6/30 THIS BOOOK WAS SO GOOOD! Lafayette was so dynamic. A menace to revolutionary society. Fearless. Hopeful. Chivalrous. Respectful. I could go on. The author could not have possibly left anything out just no way there was so much information and I never felt like the story dragged. I will say I chose audiobook format so that may have been part of the reason. Great narrator.
I might come back sometime and move this to five stars I was that impressed by the subject matter and its presentation. I’m almost positive I will read this again.

I cannot wait to begin this book! The Hamilton is screaming to get out and this is the only audiobook I own that is related and not already read. The ratings are unbelievable! If anyone has any books American revolution related I’d love the suggestions

historical accuracy: 4/5
bias: 3/5
entertaining: 5/5
informative: 4/5
writing: 5/5

I loved, loved, loved this book!

The book was extremely pro-Lafayette, I won't deny that (I can't believe that all Americans who met Lafayette instantly adored him) but it was a very good read, easy to understand, and an amazing narrative. Lafayette's life is a living contradiction of two extremes - the American and French revolutions. Harlow Giles Unger did an amazing job in showing those two sides of his life (respectively dividing the book in two parts; "the best of times" and "the worst of times"... I'll leave it up to you to guess which revolution fits where.)

"Lafayette was the last of the world's gallant knights, galloping out of Arthurian romance, across the pages of history, to rid the world of evil."

And ain't that the truth.

Riddled with errors, rarely objective. I feel as though he could have made a pretty good historical novel out of this, but not a work of history.

A bit overdone

I found it difficult that a very young and inexperienced foreigner could have overwhelmed George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and other more mature and experienced Notables. My impression was a bonhomie, rich socialite with time on his hands to visit the colonies and to fight France’s enemy the British. A vagabond looking for adventure. Without his family’s money and connections he would have been like the rest of French citizens, a poor peasant. We read unending letters between Lafayette and Washington expressing ad nauseam their respect, love and devotion to each other. The young knight is continually writing letters to everyone about everything with the impression they are read and responded to immediately. Of course Washington is happy with Gilbert as he freely spends half his fortune supporting the revolution against the Brits. However, Gilbert fails to understand that his own countrymen are vastly different than the upstart americans. Mayhem and slaughter ensues with his involvement in the three French revolutions. His selfish refusal of both political and military leadership of his fellow citizens only inflames the Jacobins to more violence. What I found more intriguing was the secret dealings of the French in attempts to usurp Washington’s command and supplying the colonies unbeknownst to England. He failed all those young revolutionaries that came to his door seeking his leadership. He said the ideas of liberty are fermenting everywhere. And he was sure the young will support the right to pure liberty. His experience and support and leadership of the colonies was for naught in his own country. Instead he retired to his country estate.

