The author's industry and interests have produced a remarkable history, just as it did in his Liberation Trilogy, in this first volume of a planned three-volume history of the Revolutionary war. I have read other histories of this war, but Atkinson's concerns including, for example, the rebel's difficulty in acquiring gun powder, the effect of smallpox, the absence of appropriate clothing and footwear, the changing affiliations of the citizenry, and the British difficulties of feeding thousands of troops with a supply chain across the Atlantic, all have resulted in an absorbing history that is unusually good at providing the reader with an immediate experience.