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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely Must Reading for All American History Buffs..., February 4, 2007
This new century of ours has been blessed in these early years with a sudden deluge of excellent books dealing with America's founding years and with the characters involved in creating what can only be described as the "world's greatest and -- so far -- most successful experiment in Constitutional Democratic Republicanism." A few come readily to mind: Stacy Schieff's impressive "A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America"; Darren Staloff's very illuminating "Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and The American Founding"; Walter Isaacson's intimate portrayal of probably the most fascinating founding father, "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life"; and, of course, David McCullough's recent study of George Washington and the early revolutionary-war days in his stirring "1776."
Now we can add to this list of excellent works another one: David A. Clary's new book, "Adopted Son: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship That Saved the Revolution." Clary documents (and, does he ever document!) the surprisingly intimate relationship between the "father" of our country, the commanding general of the Revolutionary War, with a heritage firmly in the English tradition, and the very young Marquis de Lafayette, a nineteen-year-old wealthy French aristocrat who comes to America, becomes a major general in the Continental Army, and a national hero in both America and in France.
Washington had no sons and Lafayette was an orphan; the confluence of these two situations led to a bond between the two men unheard of in the annals of the American Revolution. Furthermore, this bond of friendship, although frequently interrupted by periods when they were apart in both space and time, continued throughout their lives. The story is essentially a biography of two heroes set within the context of a country's struggle for political independence against the background of a long, exhausting, and almost lost war which was both unconventional and unique. Thanks to the author's narrative style, the story is never dull and is, in my opinion, as close to a "thriller" as any work of nonfiction can become.
One of the engaging features of Clary's book is the publication of many of the personal letters exchanged between Washington and Lafayette, as well as correspondence and conversations between some of the other characters who played an important part in this American drama, such as John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton. Some of the language of these letters will likely raise the eyebrows of the contemporary reader. For instance: Laurens, Hamilton, and Lafayette, says the author, "wrote gushy letters to each other. Hamilton routinely addressed Laurens as 'my dear' and vowed his 'love'." Then Clary goes on to explain: "Such language was usual in their time, the age of 'Sentiment.' Letter writing was almost a sport and flowery talk was the norm, especially for young fellows burning with passions for war and politics." Much of the correspondence between Washington and Lafayette also expresses this type of language.
Moreover, Clary evidently feels compelled to explain this phenomenon further. In footnote 46, he states this regarding the "flowery" language of the various correspondents: "Taking such language out of context, modern minds think it homosexual, a term coined in the 1890s. It was not a burning issue in the eighteenth century, as it is today, and it is a fallacy to apply the attitudes of the present to the context of the past." Clary is quite correct about this. I don't know whether the concern here, however, is the fact that our spoken and written language has become increasingly banal and less colorful, or whether it is an emotional problem associated with our current concepts regarding "manliness" and "proper" male behavior. Feminists, though, might take note that it apparently wasn't impossible for "manly" heroes in the 18th century to express their innermost feelings toward their male comrades and do so in "flowery" language. Maybe there's a message here or, in the long run, maybe it doesn't matter at all.
There is no question that General George Washington was exactly the right man in the right place for a task that many thought impossible. I suggest that the teenage Marquis de Lafayette was exactly the right youth in the right place for the right leader fighting for America's independence from England. According to ordinary standards, I suspect, they may be judged unlikely friends and comrades; which may tell us something about how our ordinary standards so often fail us. But now the tale of these two historical personalities and the intimate relationship between them has finally been told. The psychological interplay between the two men, the trust they had in each other, the experiences they shared together, this is the stuff that makes great biography. And Clary pulls it off handily. Not a dull moment in the telling.
This is not a book to merely read and enjoy. It is also a valuable research tool for the student of American history. Clary is to be commended for providing a wide variety of resources outside of the main text, which itself includes a Prologue, fifteen chapters, an "Envoi" and an Afterward. There are fifty-seven illustrations, seven maps, a "Cast of Characters" (running six pages, each entry having a short description regarding his or her significance within the story), sixty-five pages of extremely helpful notes, a "Chronology of Washington and Lafayette" (eleven pages) which runs from 1732 to 1834, a bibliography (nineteen pages) which includes archival and museum collections, published original sources, books and reports, periodicals, and dissertations and, finally, a comprehensive index of both major topics, sub-topics and details. What more could the student researcher ask for?
I now submit that David Clary's "Adopted Son" is "must-reading" for those interested in American history, which should, of course, include all American citizens; but I am, alas, a realist and acknowledge the minority status of this position. That being said, I highly recommend this book to all readers, even those who don't think they're interested in reading American history. This is the book that may change any reader's mind.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautifully written, thoroughly researched, February 28, 2007
This beautifully written book vies with the best novels of our time for the ability to engross a reader. It's one of the best examples of writing I've ever seen. Most authors are either good with style or good with the mechanics, but Clary is clearly a master of both.
The unusually high quality of the writing led me to think perhaps he was weak on fact. That's not the case, though, as you can see after reading through the nearly 20 pages of biography and nearly 100 pages of backnotes. The detailed chronology also shows the writer's devotion to getting his facts right.
