Publisher Description

Acclaim for Lafayette "I found Mr. Unger's book exceptionally well done. It's an admirable account of the marquis's two revolutions-one might even say his two lives-the French and the American. It also captures the private Lafayette and his remarkable wife, Adrienne, in often moving detail." -Thomas Fleming, author, Liberty!: The American Revolution "Harlow Unger's Lafayette is a remarkable and dramatic account of a life as fully lived as it is possible to imagine, that of Gilbert de Motier, marquis de Lafayette. To American readers Unger's biography will provide a stark reminder of just how near run a thing was our War of Independence and the degree to which our forefathers' victory hinged on the help of our French allies, marshalled for George Washington by his 'adopted' son, Lafayette. But even more absorbing and much less well known to the general reader will be Unger's account of Lafayette's idealistic but naive efforts to plant the fruits of the American democracy he so admired in the unreceptive soil of his homeland. His inspired oratory produced not the constitutional democracy he sought but the bloody Jacobin excesses of the French Revolution."-Larry Collins, coauthor, Is Paris Burning? and O Jerusalem! "A lively and entertaining portrait of one of the most important supporting actors in the two revolutions that transformed the modern world."-Susan Dunn, author, Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light "Harlow Unger has cornered the market on muses to emerge as America's most readable historian. His new biography of the marquis de Lafayette combines a thoroughgoing account of the age of revolution, a probing psychological study of a complex man, and a literary style that goes down like cream. A worthy successor to his splendid biography of Noah Webster."-Florence King, Contributing Editor, National Review "Enlightening! The picture of Lafayette's life is a window to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history."-Michel Aubert La Fayette

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Acclaim for Lafayette "I found Mr. Unger's book exceptionally well done. It's an admirable account of the marquis's two revolutions-one might even say his two lives-the French and the American. It also captures the private Lafayette and his remarkable wife, Adrienne, in often moving detail." -Thomas Fleming, author, Liberty!: The American Revolution "Harlow Unger's Lafayette is a remarkable and dramatic account of a life as fully lived as it is possible to imagine, that of Gilbert de Motier, marquis de Lafayette. To American readers Unger's biography will provide a stark reminder of just how near run a thing was our War of Independence and the degree to which our forefathers' victory hinged on the help of our French allies, marshalled for George Washington by his 'adopted' son, Lafayette. But even more absorbing and much less well known to the general reader will be Unger's account of Lafayette's idealistic but naive efforts to plant the fruits of the American democracy he so admired in the unreceptive soil of his homeland. His inspired oratory produced not the constitutional democracy he sought but the bloody Jacobin excesses of the French Revolution."-Larry Collins, coauthor, Is Paris Burning? and O Jerusalem! "A lively and entertaining portrait of one of the most important supporting actors in the two revolutions that transformed the modern world."-Susan Dunn, author, Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light "Harlow Unger has cornered the market on muses to emerge as America's most readable historian. His new biography of the marquis de Lafayette combines a thoroughgoing account of the age of revolution, a probing psychological study of a complex man, and a literary style that goes down like cream. A worthy successor to his splendid biography of Noah Webster."-Florence King, Contributing Editor, National Review "Enlightening! The picture of Lafayette's life is a window to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history."-Michel Aubert La Fayette

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In this gripping biography, acclaimed author Harlow Giles Unger paints an intimate and detailed portrait of the heroic young French soldier who, at nineteen, renounced a life of luxury in Paris and Versailles to fight and bleed for liberty–at Brandywine, Valley Forge, and Yorktown. A major general in the Continental army, he quickly earned the love of his troops, his fellow commanders, and his commander in chief, George Washington, who called him his "adopted son." To the troops, he was "the soldier’s friend"; to Americans all, he was "our Marquis." In a tale filled with adventure, romance, and political intrigue, Unger follows Lafayette from the battlefields of North America to the palace of Versailles, where the marquis won the most stunning diplomatic victory in world history–convincing the French court to send the huge military and naval force needed to win American independence. He then returned to America to lead the remarkable guerrilla campaign in Virginia that climaxed with British surrender at Yorktown–and earned him the title "Conqueror of Cornwallis." Lafayette’s triumph turned to tragedy, however, when he tried to introduce American democracy in his native land. His quest for a constitutional monarchy unwittingly set off the savage French Revolution and plunged Europe into more than a decade of slaughter and war. Declared an enemy of the state, Lafayette fled France only to be imprisoned for five years in an Austrian dungeon, while his wife, Adrienne, and her family festered in prison, awaiting the cruel blade of the guillotine. Based on years of research in France as well as in the United States, Unger’s biography reveals how American ambassador James Monroe won Adrienne Lafayette’s freedom and helped Lafayette’s only son, George-Washington Lafayette, escape France to the safety of his godfather’s home in Mount Vernon, even as the guillotine claimed his great-grandmother, grandmother, and aunt. Lafayette is also a compelling romance, as Lafayette and his beloved, Adrienne de Noailles, feast at their sumptuous wedding banquet, dance at Marie Antoinette’s lavish palace balls, and embrace in anguish in the ghastly Austrian dungeon that Adrienne and her daughters shared with Lafayette for two brutal years. Inspiring and educational, Lafayette is the dramatic life story of one of the great leaders in American and European history, swept up in the cataclysmic events that spawned the longest-lasting democracy in the New World and prolonged despotism for two centuries in the Old.

