons of war come clearly into focus. In North Africa, tank battles unfold in a tapestry of dust and fire unlike any the world has ever seen. In Sicily, the Allies attack their enemy with a barely tested weapon: the paratrooper. As battles rage along the coasts of the Mediterranean, the momentum of the war begins to shift, setting the stage for the massive invasion of France, at a seaside resort called Normandy.

More than an unprecedented and intimate portrait of those who waged this astonishing global war, The Rising Tide is a vivid gallery of characters both immortal and unknown: the as-yet obscure administrator Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose tireless efficiency helped win the war; his subordinates, clashing in both style and personality, from George Patton and Mark Clark to Omar Bradley and Bernard Montgomery. In the desolate hills and deserts, the Allies confront Erwin Rommel, the battlefield genius known as “the Desert Fox,” a wounded beast who hands the Americans their first humiliating defeat in the European theater of the war. From tank driver to paratrooper to the men who gave the commands, Shaara’s stirring portrayals bring the heroic and the tragic to life in brilliant detail.

A new level of accomplishment from this already acclaimed author, The Rising Tide will leave readers eager for the next volume of this superb saga of the war that saved and changed the world.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4635 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-20
• Released on: 2008-05-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 608 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Shaara (To the Last Man; Gone for Soldiers), who has written bestselling and critically acclaimed historical novels covering the American Revolution through World War I, takes on World War II in the wonderful first volume of a planned trilogy. As the book begins, Hitler's forces control western Europe, and U.S. troops face off against the Germans in North Africa. From fall 1942 through spring 1943, the Allies battle Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps. Shaara evokes the agony of desert warfare and the utter chaos of an airborne assault through the experiences of Pvt. Jack Logan, a tank gunner, and Sgt. Jesse Adams, a paratrooper. The challenges—and frequent frustrations—of command are seen through the eyes of such luminaries as generals Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton and Rommel. The Allied victory in Africa is followed by the conquest of Sicily and the invasion of mainland Italy in 1943. With the Italian campaign sputtering, the Allies turn to planning for the decisive event of the European theater, the cross-channel invasion of France, which is where Shaara concludes this sprawling, masterful opening act. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Shaara, best-selling author of numerous fictional accounts of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War I, opens his projected World War II trilogy in the deserts of North Africa, where Allied troops attempt to match wits and forces with the Desert Fox, wily German commander Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, and his formidable Afrika Korps. After Hitler overruns France, solidifying his position in Western Europe, he turns his attention eastward toward the vast Russian expanse. With the German focus split, the Allies sense the time is right to launch a united second front in North Africa, setting their sights on an eventual invasion of southern Italy. As plans for Operation Torch become a reality, Shaara vividly re-creates a cast of military and political heroes and villains, including General Dwight D. Eisenhower, General George Marshall, General George Patton, British general Bernard Montgomery, German field marshal Erwin Rommel, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt. Interweaving these prominent historical figures with a cast of ordinary soldiers thrust into extraordinary circumstances, he fashions a page-turning introduction that will leave fans of first-rate military fiction awaiting the next installments. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Praise for Jeff Shaara

The Rising Tide

“This is Jeff Shaara at his best, giving us another superb historically grounded novel of one of the most dramatic struggles of World War II.”
–George McGovern

“The wonderful first volume of a planned trilogy . . . Shaara evokes the agony of desert warfare and the utter chaos of an airborne assault. . . . [A] sprawling, masterful opening act.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)


To the Last Man

“A gripping account of World War I.”
–General Tommy R. Franks

“[To the Last Man is] the best novel about the Great War since Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, which it greatly surpasses in depth, scope, and intensity.”
–John Mosier, author of The Myth of the Great War


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

The Devil is in the details
I tried very hard to enjoy this book after happily reading many of the author's works set in 19th Century wars. The problem is that I am a 'detail oriented' person that has read extensively about U.S. WWII armor and weapons. I found myself wishing the author had spent just a little time researching U.S. Army organization and equipment of the period. His gross errors kept me from "staying in the story". I have hesitated to buy the second novel in the series because I shudder to think of the errors that might be in a work on the European Campaign.

