Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States Reviews

• 
  Diane

  I work at a college, and one of the things I regularly hear students grumble about is that "history is boring." I disagree, of course, but sometimes it's difficult to explain to a grouchy freshman why history is actually exciting and interesting and often relevant to modern times.
  
  Luckily, I don't have to carry that burden all by myself, because there is Sarah Vowell. (And Bill Bryson. And Nathaniel Philbrick. And David McCullough. And Erik Larson. And Hampton Sides. And Stacy Schiff. But I digress.) One of the things I enjoy most about Vowell's books is how she doesn't just tell facts and stories from history, she points out the humor in the situation and weaves in comparisons to the current era and unusual events from her travels. I have read several of her books, and they are always interesting and amusing and insightful.
  
  In Vowell's latest book, Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, she recounts the life of the Marquis de Lafayette, a Frenchman who voluntarily came to America when he was 19 to fight in the revolution against the British. Vowell visits numerous historic sites and does extensive research on the celebrated war hero. The book covers Lafayette's adventures during the American Revolutionary War, and also his return to the United States in 1824, when he took a grand tour around the country and was cheered and feted wherever he went.
  
  "As a Frenchman who represented neither North nor South, East nor West, left nor right, Yankees nor Red Sox, Lafayette has always belonged to all of us."
  
  A good example of how Vowell mixes history and modern times was when she met with a longtime Lafayette reenactor, Mark Schneider. Schneider was portraying Lafayette in 2003, during the time when the U.S. Congress was so angry at France for not backing an American resolution for military action against Iraq that they foolishly changed the name of French fries to "freedom fries" in the congressional cafeteria. Both Vowell and Schneider put the 2003 events in context:
  
  

  
  Vowell: If the French had forgotten America's help in World War II — and they had not; they just opposed a preemptive war in the Middle East based on faulty intelligence that most Americans would end up regretting anyway — it seemed obvious that Americans had forgotten France's help in our war for independence in general and the national obsession with Lafayette in particular.
  
  Schneider: "I would say it was more of a challenge to tell the story, to talk about French help [during the revolution]. Quite often from my guests I would get, 'Hey, I wish they would help now!' or something to that effect. But telling the story, the truth speaks for itself. One of the greatest compliments I've ever received portraying Lafayette was from an older gentleman who listened to the story of Lafayette, with me telling the personal sacrifice that he made and then the sacrifice France made by getting involved in this war and helping us win independence. It brought him to tears, and he said at the end, 'You know, I hated the French until I came in this room. Thank you for sharing that story. I needed to hear that story. I no longer feel that way about the French. Thank you for telling me the truth and the facts about this. Now maybe I'll reevaluate my opinions on the French.' I had accomplished my goal, and that was to tell the true story of the American Revolution and the sacrifice that so many people made — the people here in America, but also those that helped us."
  

  
  
  I enjoyed this book, and I learned a lot about Lafayette that I didn't know. It also reminded me of how much I've forgotten about the American Revolutionary War since high school history class. I had read David McCullough's 1776 a few years ago, which is a nice companion piece to Vowell's work.
  
  My favorite way to experience a Sarah Vowell book is on audio. She assembles magnificent casts of actors to portray the various historical characters, and the Lafayette audiobook was especially good. John Slattery was great at portraying Lafayette, Nick Offerman was perfect as George Washington and Patton Oswalt was an entertaining Thomas Jefferson. Of course, Vowell has an extensive background in radio, so she is always an excellent narrator.
  
  Earlier I mentioned Vowell's humor and how she includes unusual events in her narratives. About midway through Lafayette she had an illuminating explanation for this writing habit:
  
  

  
  Having studied art history, as opposed to political history, I tend to incorporate found objects into my books. Just as Pablo Picasso glued a fragment of furniture onto the canvas of Still Life with Chair Caning, I like to use whatever's lying around to paint pictures of the past — traditional pigment like archival documents but also the added texture of whatever bits and bobs I learn from looking out bus windows or chatting up the people I bump into on the road.
  

  
  
  That helps explain the charm of Vowell's books. They aren't just history tomes — they're a bitchin' piece of art.
  
