Delilah Klemp

Lafayette Too biased with respect to background, but good with respect to Lafayette – Andres Hernandez – Heidelberg, Germany
The book is a good source on Lafayette’s life. The book contains so many quotes from original material that it shows the author did a lot of research, but the quotes are usually meshed into the prose in such a way as to have a very nice flow to the prose.

The bad however is the bias the author often shows in addressing the environment in which Lafayette finds himself. The preface would fit fine as an editorial in a magazine like National Review, which is not a bad comment about the text, but such ideological text should not appear in the introduction of a supposedly historical account. Except for some ideologically chosen adjectives, the first half of the book suffers from ideological intermissions, but the second part is rife with it. The following quote exemplifies my point: “… ambitious young lawyers such as Maximilien Ropespierre and Georges-Jacques Danton, commoners whose education taught them to envy those born to wealth and power.” Such nonsense reappears often in the second half. And it’s not just that the author shows his ideology to the detriment of the material he presents, but that he also fails to in those cases to put things in perspective or be consistent. The author takes a negative tone when talking about France’s expansionism, but fails to take the same tone with respect to the US’ analogous actions. Similarly, restrictions on who is allowed to vote in France are portrayed negatively, but the author often continues by comparing to the US as a shining beacon of liberty without ever mentioning any such restrictions there.

Basically, the book can serve as a good source on Lafayette’s life, but fails miserably as a source for the more general political environment in which he moved. If the reader wants to read this book as part of a wider interest on the French Revolution, late 18th and early 19th century European politics, or early american history, then I recommend that person to look elsewhere.
: Acclaim for the prizewinning* 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

“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.”
–Larry Collins, coauthor, Is Paris Burning? and O Jerusalem!

“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.”
–Florence King, Contributing Editor, National Review

*Selected as Best Book of 2002 by both the American Revolution Round Table of New York and the Fraunces Tavern Museum Lafayette

• John Hancock: Merchant King & American Patriot
• Adopted Son: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship that Saved the Revolution
• The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness
• For Liberty and Glory: Washington, Lafayette, and Their Revolutions
• Nathanael Greene: A Biography of the American Revolution

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