I’m a first-time reader of Lafayette biographies, so I’ll acknowledge that Unger entertains by re-stating the obvious: Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier de la Fayette was a national, military, political and, indeed, a paternal hero to millions in America and France during the American and (several) French revolutions.
There is no doubt that, despite the fact that he was one of the richest French nobles of his time, he was publicly and privately dedicated to republican government and a social/economic order that was far more egalitarian than the monarchical and aristocratic structures that prevailed.
Was he a great man? Unger, like many of his biographers, says yes. Lafayette was a courageous battlefield leader, he was an enlightened manorial lord who enhanced the lives of his peasants, and he was both outspoken and fearless, repeatedly, in literally dangerous political situations for a couple decades in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Unger amply—even poetically—demonstrates these lifelong characteristics of the man Americans called “our Marquis.”
I also feel obliged to call attention to some countervailing factors that Unger fully describes but does not adequately interpret.
Lafayette put his money where his mouth was. He repeatedly used his great personal wealth to pay and outfit the troops he commanded, when government funds and supplies ran low. I suggest a case could be made that the Marquis, uniquely among American commanders, paid for his military success in the Revolutionary War. Throughout the war, the options and operations of colonial commanders were significantly hindered by short funds and short supplies. If Lafayette had not been able to pay, feed, clothe and arm his troops with his personal resources, could he have been as winning a general as he was? I suspect the answer is “No.”
Some biographers refer to Lafayette as the “victor” at Yorktown in 1781. Unger calls him a “hero” of Yorktown. Lafayette was not the only American general at Yorktown, and he wasn’t the only French general. Lafayette did use his small force to isolate Cornwallis in Yorktown, but he had to wait until Washington, Rochambeau and others arrived with sufficient forces before he participated in the final assaults.
In France he repeatedly declined to step up to the plate and take executive leadership, during the revolutionary and Napoleonic convulsions, when the French people and the contentious military/political factions would have handed the throne or the presidency of France to him on a velvet pillow. The Marquis repeatedly risked his life to defuse explosive situations by his personal, courageous intervention. However, Unger fastidiously details Lafayette’s repeated reluctance to take the final step and take control when, arguably, he could have stabilized dangerous situations, and forestalled or prevented catastrophic consequences, by doing so. Lafayette wasn’t responsible for the violence, but, time after time, he left a void that was unfortunately filled by lesser men.
Was Lafayette a great man? Yes. A successful general? Yes. Was he a really lucky guy? Yes. Did he and his reputation benefit immensely from great wealth and fortuitous circumstance? Yes. Did he live up to his potential in serving France and the French nation? Maybe not.
Just one other thing: Unger profligately demonstrates that Lafayette and Washington had a deeply affectionate man-to-man—explicitly, like father and son—relationship, by using far too many excerpts from their numerous letters. No biggie, but I had to stop reading them about halfway through the book….they bonded, I get it.
Read more on my website:
http://richardsubber.com/

EVERYONE GIVE IT UP FOR AMERICAS FAVORITE FIGHTING FRENCHMANNNN .....LAFAYETTE

When you read these historical biographies, you often think, wow this would make a great movie. With Layfayette, I think i feel that way more than any other biography i've read in recent years. What a life! Born into nobility, losing his parents by 13, chartering a boat to join the American Revolution while still a teenager. Becoming a friend to the Founding Fathers and hero in America. Then helping to initiate the French Revolution, being a hero there, then prisoner in the Reign of Terror when his democratic ideals were thwarted while his old American friends (like GW) tried to help him and his family (including raising his young son at Mount Vernon and secretly enrolling him in Harvard). Then getting out of prison when Napoleon comes on the scene and later touring every state in America as a hero. Unger does a great job of telling the story in vivid detail which made for an easy quick read. Recommended.

First off, I should note that I was reading this biography alongside the one by Mike Duncan, so if you'll excuse it, there's going to be an unavoidable comparison. Hopefully, a useful one.

Whilst Unger is a better storyteller, more engaging in his narration, and puts more feeling and passion into his writing than Duncan does, there's a noticeable downside to it: he's less objective and more partial, to the point he uses denigrating descriptions that verge on insults on other French notables that were opponents of Lafayette, such as Marat. I'm not one to defend the French Revolution's leaders, especially not the Jacobins, and I'd gladly call them names when I see the terrible consequences of their actions, but there's a level of distance and objectivity, and professionalism, expected from a biographer, so in this case I find it lacking.

Unger is a fan of the Marquis, it's very evident, and there are reasons to admire Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette for his contributions to the American and French revolutions, in both of which he was a key figure. This is a positive portrayal, therefore, and deserved. However, having had Duncan assessing the same information as Unger does at the same time, I could see that the author of this book was more likely than not to omit or simply not discuss some aspects of Lafayette that weren't exactly admiration-worthy. And I have to wonder, why not? Lafayette was human, he had his foibles, his mistakes, he wasn't perfect. That shouldn't have been glossed over, I believe.

And finally, the passionate feeling that drives the engaging narration also plays against it eventually. Unger likes the Washington-Lafayette relationship so much he overdoes it by oversharing bits and pieces of these men's correspondence as if it were some romantic entanglement. That makes the book drag for a significant portion of it, and the author's partiality is made all the more evident.