Author Biography

HARLOW GILES UNGER is the author of Noah Webster and John Hancock (both from Wiley). A veteran journalist, he was a foreign news editor at the New York Herald Tribune Overseas Service and a foreign correspondent for the Times and the Sunday Times (London). The author of eight books on American education, he lives in New York City and Paris, France.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations. Acknowledgments. Chronology. Preface. PART ONE: THE BEST OF TIMES. 1. The Young Knight. 2. The Quest. 3. First Blood. 4. Boy General. 5. An American Winter. 6. The Alliance. 7. Return to Royal Favor. 8. The Traitor and the Spy. 9. Ride to Glory. 10. "The Play is Over". 11. Conqueror of Cornwallis. 12. Completing the Quest. PART TWO: THE WORST OF TIMES. 13. The Notables and the "Not Ables". 14. "I Reign in Paris". 15. Guardian Angel. 16. Prisoners of the Mob. 17. The Most Hated Man in Europe. 18. The Prisoners of Olmutz. 19. Resurrection. 10. Apotheosis. 21. Les Adieux. Epilogue. Notes. Selected Bibliography of Principal Sources. Index.

Review

Appearing at a time when there is a new wave of interest in America's Founding Fathers, this well-written and well-researched biography should appeal to traditional political historians and informed lay readers alike. The author, a journalist and biographer, makes no secret of his great admiration for Lafayette, whom he presents as a "gallant knight" and true believer in American republican and constitutional ideals. Critical of historiographical interpretations that have painted Lafayette in either a romanticized or a cynical way, Unger aims to recount objectively the Frenchman's contributions to the great events of his age-the American War of Independence and the French Revolutions of 1789 and 1830. The first biography of Lafayette to appear in almost 20 years, this text is noteworthy for the attention it gives to Lafayette's personal friendship with George Washington and for its careful reconstruction of the role Lafayette played in diplomatic and economic issues of importance to the fledgling American nation. Unger implies that Lafayette's "distaste for political leadership" and his consistent rejection of both political and military power may have played a role in allowing "madmen and fanaticslike Robespierre to rise to power. Although his biases against the French radical republicans are clear, Unger has succeeded in his goal of restoring Lafayette to his rightful place in Western political history. For all libraries. --Marie Marmo (Library Journal, August 2002)

