The American Revolution did not just happen. It was the culmination of two centuries of Enlightenment ideas that entered men's minds and were refined and honed until they expressed themselves in an unprecedented rejection of tyranny in the name of individual rights and political freedom from the whims of arrogant monarchs and conniving, power-lusting politicians. Sparrowhawk: Book Three, Caxton encapsulates that process in the story of a young British aristocrat, Hugh Kenrick, and a former indentured felon from the British lower class, Jack Frake, who both reject the tyranny of the British Crown, become friends and neighboring planters, and form a bond that will enable them to take the first steps towards independence from the mother country. By the end of the Sparrowhawk series, almost two decades later, they will play a crucial role in the American fight for freedom. Sparrowhawk has been acknowledged by parents, teachers, and scholars as a true and accurate dramatization of why and how the American Revolution happened, as a capstone of the European Enlightenment and as an unprecedented philosophical and political event in human history.