If [Upton] Sinclair's chief contribution to modern American fiction was to help establish the novel of contemporary history, Fast's has been to show how an already established form, the traditional historical novel, may be used for radical ends. The conception basic to most of his work is a dialectic of revolutionary development whereby certain past events are viewed as acts in the extended drama of mankind's struggle toward a classless society. Fasts's type-story is that of a revolt of the oppressed against their oppressors—Washington and his starving troops against the power of England, Spartacus and the gladiators or the Maccabees and their people against the power of Rome. Each of these struggles, Fast implicitly or explicitly argues, helped bring mankind closer to its inevitable future, and he hopes to persuade the reader of the magnitude of what might be called the tradition of revolt. (pp. 275-76)

Walter...