So, overall, I'd say Mike Duncan's biography was better. Drier, yes, and more opinionated, but at least he avoided the issues that ultimately sank Unger's biography for me.

So very popular in the United States. He not only served our country in the Revolutionary War, he went home to France, and was often the lone voice standing up against Robespierre and his ilk. For speaking up, he was put into a Prison in Austria. Later released he came home, but still fought for a Republic in France.

Later, during Monroe's administration, LaFayette visits America. In looking at his year long itinerary that started in 1824 and ended in 1825. The number of celebrations, parades, and balls held just for him, is just unbelievable. LaFayette -- a true American hero.

1824
August 15 – Arrives at Staten Island, New York
August 16 – Arrives in NY City and watched the Lafayette Welcoming Parade of 1824
August 20 – Travel to Bridgeport, Connecticut, stopping along the way in Harlem and New Rochelle, New York, and staying at the Washington Hotel in Bridgeport.
August 21–24 – Visits New Haven and Old Saybrook, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; Stoughton and Boston, Massachusetts
August 25 – Arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and visits former President John Adams at his Quincy, Massachusetts
August 31 – Leaves Boston, making stops at Lexington, Concord, Chelsea, Salem, Marblehead, and Newburyport, Massachusetts
September 1 – Visits Portsmouth, New Hampshire[11]
September 2 – Visits Boston and Lexington, Massachusetts[11]
September 3 – Visits Worcester, Massachusetts and Tolland, Connecticut[11]
September 4 – Visits Hartford and Middletown, Connecticut[11]
September 5 – Arrives in New York City[11]
September 10 – Visits African Free School No. 2 on Mulberry Street; celebrated with a short speech
by 11-year old pupil James Smith, later an anti-slavery scholar, writer, and physician.
September 11 – Celebrates the 47th anniversary of the Battle of Brandywine w/NY French residents
September 15 – Visits Newburgh, New York
September 16 – Visits Poughkeepsie, New York
September 28 – Visit to Philadelphia with a parade followed by speeches at the State House
(Independence Hall) under Philadelphia architect William Strickland's Triumphal Arches,
Lafayette's welcoming parade in Philadelphia
October 6 – Escorted to Wilmington, Delaware, by the Grand Lodge of Delaware Masons
October 8 to 11 – Toured Baltimore and met with surviving officers and soldiers of the Revolution
October 12 – Arrives in Washington, D.C., paraded into town, welcomed by the mayor in the U.S.
Capitol rotunda, and celebrated w/ illuminations throughout the city and with a rocket show.
October 15 – Spends evening at Arlington House; he returns to his hotel in Washington, D.C.
October 17 – Visits Mount Vernon and George Washington's tomb in Virginia
October 18–19 – Arrives by steamer in Petersburg, Virginia; visits Yorktown marking 43rd
anniversary of the battle. He arrived in Yorktown on October 18 on a ship where a water-
borne honor guard escorted him to a specially constructed Yorktown wharf, where he was
greeted by a crowd of 15,000 people.
October 19–22 Stayed in Peyton Randolph House in Williamsburg, Virginia. He attended an
honorary banquet at Raleigh Tavern with Chief Justice John Marshall and Secretary of War
John Calhoun.
October 25, he left the Tidewater area on a ship bound for Richmond.
October 22 – Arrives in Norfolk, Virginia via steamer; spends four days and in Portsmouth
October 25– Arrives in Richmond, Virginia, on a steamer from Norfolk; Edgar Allan Poe is in the
youth honor guard in Richmond that welcomed him when he arrived.
On November 2 – Left Richmond for Monticello to visit Jefferson
November 8 – Attends a public banquet at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville
November 20, 21, 22—visits Fredericksburg, VA with several parties in his honor
Early December – Stays in Washington, D.C., visiting the White House, meeting several times with
President Monroe and George Washington's relatives; visits the Washington Navy Yard
December 8 and 9 – Makes official visits to the Senate and addresses Congress @ House of Rep.
December 15 – Feted at the first commencement ceremony of the Columbian College in DC
December 17 – Arrives at Annapolis at 3 pm, is received in the Senate chamber
December 20 – Received at the Maryland State House
December 24 – Arrives at the Jug Bridge crossing the Monocracy River on the National Road

