Quoted:
Gods and Generals put me to sleep. The long winded speeches that every main character made was not geared towards the typical attention span of mainstream America. IMHO.
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Books tend to be a bit easier to understand since they have time to develop the characters more. Once developed one can put the speeches into better context. Even a three or four hour movie can't replicate everything that is in the books.
I guess my point is that Shaara is a pretty good historical novelist. One really gets the sense of what motivated the real characters and they are historicaly accurate as much as they can be.
The book Gods and Generals was a good study in the dicotomy of the human spirit. Here are a bunch of generals on both sides who not only have the capacity for great moral strength and courage but also the capacity to slaughter one another wholesale in the name of God.
Rise to Rebellion and The Glorius Cause show another dicotomy. That the founding fathers were not only brilliant and couragious in casting off the bonds of English tyranny, but also petty, greedy, political, ambitious, and egotistical. Amazing stuff.