This is a great book for the average person who wouldn't know a Sherman tank from a Stuart. If you know nothing about armor piercing versus high explosive shells; this one is for you. This book has its place in literature because the author makes history entertaining and may motivate the huge numbers of readers, who were taught to hate "History" in school, to learn more. In that it does a great service. Shaara is a great writer but should do more research on the details if he wants to write more works on WWII. One reviewer mentioned W.E.B. Griffith. Like Shaara, Griffith committed some pretty gross errors on equipment. I still liked his books and I will read more of Shaara.

I will take the time to correct one of Shaara's statments. He implies a scandal that U.S. troops couldn't get Sherman Tanks because those vehicles had been given to the British. Consequently, the U.S. troops had only Stuart 'light' tanks. That is a total falsehood! The British did get priority on Sherman production prior to U.S. entry into the war. One of the U.S. Armored Divisions that landed in North Africa was partially equipped with M3 'Lee' medium tanks due to the shortage of Shermans. The Lee had the same gun as the Sherman but not in a turret. There was no 'scandal'. All U.S. 'medium' tank companies were equipped with 'medium' tanks.

I will leave it there as I could fill pages with the other errors. I felt it was a disservice to Truth to let a totally false and baseless 'scandal' stand.

Disappointing
As a reader of historical fiction and a WWII buff I really wanted to like this book. I have plowed through about two-thirds of it and just given up, as much as I wanted to like it I just can't take the time to go on.

For me, this book fails on several levels. Shaara tries to tell the "big picture" and "small picture" stories by switching points of view between historical and fictional protagonists, but the brief vingnettes with the fictional characters left me unable to know or care much about them.

The historical characters are poorly rendererd cardbord cutouts. I realized part way through that the dialogue attributed to each man is indistinguishable in vocabulary, diction, and tone from each other. There is no sense of Eisenhower's optimism, Patton's fire, Rommel's leadership or Marshall's gravitas. All of them, in the book, speak in contemporay (and I mean currrent contemporary) slang. I realize that general officers sometimes address each other by first name in private, but I don't believe ANYONE ever addressed Marshall as "George"...and Marshall addressed Eisenhower as "Eisenhower" and never as "Ike" as Shaara has him doing.

By the way, there is an author's warning about the language in the book. It's limited to everybody saying "damnned" a whole damnned lot - from George Marshall (who seldom, if ever, used any sort of profanity) to George Patton (who was famous for his foul tounge, and was a much more creative cusser then using one mild expletive continuously).

The research seems to be correct in the large but superficial. The author refers to equpment (armored trucks) that did not exist in the U.S. Army inventory in 1942, and there are numerous small factual errors - for example American tanks are referred to as "more compact" then German ones - when in fact the high profile of US armor was a disadvantage compared to German armor.

In short, if you know anything about WWII history already, you will not enjoy the book because of the inaccurate characterization of historical figures that you already know and numerous niggling factual errors. If you aren't knowlegeable about WWII history, you will get tired of the cookie-cutter characters and won't care much about the fictional ones.

The story of a green U.S. Army facing the veteran German army and losing it's first battle (Kasserine Pass) and then recovering to win victory after victory over the nazis is a great one. It deserves better than this novel. Your time and money would be better spent with history - like Stephen Ambrose, Cornelius Ryan or Charles B. Macdonald to name a few.

Rising tide
As in the succeeding book the introduction - which should be historically accurate - contains numerous mistakes the least one being where the author calls Rommel a Bavarian (I do hope that no Swabian reads the book because he surely would blow his top). The novel itself is impressive as it seems to describe the combat situations very realistically. The characters descriptions sometimes seem to be overdrawn and exaggerated.