7 Historical Novels Set During Revolutions

Elizabeth Van Lew was a real historical figure: a committed abolitionist who supported the Union from the seat of power within the Confederacy. Before the Civil War, Van Lew was respectable in Richmond society, and she used that status to aid her underground spying, forcing her way into Confederate inner circles to pass information to the Union in coded messages.

Women working as spies is one of my favorite genres. Faith Kingston spends her nights as Lady Midnight, passing information to the American revolutionaries in her commitment to overthrow the control of the British monarchy. When a rebel named Nicholas goes after her father, she’s quickly drawn to him, and they end up fighting the revolution together.

Ellie and Homa meet as young girls in the 1950s and immediately match each other’s desires to live big and exciting lives. The girls drift apart, and their lives change dramatically during the Iranian Revolution. The year 1979 and the changes to women’s lives it brings are a major turning point in this novel: Ellie and Homa’s life plans are completely overturned, and they spend the next few decades fighting for their freedom.

The Trujillo Dictatorship was a particularly brutal time in the history of the Dominican Republic. Julia Alvarez’s seminal novel presents the lives of the Mirabal sisters, who resisted the Trujillo regime in many ways and were killed for it. Dede survived, and she explains how her sisters came to their final fates: Minerva the revolutionary, Patria the devout, and Maria Theresa the baby. They’re in danger and their lives are complicated, but they don’t lose sight of the idea of a more just world.

During the Arab Spring protests in Cairo, Tarek and his daughter Neda are faced with numerous difficult choices. Tarek thinks deeply about what it means to look towards an uncertain future, and how they came to be in their current situation. Alrawi’s style and fabulism communicate how difficult it was to live through such a revolutionary upheaval.

Mantel’s singular style of storytelling allows her to pull apart the thorny, violent politics of the French Revolution. She illuminates the intense bloodiness and instability of the Reign of Terror through the narration of three major figures: Georges-Jacques Danton, Maximilien Robespierre, and Camille Desmoulins. Each has their own motivations and guiding principles, which affect how they accomplish their revolutionary aims.

Eliza Schuyler Hamilton was a key figure of the American Revolution who continued to work for equality long after the end of the story of the musical Hamilton. An active writer and a politician in all but name, she worked hard to secure Alexander Hamilton’s legacy after his death, despite his betrayal. She worked to bring the revolutionary fervor she was driven by into the rest of her life.