Which Kent Family Book By John Jakes Starts The Series Timeline?

I found a used copy of 'The Warriors' first and was utterly lost. Went back and started properly with 'The Bastard.' The difference was night and day. The political conflicts mean so much more when you've grown with the family.

My grandpa loved these books. Said they made history feel like a story about people, not just old dead politicians. He'd point to things in the news and say, 'That's just like what happened to that Kent fellow in the book about the railroads.' Guess they stick with you.

I view them as a literary monument. Individually, each book is a solid, entertaining read. Collectively, they form something larger—a kind of popular chronicle of the American mythos. The connection is in that collective weight. Having all those books on a shelf, thousands of pages spanning centuries, represents a singular achievement in commercial storytelling. They're connected like stones in a pyramid, each necessary to support the overall structure of Jakes' legacy. It's impressive when you step back and look at the whole bibliography as one entity.

My advice? Don't overthink it. The series is famous for a reason. The order is tried and true. 'The Bastard', then 'The Rebels', then 'The Seekers', 'The Furies', 'The Titans', 'The Warriors', 'The Lawless', and finally 'The Americans'. Libraries and bookstores have filed them in that order for decades. It's the path of least resistance and the path of greatest reward. You get the full, sprawling, messy, brilliant story of a fictional family intertwined with real history.

It’s a linear generational saga. Think 'Victoria' or 'The Crown' but for a fictional American family. You start with the founder and watch the dynasty unfold. Any other order would be utterly baffling. The family tree is everything.

For a different angle, consider the emotional arc rather than just the list. 'The Bastard' is all about founding and legitimacy. 'The Rebels' and 'The Seekers' deal with revolution and expansion. 'The Furies' and 'The Titans' grapple with pre-Civil War strife. 'The Warriors' and 'The Lawless' are the Civil War and its aftermath. 'The Americans' is the Gilded Age finale. Reading them in order lets you feel the nation's growing pains mirrored in the family's fortunes. Skipping around would dilute that powerful thematic progression. It’s history lesson as page-turner.

Anyone else get the Kents confused with the Crowns from another generational series? Or the Thorn birds? I mix up my epic family sagas after a while. Rich families, forbidden love, historical drama. The Kent differentiating feature is the sheer American history textbook element. You're learning while you're reading. The main members are like your slightly more dramatic ancestors explaining the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the rise of railroads...

I'd argue the single most shaping event is the Civil War, simply because it occupies two massive novels ('Love and War' and 'The Warriors') and fractures the family along geographical and ideological lines in a way that echoes for generations. It's the pivot point of the entire series. Everything before it leads to this irreconcilable conflict over slavery and states' rights; everything after deals with the shattered aftermath, the lost fortunes, and the psychological scars. It transforms characters: idealists become hardened, pacifists become soldiers, and opportunists reveal their true colors. It also physically redistributes the family, killing some branches and impoverishing others, forcing a new dynamic for the latter half of the saga. If the Revolution created the Kents, the Civil War fundamentally broke and remade them, which is exactly what it did to the United States.

It's a generational saga. The whole point is the passage of time and legacy. Skipping a generation defeats the purpose. You need to feel the weight of the past bearing down on each new protagonist. That only works if you've lived through that past with their ancestors. So no, don't read about the California Gold Rush Kents before you've read about their great-grandfather fighting at Bunker Hill. The order is the theme.

Sometimes the history feels like it's on rails, no pun intended. Each novel hits the required historical beats: a war, a disaster, a social movement. It can become predictable in its sweep. But within that predictability, Jakes finds room for surprising character moments and moral gray areas. His portrayal isn't purely black and white; some Kents make terrible choices for understandable reasons, and some historical 'villains' get moments of humanity. History is shown as a corrupting influence, tempting even good people with power or wealth. The constant movement—westward, to cities, to new industries—also portrays history as a force of dislocation and rootlessness, which is a very American anxiety. The Kents are always rebuilding, restarting, reinventing. In that way, the series is as much about the psychological impact of historical change as it is about the events themselves.