  Favorite Quotes
  The thing that drew me to Lafayette as a subject — that he was that rare object of agreement in the ironically named United States — kept me coming back to why that made him unique. Namely, that we the people have never agreed on much of anything. Other than a bipartisan consensus on barbecue and Meryl Streep, plus that time in 1942 when everyone from Bing Crosby to Oregonian schoolchildren heeded FDR's call to scrounge up rubber for the war effort, disunity is the through line in the national plot — not necessarily as a failing, but as a free people's privilege. And thanks to Lafayette and his cohorts in Washington's army, plus the king of France and his navy, not to mention the founding dreamers who clearly did not think through what happens every time one citizen's pursuit of happiness infuriates his neighbors, getting on each other's nerves is our right.
  
  *******
  
  [on Layfayette becoming an orphan at 12]
  Besides the money and land, Lafayette inherited a six-foot tall hole in his heart that only a father figure like George Washington could fill. According to Jefferson, Lafayette's "foible is a canine appetite for popularity." The orphaned only child's puppyish yearning for kinship is at the root of his accomplishments in America, the source of his keyed-up eagerness to distinguish himself, particularly on the battlefield. He tended to confuse glory with love.
  
  *******
  
  [Vowell is chatting with various Quakers about her research on Lafayette]
  One of the Friends, Christopher Densmore, says: "We understand our history as war." It is pretty clear by the way he's looking at me that by "we," he means "you," i.e., we non-Quaker Americans. The other Friends nod their heads in vexed agreement. Densmore laments, "If you go to the history section of the Barnes and Noble, it's all war."
  
  First of all, let's not forget about Cod. I checked, and the book subtitled A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World is in stock at the two nearby B&Ns in Exton and at the Concord Mall, and for good reason — it's one of the better cod bios in print.
  
  I do not think that there can ever be enough books about anything; and I say that knowing that some of them are going to be about Pilates. The more knowledge, the better seems like a solid rule of thumb, even though I have watched enough science fiction films to accept that humanity's unchecked pursuit of learning will end with robots taking over the world.
  
  *******
  
  The most convincing if dispiriting argument for me to augment the supposedly unnecessary embarrassment of war books is that adding another one to the pile ups the odds of my fellow citizens actually cracking one open. In 2009, the American Revolution Center surveyed one thousand U.S. adults on their knowledge of the Revolution. Among the findings: "Many more Americans remember that Michael Jackson sang 'Beat It' than know that the Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution." A bleak revelation, and yet "Beat It" did win the 1984 Grammy for Record of the Year, so the numskulls who took the test knew at least one fact about American history. Sixty percent of those surveyed correctly identified the number of children parented by reality TV personalities Jon and Kate Gosselin, but over a third did not know the century in which the American Revolution took place. More than half of them believed the American Civil War preceded the Revolutionary War (whenever that was). Based on these findings, the situation appears to be more demoralizing than Americans understanding our history as war. What if we don't understand our history at all?
  
  *******
  I would like to see the calamity at Valley Forge as just the growing pains of a new nation. It has been a long time since the men and women serving in the armed forces of the world's only superpower went naked because some crooked townies in upstate New York filched their uniforms. But there's still this combination of governmental ineptitude, shortsightedness, stinginess, corruption, and neglect that affected the Continentals before, during, and after Valley Forget that twenty-first-century Americans are not entirely unfamiliar with ...
  
  I'm not just thinking of the Pentagon's blunders. I'm thinking of how the noun "infrastructure" never appears in an American newspaper anymore without being preceded by the adjective "crumbling." Or how my friend Katherine, a public high school English teacher, has had to pay out of her own pocket for her classroom's pens, paper, paper clips, thumbtacks, and, she says, "chalk when I run out," chalk being the one thing her school system promises to provide its teachers for free.
  
  It's possible that the origin of what kept our forefathers from feeding the troops at Valley Forge is the same flaw that keeps the federal government from making sure a vet with renal failure can get a checkup, and that impedes my teacher friend's local government from keeping her in chalk, and that causes a decrepit, ninety-three-year-old exploding water main to spit eight million gallons of water down Sunset Boulevard during one of the worst droughts in California history. Is it just me, or does this foible hark back to the root of the revolution itself? Which is to say, a hypersensitivity about taxes — and honest disagreements over how they're levied, how they're calculated, how that money is spent, and by whom. The fact that the Continental Congress was not empowered to levy taxes was the literal reason for the ever-empty patriot coffers. More money would have helped, but it wouldn't have entirely solved the problems of a loosely cinched bundle of states trying to collaborate for the greater good.
  
