He's prominent in the story only because it's told through him, so we catch his glimpses of the celebrities of the time. Yes, his life did tend to cross other famous ones pretty regularly, but it was well done. This shows the blunders that England made, how some people fanned the fires, & how other men still disagreed with the decision. Comfortable people don't revolt & everyone has a different level of breaking point. I hear people talk about revolt as if it is simple & the dry histories of my school days always made the decision to revolt sound fairly cut & dried. This book shows how the revolution came to be in a very understandable way. Now that I'm quite a bit older, it's even better reading. Also, his life put them & events into context, especially difficult when I was a teenager without much life experience. Phillipe's meetings with famous people made me interested in reading far more about them than dry facts ever did. This was the finest way to arouse my interest in US history, far better than any class I ever took on it. For all that it looks like a brick, it was a quick, interesting read. It's the trivia that made it so captivating, but never bogged it down. The book certainly gave me a visceral feel for the times, motivations, & issues they faced. I've read several articles over the years that said Jakes had the historical facts down pat & I didn't spot anything wrong, although pushing an old horse 35 miles a day for over a week seems pretty harsh to me. The book follows one young man for a few years from a small village in France, to a manor in England, London, & then to Boston & Philadelphia up until the opening salvo in the American Revolutionary War. It was excellent then & continued my love of historical fiction that started with Harold Lamb's books. I read this when it first came out in paperback in the 70's.

The Bastard by John Jakes