A former history professor, Tom Miller
is a novelist and essayist. His most recent
novel is Full
Court Press (2000). His reviews
and essays have appeared in numerous books,
journals, and newspapers, including The
Encyclopedia of Southern History, American
History Illustrated, the Chicago
Tribune, and the Des Moines Register.
He also is a former Army officer and Vietnam
veteran.
Unlike World War II - the consensus "Good War" - Americans have always felt conflicted about World War I. Perhaps it was the murky nature of the war's origins, the long debate over the wisdom - even necessity - of American entry and the bitterness over the peace, but for whatever reasons, Americans have assigned "The Great War" a much lower profile than its appellation would suggest. Thus someone like General John J. Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Force during the war, is little-known today. Contrast Pershing's relative historical anonymity with the long shadows cast by our military commanders in World War II - Marshall, Eisenhower, Patton, and MacArthur.
This relative anonymity, however, is what drew Jeff Shaara to the topic. Shaara, the best-selling author of novels about the American Revolution, Civil War, and most recently the Mexican Revolution, says that he looks for stories that aren't well known and that's what drew him to World War I. He confesses to having no interest in doing World War II because that ground has been so often trod. His next project after To the Last Man will focus on the Korean War, another conflict that Americans tend to overlook.
As in his past novels, Shaara tells his story through the perspective of carefully selected historical figures. In To the Last Man, those figures are General Pershing; Baron Manfred von Richtofen (the legendary "Red Baron"), who provides balance as a German prism; Major Raoul Lufbery, of the Lafayette Escadrille (American pilots who flew for the French prior to America's entry into the war); and Private Roscoe Temple of the Fourth Marine Brigade, which was attached to the U.S. 2nd Division and fought in the decisive battles at Bellau Wood, St. Mihiel, and the Argonne Forest.
These disparate characters allow Shaara to tell highly personal and compelling stories that draw in the reader. The best historians have always been storytellers. Moreover, they have understood that the stories that teach and inspire are about people - often acting heroically - and not dates and statistics. Too few professional (academic) historians seem to understand this. (The late Stephen Ambrose is a notable exception.) Predictably enough, the public shuns their work in favor of writers who have mastered the research methods of the professional, but employ those methods to tell dramatic and engaging stories. The late Barbara Tuchman used to be a master practitioner of this art. Today, there are few better at it than Jeff Shaara.
Technically, of course, what Shaara does isn't history but historical fiction. Shaara, however, crafts his story around historical figures and conducts meticulous research into the lives of those characters and the history of their times before he writes a word. When he has one of his characters speak - General Pershing in To the Last Man, for example - he does so only when he is confident that the dialogue is realistic. Therefore, he scours memoirs and letters for clues as to what his characters were thinking, saying, and doing. The result might not satisfy the academic historian, but it makes for compelling storytelling.
Because of the diversity of his main characters, Shaara is able to shift between the air war and the ground war, the Allied side and the German side, and the high level world of the commanders and the trench-level fear and misery of the grunts. Shaara is at his best describing combat, whether it's the personal nature of the aerial dogfight or the impersonal nature of the massive infantry assaults against fortified positions. There is fear and exhilaration. Cruelty and unimaginable misery. And loss. Like nothing the world had seen before. Shaara's characters would not be immune from the losses.
To the Last Man is more than just great story telling. The reader also will come away with a new appreciation for General Pershing, who was often caught between the petty rivalries and jealousies of the British and French. All but the expert reader will learn something about the new 2nd Generation (or Industrial) Warfare, with its unprecedented lethality that turned the war on the ground into a quagmire and the Western Front into "one massive graveyard." What is not new is the uncommon sacrifice and heroism of the American serviceman. Pvt. Roscoe Tanner - Shaara's template for the common soldier and marine - is an ordinary farm boy from rural northern Florida who endures unspeakable fear and misery and yet manages to do his duty. In other words, a hero.
A feature alternate of the Book of the Month Club, the History Book Club, and the Military Book Club, To the Last Man should reach a wide and enthusiastic audience.