  *******
  Before we cue the brass section to blare "The Stars and Stripes Forever," it might be worth taking another moment of melancholy silence to mourn the thwarted reconciliation with the mother country and what might have been. Anyone who accepts the patriots' premise that all men are created equal must come to terms with the fact that the most obvious threat to equality in eighteenth-century North America was not taxation without representation but slavery. Parliament would abolish slavery in the British empire in 1833, thirty years before President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. A return to the British fold in 1778 might have freed American slaves three decades sooner, which is what, an entire generation and a half? Was independence for some of us more valuable than freedom for all of us? As the former slave Frederick Douglass put it in an Independence Day speech in 1852, "This is your Fourth of July, not mine."
• 
  Jaylia3

  Sarah Vowell’s acerbic, insightful wit comes through loud and clear in this fascinating account of French General Lafayette and his role in the American Revolution, but it took me a while to adjust to her irreverent banter in print--as well as being an author Vowell is also known for her radio pieces on This American Life. This book runs almost 270 pages without any chapter breaks, and reads like the long-winded but mesmerizing stand-up routine of a highly knowledgeable, history obsessed comedian who knows how to use humor to make a point.
  
  Lafayette was still a teenager when he left his young bride behind and snuck out of France to join the American Revolution against the wishes of his family, but he ended up becoming such a key figure in the winning of the war that cities all over the country are named for him. Vowell has a special knack for revealing the personalities of the many historical figures she writes about, their foibles, revealing quirks, and strengths. Since Lafayette had a close relationship with George Washington he features prominently in the book and I really appreciated getting a clearer picture of the man behind the myth. Vowell even manages to make battles and military strategy interesting, in part by keeping her focus on the people involved, and in part by not overlooking the missteps or ironies of the situations.
  
  Vowell finds plenty of opportunities to relate the struggles of the Revolutionary period to American politics today, pointing out that many current ideological divisions and tendencies have an origin, or at least an analog, dating back to the founding of the country. The book also covers the aftereffects of the Revolutionary War in France and Britain, and the America of 1824, which was when John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson competed in a notorious presidential election and the then elderly Lafayette made a return trip to the country that was still so besotted with him that two thirds of the population of New York City welcomed him ashore. While researching the book Vowell visited historic sites in America and France and she takes readers along on those trips too, giving us her impressions of tourist destinations like Williamsburg and Valley Forge while relating what happened there in the past.
  
  In this book Vowell manages the neat trick of being both funny and stirring. She clearly loves history, and she makes it very easy to join her in that passion.
  
  I read an advanced review copy of this book supplied by the publisher. Review opinions are mine.
  
• 
  Jessica J.

  Everyone give it up for America's favorite fighting Frenchman!
  
  
  
  I love Sarah Vowell. She's funny and she breaks history down into something very simple and straightforward. I don't read enough history in general and I definitely haven't read enough Sarah Vowell, but I still love her.
  
  How fortuitous that Sarah's written a book that so neatly ties into the
  buzziest theater sensation in 20 years. Despite my love of the Broadway show, I actually just wanted to read this one because I love Sarah Vowell and have been trying to make more of an effort, across the board, to read more nonfiction. The fact that she helped shine a light on the action in some of the show's songs is just a cherry on top of the whatever.
  
  So this is actually less about Lafayette than you might think, given his prominent placement in the title. It's about the Revolutionary War on a broad scale and the French involvement with the war on a less broad scale. Lafayette was a big part of that involvement, but he wasn't the only part of it and this book reflects that. Sarah undertook a journey to visit the historical parks and monuments dedicated to the various events in which Lafayette and the French played a role, and this book is more or less a culmination of what she found or learned along that journey.
  
  It's filled with zingers and fun facts, and it breaks complex historical events down into pretty digestible little nuggets. In short, it was a fun read and I highly recommend this, or anything Vowell writes, as a good starting point for someone interested in historical events who feels somewhat overwhelmed by more Serious, Academic Tomes.
  
  Lafayette was pretty universally beloved in the early days of our existence as a country. People who hated each other still loved him, which you have to admit is a pretty rare phenomenon in the course of our national history. Sarah opens the book with Lafayette's triumphant return to the US as an old man in 1824, and I wish she had returned to explore that event in more detail. Her descriptions of significant events in the Revolution – ranging from the Landing at Kip’s Bay to the Battle of Yorktown, and some brief snippets of French history – were interesting but often strayed pretty far from Lafayette himself. I learned a lot, but was left wanting just a little bit more.
  
