Ever have a hankering to know just what the legendary Marquis de Lafayette was actually doing in colonial America during the Revolutionary War? Not in the mood for dense academic prose, the passive voice, or French?
Then Lafayette In The Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell may be for you. This is a book written in the current vernacular, full of witty observation, commentary from the 21st century on the denizens of the 18th century, and prose that is staccato – sometimes a bit too staccato.
But it treats the Marquis as the raw young man that he was, noting his virtual abandonment of his new, pregnant wife in his stubborn pursuit of joining the United States in war, as well as the various political winds which nearly blew now-legendary Founding Father George Washington aside. It explores the various challenges faced by the Colonial Army, and how Lafayette worked to ameliorate at least some of the real problems faced by the Colonials, and how the people most likely to benefit from independence from England had to virtually be dunned into paying their due, from the lowliest Colonial farmer to the Louis of France, whose help in the Revolution paid partial revenge for other English victories – but may have contributed to his own demise on the “French razor” several years later.
The interjection of modern viewpoints into the world of 1776 has its drawbacks and its advantages, the latter in some ways as comedic points as well as illuminating the fact that the Revolutionaries were just as capable of hypocrisy as we are today. But it certainly makes it easy to enjoy this book more than the weighty historical tome, full of footnotes and densely argued points; of course, if that’s what you need, then this will not do at all.
But if you just want a light go-over of the Marquis’ fabled role in the American Revolution, this is not a bad book to read.
