The Rising Tide: A Novel of World War II (ISBN 034546138X)

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.

historical fiction of world war two:
This is an interesting book and would be a painless way for those unfamiliar with the story of the North African campaign to learn the history. The author fictionalizes the thoughts and conversations of historical figures like Rommel and Eisenhower plus he adds a few fictitious characters to round out the story. It is well done but the characters do not have the depth of the WEB Griffin characters or those of Herman Wouk in his novels The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. Both Griffin and Wouk use minor characters to tell the story and make much less of an attempt to present the thinking of the historical figures. I think both Wouk and Griffin draw better and deeper characters although I understand some of the impatience readers have with recent Griffin books. The early Griffin series about Army Aviation and about the Marine Corps in World War II are better novels with fully rounded characters. Wouk's characters are the work of a master. Tom Clancy writes less in a historical genre although his novels are written for the same readers. Having said that, this is a good novel with lots of detail that, having read a lot of history about this period, sounds accurate to me. For someone who knows less of the history and wants to learn it, this would be an excellent read. It is a fictional version of An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943, Volume One of the Liberation Trilogy.

The Rising Tide:
I've read all of Mr. Shaara's books and found them enjoyable, but, being a WWII buff I found The Rising Tide to be my favorite. It is well written and historically accurate with some interesting characters that are not historically based. The main point I would like to stress is to be certain to read the introduction, for it is the most concise and clear explanation as to the causes of the war that I have ever read. I believe this book should be required reading in American History classes, for the introduction if for no other reason.

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.

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.