  
• 
  Ashley

  Guyyyyys this book. It took me almost three months to read it, when I expected to finish it in a couple of days! I just didn’t like it very much, and I’m not sure why.
  
  It might be that it was the first Sarah Vowell book I’ve listened to on audiobook, but I don’t think so. I listen to a lot of audiobooks, and I love Sarah Vowell’s voice (not to mention the voices of her many stellar audiobook guests, including John Slattery as Lafayette, Nick Offerman as George Washington, Alexis Denisof as all the British people, and Bobby Cannavale as Benjamin Franklin). I think it might be a combination of the book not being what I expected it to be, and in my opinion, it being somewhat of a mess structurally.
  
  Really, though, take this review with a grain of salt. It’s such an outsized reaction to the way I normally feel about Vowell’s books that I don’t know if I can trust it. I may have to re-read in the future when I can pay it more attention and not be distracted by just wanting to listen to the Hamilton soundtrack instead. I think I checked out emotionally pretty early on and never tried very hard to get back into it.
  
  Anyway, going in, I expected this book to be about Lafayette himself, when really it was more about the American Revolution, and Lafayette makes appearances every now and then. I expected to get a detailed explanation for just why exactly Americans were so obsessed with this French dude, and I didn’t. And I expected more from the later period of Lafayette’s life, when he made his return trip to America, where over 75% of New Yorkers showed up to hear him speak. That wasn’t there at all, mainly some nods to the insane tour he made of America afterwards.
  
  As always, Vowell’s actual writing was great. She throws in all this sassy side stuff and smaller human stuff that most historians ignore or don’t care about. And she does make clear two things that are central to the book: just how important of a role not only Lafayette but France itself played in helping America win its independence (and contrasting that with how we generally feel about the French now); and that the myth we have that all the Founding Fathers agreed with each other and the early country was this perfect utopia is absolute bunk. Americans have always disagreed with each other vehemently and loudly, and will presumably continue to do so for the rest of eternity.
• 
  Clif Hostetler

  This book is a history of the
  American Revolutionary War structured around the life of
  Lafayette (full name: Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette). This is enjoyable history that fashions a braid of past and present with sparkling prose. It's part history, travelog, political commentary, and comedy. And in spite of the writing style aimed at a popular reading audience, it's informative and really does manage to disclose some facts often missed by "serious" history literature.
  
  With a name so long (see above) one would think he must surely be an old military man with much experience sent by the King of France to help the Americans. Instead I was astounded to learn that he was nineteen years old when he first landed in North America. He was technically AWOL from the French Army and had left his young pregnant wife and angry father-in-law without notice in order to seek adventure in the manner of a typical irresponsible teenager.
  
  So how did Lafayette manage to be taken seriously, actually welcomed, by George Washington and his staff? Well, it turns out that he must have been blessed with the necessary social skills and charisma to be accepted. It didn't hurt that, and probably most importantly, he was heir to one of the largest estates in Louie XVI's France.
  
  And he seems to have immediately become a most enthusiastic devotee of George Washington's. In an environment where most of the officers in the Continental Army were jealous of Washington, the presence of an energetic and supportive friend was received quite favorably by the General. And it turns out that Lafayette performed fearlessly under fire and always approached hard times with an optimistic bias.
  
  I found it particularly interesting to compare the tone of his letters home during the difficult times with the concurrent letters being written by others in the same circumstances. Lafayette was obviously an optimistic guy, and as it turned out he was lucky to have chosen to align with what was ultimately the winning side.
  
  Years later his American friends saved his life when during the
  Reign of Terror of the
  French Revolution the American Embassy in Paris intervened to allow him to escape the
  guillotine. He lived to be an old man, and
  revisited the United States in 1824 at the invitation of President Monroe. He traveled to all twenty-four of the then existing states and was cheered as a hero at every stop. Consequently, it seems that every American city has a street or square bearing his name (actually Lafayette is his title, not his name).
• 
  D. B. Guin

  Today I learned that somewhere in between "history" and "tumblr post" there's this thing called "narrative nonfiction."
  
  Also, I learned that I loathe narrative nonfiction.
  
  Before I go on, caveats:
  

  1. I did waffle between 2 and 3 stars, so take it as a 2.5 maybe.
  2. I love the Marquis de Lafayette more than my own life, and this book did have some good Lafayette content so that was enjoyable.

