Lafayette in the Somewhat United States Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

    • 2.0 • 1 Rating
    • $11.99
    • $11.99

Publisher Description

From the bestselling author of Assassination Vacation and The Partly Cloudy Patriot, an insightful and unconventional account of George Washington’s trusted officer and friend, that swashbuckling teenage French aristocrat the Marquis de Lafayette.  

Chronicling General Lafayette’s years in Washington’s army, Vowell reflects on the ideals of the American Revolution versus the reality of the Revolutionary War.  Riding shotgun with Lafayette, Vowell swerves from the high-minded debates of Independence Hall to the frozen wasteland of Valley Forge, from bloody battlefields to the Palace of Versailles, bumping into John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Lord Cornwallis, Benjamin Franklin, Marie Antoinette and various kings, Quakers and redcoats along the way. 
 
Drawn to the patriots’ war out of a lust for glory, Enlightenment ideas and the traditional French hatred for the British, young Lafayette crossed the Atlantic expecting to join forces with an undivided people, encountering instead fault lines between the Continental Congress and the Continental Army, rebel and loyalist inhabitants, and a conspiracy to fire George Washington, the one man holding together the rickety, seemingly doomed patriot cause.  
 
While Vowell’s yarn is full of the bickering and infighting that marks the American past—and present—her telling of the Revolution is just as much a story of friendship: between Washington and Lafayette, between the Americans and their French allies and, most of all between Lafayette and the American people.  Coinciding with one of the most contentious presidential elections in American history, Vowell lingers over the elderly Lafayette’s sentimental return tour of America in 1824, when three fourths of the population of New York City turned out to welcome him ashore.  As a Frenchman and the last surviving general of the Continental Army, Lafayette belonged to neither North nor South, to no political party or faction.  He was a walking, talking reminder of the sacrifices and bravery of the revolutionary generation and what the founders hoped this country could be. His return was not just a reunion with his beloved Americans it was a reunion for Americans with their own astonishing, singular past.
 
Vowell’s narrative look at our somewhat united states is humorous, irreverent and wholly original.

GENRE
History
RELEASED
2015
October 20
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
288
Pages
PUBLISHER
Penguin Publishing Group
SELLER
Penguin Random House Canada
SIZE
6.6
MB

More Books Like This

Angel in the Whirlwind Angel in the Whirlwind
2011
Valley Forge Valley Forge
2018
Victory at Yorktown Victory at Yorktown
2014
Adopted Son Adopted Son
2007
Stories of the American Revolution Stories of the American Revolution
2018
In the Hurricane's Eye In the Hurricane's Eye
2018

More Books by Sarah Vowell

Assassination Vacation Assassination Vacation
2005
Unfamiliar Fishes Unfamiliar Fishes
2011
The Partly Cloudy Patriot The Partly Cloudy Patriot
2002
The Wordy Shipmates The Wordy Shipmates
2008
Take the Cannoli Take the Cannoli
2013
Radio On Radio On
2013

Customers Also Bought

The Nightjar The Nightjar
2019
The Reluctant Mr. Darwin The Reluctant Mr. Darwin
2007
Learning Python Learning Python
2013
Larousse Patisserie and Baking Larousse Patisserie and Baking
2020
Cook's Encyclopaedia Cook's Encyclopaedia
2016
Kill the Farm Boy Kill the Farm Boy
2018