While the publishing world has been agog for months over the nearly unparalleled success of Alex Haley's Roots, another venture, in its own way just as successful, has gone virtually unnoticed by journalists and critics—though not by readers. John Jakes's American Bicentennial Series of historical novels, which traces the lives and fortunes of the fictitious Kent family from colonial times, has been appearing rapidly in installments since 1974. The Warriors is the sixth of them. It is, ...

With the publication of the seventh volume of his Kent family saga ["The Lawless,"] the wonder is that Jakes is able to sustain the pace and his own apparent interest in what is seeming to be an open-ended project. This installment covers approximately the years 1869–1877, a time of growing labor unionism and the attendant battles and bloodshed. Several of the more significant Kents die here, and the direction of the new generation is forecast, as Jeptha's three sons react to the...

Readers who have followed the Kent family since The Bastard and The Rebels will not be disappointed with [The Americans] …, which concentrates on the family of Gideon Kent. Jakes displays the complete panorama of America in the 1880's, as Gideon's youngest son Will moves from life with Theodore Roosevelt at his Medora ranch to practicing medicine in the tenement slums of New York…. It's all here—countless historical details, romance, violence, suspense, and a strong...

[In "The Americans"] John Jakes again proves his superior storytelling skills in the eighth volume of the Kent Family Chronicles (and, Jakes suggests in his afterword, perhaps the last installment for a while)…. Jakes's characterizations and lively historical detail entirely envelop the reader, who will be left with the hope that the author decides to bring the Kent family into the 20th century. A review of "The Americans," in Publishers Weekly (reprint...

[In The Lawless] Jakes maintains his popular formula: high-lighting the tribulations and successes of generation after generation of one family as reflective of the dramatic turns of events in the growth of the country. Plus, the style is in no way demanding. A review of "The Lawless," in Booklist (reprinted by permission of the American Library Association; copyright © 1978 by the American Library Association), Vol. 74, No. 18, May 15, 1978, p. 1476.