1825 (abbreviated due to Goodreads word limit)
January 1 – Attends a banquet hosted by Congress
January 19 – Visits Baltimore and leaves on a steamboat to visit the legislature at Richmond, VA
January 31 – Visits Perseverance Lodge #21 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania[32]
February 23, 1825 – Sets off on the southern leg of his tour. Because the route from Richmond to
Raleigh was by carriage over poor roads
February 25—Interviewed by Poulson's and a Philadelphia newspaper, recalls Brandywine wounds
February 26 — Overnight stop at the Indian Queen Inn in Murfreesboro, North Carolina[36]
February 27 – Traveled to Jackson, North Carolina, where he met the official North Carolina
greeting part and stayed at Eagle Tavern in Halifax, North Carolina.
February 28 – Traveled through Enfield, North Carolina, across the Tar River and spent the night at
Col. Allen Rogers' Tavern at Wake County, North Carolina

. . .
Late August – Lafayette returns to Mount Vernon.
September 6 – Lafayette arrives in Washington, D.C., where he meets the new U.S. President John
Quincy Adams, addresses a joint session of Congress and celebrates his 68th birthday at a
White House banquet with President Adams.
September 7 – Lafayette leaves Washington and returns to France on the frigate USS Brandywine.

I’ve been wanting to read more about Lafayette and was very happy to receive this book for Christmas. Unger did a superb job of writing and I learned so much. The contrast between what he accomplished in America to help gain our independence and what happened in France is stark. The love and devotion between him and his wife was tremendous. I mean, how many wives would be willing to go into the kind of prison Lafayette was in?

If you’ve ever wondered why so many counties, cities, and towns have the word “Fayette” in their name, then this biography will help you understand America’s undying devotion to Lafayette.

Lafayette is such a complex, fascinating, real-life character. He’s idealism and optimism formed into a human body. The type of man who will cruelly leave his pregnant wife without notice to go fight a battle he believes in on foreign land. This is even more surprising considering that Lafayette was rich. Many lower class Frenchmen flocked to America with fake titles in the hopes of being awarded wealth and fame. Lafayette abandoned his comfortable aristocratic life and used his own funds to pay his way and clothe and feed his soldiers. He also made bold military moves, confident he was forfeiting his life in doing so.

This book is divided into two parts because even though there is more to Lafayette’s life, it is mostly defined by the two revolutions he played a hand in. The second part is harder to stomach. I questioned how the hero of America could help create such an awful, bloody monster as the French Revolution. And even though it was never his intent to form a monster and he tried to tame it over and over again, he never seemed to grasp that America and France were two very different places in different situations. Showing the same man in two of the most famous revolutions helped me to better understand why one was successful and the other was not. I pitied the man who believed that the ideals of the American Revolution could easily transfer over to an old continent, while his American contemporaries wrote letters to each other saying that it would never work.

Lafayette did not deserve his wife Adrienne, who was loyal to him even when he abandoned her and put their lives in danger with his brash political views. What started out as an arranged marriage did eventually grow into a deep companionship. I have read in other places that Lafayette had two affairs. If they were mentioned in this biography, it was reduced to a one sentence explanation. Obviously the author has studied the first-person documents much more than I have so I can’t say for sure whether the affairs were legitimate or significant enough to include, but it does make me question if the author left out some information to make Lafayette into more of a hero. Either way, I learned a lot which is the most important aspect of a biography. I also feel as if I should be doing more with my life since I haven’t even been involved in one revolution yet.

An excellent telling of an excellent life. Lafayette was one of a kind and incredibly accomplished. If the author were to have claimed Lafayette could spit rhymes a-la-Lin-Manuel Miranda, I wouldn't have been surprised.