  
  So. First of all. The style and voice. A quick skim of Sarah Vowell reviews will mostly give you the word "irreverent." A lot of people "like her voice," apparently. This is the first Vowell book I've read, and I started it expecting a historical book in the style of every other historical book ever. Thus ambushed, I was taken aback by the author's "voice," which I almost felt that I recognized. There was a haunting echo of those tumblr posts. You know the ones.
  
  At the beginning this playful, I'm-so-funny, informal prose just rubbed me the wrong way. Using words like "preggers" to describe Lafayette's wife? Gross. I thought I was going to hate the entire book. But, hey. I like those tumblr posts, most of the time. I adapted to Vowell's style unexpectedly quickly, and she is funny sometimes. If this short-lived discomfort had been my only problem, I would have rated Lafayette in the Somewhat United States much higher.
  
  Unfortunately, I've also got this problem called Not Enough Lafayette. You think this book is about Lafayette, right? That's an understandable assumption, in my opinion. Not so. Really, it's just an account of the Revolutionary War using Lafayette as the prism through which we view the events of the war. There is a short account of his earlier life, and some brief, sketchy allusions to his sadder later years, but mostly once Cornwallis surrenders it's like, And then the war ended and Lafayette went home to France. The End.
  
  Personally, as a Lafayette enthusiast who picked up this book because it displays Lafayette's name prominently on the cover because it is supposedly about Lafayette. . . I expect more. Even during the war years (i.e. the entire book) Lafayette only pops into the narrative for short visits. This book is as equally about George Washington as it is about Lafayette, if you measure by the percentage of prose dedicated to each. Unsatisfactory.
  
  In a similar vein, honestly my biggest issue with this book: Too Much Sarah.
  
  I feel like I'm on a first name basis with Sarah now, since I've heard so much about her. I'm familiar with a posse of her friends, and their views on topics as random as Thomas Edison and Quakerism. I've heard about her educational background. Sarah's family members. Her modern-day political views. The scholastic interests of her teenage nephew. Her ten zillion mildly topical field trips taken while researching this book, all described and dwelt upon in loving memoir-worthy, philosophical detail.
  
  Do you know how many of these things I know about Doris Kearns Goodwin? Or David McCullough? Or even Ron Chernow? NONE, OBVIOUSLY. BECAUSE HISTORIANS DON'T SPEND ENTIRE CHAPTERS OF THEIR HISTORICAL BOOKS TALKING ABOUT THEMSELVES. And that, friends, is how I like it. Frankly, I don't give a one (1) frick about Sarah, and I resent all the time I was forced to spend reading about her in order to dredge out precious Lafayette-centered anecdotes.
  
  You're all invited to the vigil I'll be holding for all my brain cells that are now unavailable to store Lafayette facts, because they're taken up with Sarah Vowell facts. RIP.
  
  Probably, for some people, this kind of thing serves to humanize and enliven boring, dry historical details? I can definitely imagine there being people out there who would find this kind of human interest New Yorker-y memoir-ism to be a refreshing break among painfully detailed 500-page history tomes. Unfortunately, those people aren't me.
  
  Honestly, if you want to hear about the American Revolution as it would probably be verbally narrated to you over brunch by a humorous, well-informed (though slightly self-absorbed and biased) friend, then you would probably like this book. It's not a bad book. It's just incredibly not my thing.
  
  I will henceforth try to make better life choices, one of which will be to scrupulously avoid "narrative nonfiction."
• 
  Jenny (Reading Envy)

  I listened to this on a long drive home from DC, after seeing the statue of Lafayette in Mt Vernon Square in Baltimore. I selected it because I needed something that would satisfy both my husband and I; I had previously enjoyed a Sarah Vowell audiobook and he likes history.
  
  It left both of us a bit ambivalent. Sarah Vowell does have a singular voice, and I wish she had made more use of the celebrity voices also on the recording (more of them, less of her.) But I knew what I was getting into in that regard. My husband won't listen to books faster than 1x speed, so for me the pace was excruciating, that's a personal thing.
  
  It's more how the publisher blurb doesn't match the contents - it says everyone knows the revolutionary war but not how Lafayette returns to the USA right before the Civil War! ... and then proceeds to spend the majority of the book narrating Lafayette's adventures during the Revolutionary War. And not in a linear fashion, it jumps all over for no discernible reason.
  