Review Text

Appearing at a time when there is a new wave of interest in America's Founding Fathers, this well-written and well-researched biography should appeal to traditional political historians and informed lay readers alike. The author, a journalist and biographer, makes no secret of his great admiration for Lafayette, whom he presents as a "gallant knight" and true believer in American republican and constitutional ideals. Critical of historiographical interpretations that have painted Lafayette in either a romanticized or a cynical way, Unger aims to recount objectively the Frenchman's contributions to the great events of his age-the American War of Independence and the French Revolutions of 1789 and 1830. The first biography of Lafayette to appear in almost 20 years, this text is noteworthy for the attention it gives to Lafayette's personal friendship with George Washington and for its careful reconstruction of the role Lafayette played in diplomatic and economic issues of importance to the fledgling American nation. Unger implies that Lafayette's "distaste for political leadership" and his consistent rejection of both political and military power may have played a role in allowing "madmen and fanaticslike Robespierre to rise to power. Although his biases against the French radical republicans are clear, Unger has succeeded in his goal of restoring Lafayette to his rightful place in Western political history. For all libraries. --Marie Marmo (Library Journal, August 2002) "A lively and entertaining portrait of one of the most important supporting actors in the two revolutions that transformed the modern world." —Susan Dunn, author of Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light "I found Mr. Unger's book exceptionally well done. It's an admirable account of the Marquis' two revolutions -- one might even say his two lives -- the French and the American. It also captures the private Lafayette and his remarkable wife Adrienne in often moving detail." —Tom Fleming, Author of Liberty! The American Revolution "Harlow G. Unger has cornered the market on muses to emerge as America's most readable historian. His new biography of the Marquis de Lafayette combines a thoroughgoing account of the age of revolution, a probing psychological study of a complex man, and a literary style that goes down like cream.A worthy successor to his splendid biography of Noah Webster." —Florence King, Contributing Editor, National Review "Harlow Ungar's LAFAYETTE is a remarkable and dramatic account of a life as fully lived as it is possible to imagine, that of Gilbert de Motier, Marquis de LaFayette. To American readers Ungar's biography will provide a stark reminder of just how near run a thing was our War of Independence and the degree to which our forefather's victory hinged on the help of our French allies, marshalled for George Washington by his 'adopted' son Lafayette, But even more absorbing and much less well known to the general reader will be Ungar's account of Lafayette's idealistic but naive efforts to plant the fruits of the American democracy he so admired in the unreceptive soil of his homeland. His inspired oratory produced not the constitutional democracy he sought but the bloody Jacobin excesses of the French Revolution. "Father of the French people" he is said to have muttered on his death bed--" as long as they don't have to heed a word that I say to them!" —Larry Collins, Co-author of Is Paris Burning? and O Jerusalem

Review Quote

* Appearing at a time when there is a new wave of interest in America's Founding Fathers, this well-written and well-researched biography should appeal to traditional political historians and informed lay readers alike. The author, a journalist and biographer, makes no secret of his great admiration for Lafayette, whom he presents as a "gallant knight" and true believer in American republican and constitutional ideals. Critical of historiographical interpretations that have painted Lafayette in either a romanticized or a cynical way, Unger aims to recount objectively the Frenchman's contributions to the great events of his age-the American War of Independence and the French Revolutions of 1789 and 1830. The first biography of Lafayette to appear in almost 20 years, this text is noteworthy for the attention it gives to Lafayette's personal friendship with George Washington and for its careful reconstruction of the role Lafayette played in diplomatic and economic issues of importance to the fledgling American nation. Unger implies that Lafayette's "distaste for political leadership" and his consistent rejection of both political and military power may have played a role in allowing "madmen and fanaticslike Robespierre to rise to power. Although his biases against the French radical republicans are clear, Unger has succeeded in his goal of restoring Lafayette to his rightful place in Western political history. For all libraries. --Marie Marmo (Library Journal, August 2002)

Promotional "Headline"

Appearing at a time when there is a new wave of interest in America's Founding Fathers, this well-written and well-researched biography should appeal to traditional political historians and informed lay readers alike. The author, a journalist and biographer, makes no secret of his great admiration for Lafayette, whom he presents as a "gallant knight" and true believer in American republican and constitutional ideals. Critical of historiographical interpretations that have painted Lafayette in either a romanticized or a cynical way, Unger aims to recount objectively the Frenchman's contributions to the great events of his age-the American War of Independence and the French Revolutions of 1789 and 1830. The first biography of Lafayette to appear in almost 20 years, this text is noteworthy for the attention it gives to Lafayette's personal friendship with George Washington and for its careful reconstruction of the role Lafayette played in diplomatic and economic issues of importance to the fledgling American nation. Unger implies that Lafayette's "distaste for political leadership" and his consistent rejection of both political and military power may have played a role in allowing "madmen and fanaticslike Robespierre to rise to power. Although his biases against the French radical republicans are clear, Unger has succeeded in his goal of restoring Lafayette to his rightful place in Western political history. For all libraries. -Marie Marmo (Library Journal, August 2002)

Feature

The first full-scale popular biography in twenty years of Lafayette, who helped lead two revolutions (the American and French) and who played a major role in French politics thereafter. Relates the high drama of his life, from his brilliant leadership in the American victory against France's hated enemy and his close father-son relationship with George Washington to his imprisonment as a revolutionary by the Austrians and his wife's heroic campaign to free him. Selected as best book of 2002 on the era of the American Revolution by The American Revolution Round Table of New York

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