And the facts he dug up are amazing. Far from a dry recitation of events, Clary's narrative delves deeply inside the minds of Lafayette and Washington. We see not just what made them great historical figures, but what made them human. Gone are the stereotypes and cardboard characters often presented in historical accounts. This book doesn't follow the "good guys vs. bad guys" formula. It shows the complex interaction of these men with each other and with others. It also shows their failings, insecurities, and weaknesses.
In an age where authors typically have a personal agenda and cherry pick facts to fit it, Clary's work stands out. His only agenda is to help us understand two great historical figures through an undistorted lens.
Clary's nimble use of excerpts from personal letters gives the kind of insight that historical texts should provide, but seldom do. He also provides explanation where needed. For example, letters of that time used saccharin language that we don't use today. It would be easy to misconstrue what's actually being conveyed, but Clary provides enough background so the reader doesn't get confused.
The riveting account of Lafayette's wife Adrienne's efforts in France during and after the French Revolution was nail-biting material in itself, but Clary wove that into the larger narrative. She profoundly changed Lafayette, and we see this not through a disinterested historical narrator but through Lafayette's own eyes.
Personally, I've always enjoyed the subject of history. Consequently, I consider myself knowledgeable in the subject. When I saw the cover of this book, I thought, "Well, yeah, I've heard of Lafayette. There are many American cities named after him and he did something in the American Revolution. But he was a friend of Washington's? Nah, that must be hyperbole." The idea of reading this book intrigued me, because I thought the author must be making some obscure connection and I wanted to see what his leap of logic was. As it turns out, my historical education was lacking. Especially about Washington and Lafayette.
I'm going to offer the excuse that the available information sources tend to frustrate the casual student of history. Figuring out what went on in a given period or with a given historical figure has often been a choice between suffering through boring academic tomes (with their passive voice and other distractions) and a decently-written book with errors of fact. Occasionally, I've come across a book that's readable and accurate, making it a good historical book . But this book is way beyond merely "good."
If we start seeing Adopted Son in our public schools, kids will want to know more about history instead of considering study of the subject on par with getting teeth pulled. But instead of memorizing dates of battles and events in the American Revolution, they'll understand two key people behind those battles and events. And maybe they'll want to study other historical periods. If this way of studying history catches on, we may yet have hope that we will learn from history instead of being doomed to repeat it.
In the same way James Michener taught us about Hawaii and Texas with his page turners, so Clary has given us a "can't put it down" way to learn about Washington, Lafayette, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution.
Clary has just raised the bar for today's nonfiction authors. If authors of history books rise to the challenge, they will unleash a new genre that will capture popular attention for generations to come.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An engrossing and entertaining portrait of Washington and Lafayette, February 8, 2007
The friendship and professional military collaboration of George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette is a commonplace of American historical scholarship. Most historians doubt that the disorganized and inexperienced Continental army could have won the war without the help of Lafayette and the aid that he coaxed from the French government.
David A. Clary, who teaches at Eastern New Mexico University, has set forth the whole story in engrossing detail in this book. His portrait of Washington does not stray far from the marble-statue heroic figure we have known all these years, but his Lafayette will surprise many. Driven by dreams of military glory from his childhood in the Auvergne region of France, orphaned early in life, married at 16 and prematurely wealthy, he arrived in America a young upstart with "more money than sense" and set out to learn the American way of war from Washington, his senior by 25 years.
It turned out that the learning flowed both ways. Lafayette's passionate hatred of slavery infected Washington fully as much as Washington's ideas about warfare influenced him.
Lafayette was a quick study. He learned from Washington that when you command a small, ill-trained, poorly equipped and undisciplined army against a powerful foe, you play a cat-and-mouse game, avoiding large-scale battles, chasing your foe around, nipping at his heels, wearing him down. Lafayette applied this lesson brilliantly, first against Lord Cornwallis in New Jersey, and triumphantly later against the same general in Virginia. It was Lafayette's mobile hit-and-run harassment that finally led Cornwallis into the fatal trap at Yorktown, effectively ending the war.
But military tactics are not the main thrust of Clary's story. He concentrates on his two main characters, perhaps even too much so, filling his book with page after page of the mushy letters that passed between them protesting their eternal admiration for each other in flowery prose. The French "boy general" must have been one of the most prolific letter-writers of all time; Clary says more than 30,000 of his letters are known. The acreage of them in his book can be a bit wearying.
Clary does bring a lively writing style and much thorough research to his task. We read of Lafayette "blowing his own horn," and having a "ringside seat" for battle, as well as being in "the royal doghouse" back home in France. There are also vastly entertaining physical descriptions and character sketches of an enormous supporting cast, American, French and British. His portrait of the German general Von Steuben, another Washington ally, stands out as a tiny gem. Knowing no English, Von Steuben was at pains to learn how to cuss at his troops in English. The first English word he learned was "goddam," and he would call upon aides to swear for him in English when the right oath was not at his tongue's tip. I'll bet you never learned that in high school history class.
With the war over, Clary follows Lafayette back to France just as his country was entering the horror chamber of the 1789 revolution. He was a national hero to the French people, but his sympathy for the despised royal family set the mob howling for his head and thrust him into prison. He was lucky to escape with his life. Clary concludes that even in maturity Lafayette acted with the impulsive rashness that Washington was never quite able to understand or control. He came back to America for a last reunion with his adored Washington, and on this side of the Atlantic he remains a venerated hero to this day, though he never made it onto our paper money.
--- Reviewed by Robert Finn [...]
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