Revolutionary Brothers

August 12, 2019
Through extensive reliance on Thomas Jefferson’s and the Marquis de Lafayette’s writings, along with their contemporaries’, Chaffin (Giant’s Causeway) burnishes his reputation as a popular historian with this compulsively readable deep dive into “the story of a single, and singularly extraordinary, friendship, and its role in the making of two revolutions—and two nations.” The two men met in 1781; Lafayette had been given a command by George Washington after allying himself with the American rebels and traveling to the colonies in 1777, and was dispatched to Virginia to help defend it from British attacks during Jefferson’s term as governor of that colony. That assignment began a friendship that deepened after the Revolutionary War’s end; Lafayette was able to facilitate Jefferson’s diplomatic efforts after Jefferson joined a delegation to Paris negotiating treaties with European nations. Lafayette sought to help resolve France’s fiscal crisis of 1787, the precursor to the French Revolution, and Chaffin is especially good at detailing Lafayette’s shifting roles during that tumultuous period. Noting that “cherished legends” concerning both men are more familiar than the “more complex, sometimes less ennobling, truths,” Chaffin successfully elucidates the latter, such as Jefferson’s hypocrisy regarding slavery and Lafayette’s “vacillations during the French Revolution.” This worthy history will deepen lay readers’ understanding of both men. Agent: Alex Hoyt, Alexander Hoyt Associates.

September 15, 2019
An examination of the strong bonds and rewarding exchanges between the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. Their friendship was primarily based on correspondence, beginning in 1781. Chaffin (Giant's Causeway: Frederick Douglass's Irish Odyssey and the Making of an American Visionary, 2014, etc.) capably traces their parallel stories, presenting a wealth of information, personal and historical, not often included in biographies. Stories of Jefferson's governorship of Virginia, which represented the extent of his Revolutionary War activity after the Declaration of Independence, shows a man wholeheartedly devoted to Virginia. As the author clearly shows, Jefferson had little interest in military matters and generally stayed aloof from the war. Because he was unsure of what a 19-year-old Lafayette could bring to the table, George Washington accepted his offer to serve with great reservations. What Lafayette did have was enormous wealth, royal connections, and, in 1777, a ship loaded with men and materiel. He was determined to emulate his father, who died in the Seven Years' War, and become a great general. Furthermore, the American fight was a chance for Lafayette--and France--to get revenge for their horrible loss to England in that war. It was not until 1779 that France actually entered the war, bringing the fleet and support that turned the tide of the Revolution. Lafayette welcomed Jefferson's term in France as minister and (unofficial) consultant to Lafayette and his supporters. At the same time, he opened doors for Jefferson and helped him learn the ways of diplomacy. Lafayette's strength was in taking a middle road, protecting the king while aiming for something between the U.S. Constitution and Britain's arrangement by which the monarch and subject united into a single polity. Sifting through mountains of research material in both the U.S. and France, Chaffin has emerged with a text packed with facts and insights into both men as well as the tumultuous times in which they lived. A must-have in the libraries of those who love this period and/or admire these two iconic historical figures.

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October 1, 2019

Chaffin (Giant's Causeway) has produced a comprehensive history of a long, mutually rewarding friendship. Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette first met in 1781, when the glory-hungry young Lafayette was dispatched from France to Virginia to assist Jefferson in efforts to oust the British. Three years later, Jefferson was in Paris on diplomatic business. Speaking little French, he relied on Lafayette for contacts in order to help the fledgling republic. Over the next years, mutual respect became real friendship. Assistance was reciprocal: Jefferson counseled Lafayette in drafting what would become the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Lafayette was soon on the wrong side of the Revolution; fleeing France, he was captured and spent years as a prisoner in Austria and Prussia. Jefferson's intervention helped set him free, but it would not be until Lafayette's 1824 tour of the young country he fought for decades earlier that the two friends would meet again. VERDICT This exceedingly well-written chronicle will please all history lovers.--David Keymer, Cleveland

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2019
The period covered by this book was as momentous as any in the history of France or the U.S. The events of the French Revolution and its aftermath occurred roughly simultaneously with America's transition to, and ratification of, the Constitution. Countering the prevailing American ignorance?then and now?about French aristocrat the Marquis de Lafayette, Chaffin traces the heroic and youthful Frenchman (not quite 20 years old when first wounded fighting in America) from his pre-revolutionary roots. Chaffin occasionally loses sight of the ostensible focus of his book, the friendship that developed between its two principals, Thomas Jefferson and Lafayette, who played significant roles in both revolutions, but the book is, nonetheless, an insightful dual biography of the wealthy but idealistic French aristocrat and the flawed intellectual giant on the American side. Chaffin is strong on the international aspects, but he is less certain on the personal, including Jefferson's romantic (or semiromantic) relationships. Lafayette's reunion with the elderly Jefferson in 1824 is the book's emotional high point.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)