Lafayette, Harlow Giles Unger
Lafayette, Harlow Giles Unger
List: $29.99 | Sale: $21.00
Club: $14.99

Lafayette

Author: Harlow Giles Unger

Narrator: Matthew Boston

Unabridged: 18 hr 26 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/18/2021


Synopsis

In this gripping biography, acclaimed author Harlow Giles Unger paints an intimate 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."

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.

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 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.

About Harlow Giles Unger

Harlow Giles Unger was the 2008 Distinguished Visiting Fellow in American History at George Washington's Mount Vernon. A veteran journalist, broadcaster, educator, and historian, he is author of sixteen books, including five biographies of America's Founders.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Tom

I am seriously considering throwing, "Lafayette," in as the middle name of one of my children. Usually when I read a biography I walk away a little disenchanted about the subject, but in this case I found that there once was someone in the universe who could truly be 'admired. How can one man just k......more

Goodreads review by Micah

Thoughts coming tonight...)......more

Goodreads review by Colleen

Sometimes it can hard to weigh a book when you like the subject so much, it's easy to overlook certain flaws perhaps in your overall enthusiasm. I enjoyed this book a great deal, because you can't help but like Lafayette, but so does the author. It's that lack of impartiality that I think detracts f......more

Goodreads review by Richard

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 an......more