  Definitely not my favorite of hers!
• 
  Jean

  This is my first time reading a book by Sarah Vowell. I think Vowell used Lafayette as a vehicle for a run through the Revolutionary War. Vowell blends a travelogue along with comedy and trivia to history. Vowell’s irreverence extends throughout the book including to the Marquis de Lafayette. Vowell writes about Lafayette as follows: “being a single-minded suck-up prone to histrionic correspondence.”
  
  Vowell’s writing is laden with off-putting slang and pop culture references. I was really put off by the author’s description of Lafayette’s wife as “preggers and knocked up”. I read Adrienne de Lafayette’s biography and she was a dignified and courageous woman during the French Revolution. I find those terms applied to this women as insulting. The portrait of Lafayette is patchy and she occasionally goes off on a tangent, such as taxes that is not related to the topic of the book. Vowell does have a talent for telling colorful and telling quotes and anecdotes.
  
  I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The story is told by a collection of narrators including Sara Vowell. I find this type of writing is not my cup of tea. I tried the book because of the stream of positive reviews on Goodreads. I enjoy some humor but prefer the understated play on words. I just could not “get into” the type of humor in a history book. This is my first and last book by Sarah Vowell.
  
• 
  Debbie Zapata

  I enjoyed this book until about the halfway point.
  
  Not sure what happened, I was interested in the story of Lafayette and his involvement with the American Revolution.
  
  Until somehow I just wasn't.
  
  Maybe it was from just being tired after an annoying day and needing something less realistic to read late at night.
  
  Or maybe it was from beginning to be annoyed by the author's "humorous, irreverent and wholly original" smart mouth way of writing.
  
  A little of such stuff goes a long way and I suppose I reached my limit before I reached the end of the book.
  
  Maybe I will finish someday.
  
  Or maybe I won't.
  
  DNF around page 100.
  
  
• 
  rachel

  I picked this up because I just read about the bromance between Lafayette, Hamilton, and John Laurens in Alexander Hamilton and realized I knew exactly nothing about Lafayette besides the fact that there are a lot of streets and landmarks bearing his name here in the county where Washington crossed the Delaware.
  
  As it turned out, I also knew hilariously little about the scope of the role the French played in helping the United States win its freedom. Thanks, public education!
  
  And thanks, France!
  
  Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier (!), aka the Marquis de Lafayette, left a comfortable, aristocrat's life in France to fight with the Continental Army in the US. He was like 19 years old, newly married, and driven by a "warrior" desire to find glory in battle like his ancestors. He joined fellow European exports Rochambeau, Baron von Steuben, and Tadeusz Kościuszko in supporting the American cause, quite taken with revolutionary ideals and the American character.
  
  Although this book purports to be about the impact of Lafayette specifically, it is also very much a general view of key battles of the Revolution, followed by Lafayette's observations (if available) in letters to his wife Adrienne back home. This being a Sarah Vowell book, there are also a lot of detours for humor and her observations at present day historical sites . I found the detours to be a little more distracting here than in previous books, probably because the focus of this book is kind of broad in the first place.
  
  There are four points of interest that I am taking away from this book:
  
  1.) It really is kind of funny that Americans turn death and failure into excuses to celebrate and/or barbecue (i.e. Memorial Day, the blundering Battle of Brandywine re-enactment that Vowell visits, and my own delight at taking regular spring and fall walks at the site of the Valley Forge encampments where thousands of Revolutionary era patriots froze, starved, and died of illness). That must be the good ol' U.S. of A. optimism working for us there.
  
  2.) The cost of funding France's naval and foot soldier support, which we probably couldn't have won the war without, contributed to the bankruptcy that then led to the ultra-violent upheaval of the French Revolution. Lafayette and Rochambeau were jailed during this time, and Lafayette's wife only evaded the guillotine thanks to James Monroe's intervention. Yikes.
  
  3.) The immaturity of the Yorktown surrender! Cornwallis faked sick and sent his second in command to surrender in his place, so Washington refused to accept the symbolic transfer of arms and sent HIS second to do it. Some Redcoats threw their weapons down "petulantly." Definitely laughed out loud at all of this.
  
  4.) The Marquis de Lafayette was a super endearing guy, loved by Americans of all ideologies and parties. He adored Washington in a "puppyish" way and seemingly bore no ill will nor vanity of pride when disagreements arose in the army. To that effect, I found the story of US Army Colonel Charles Stanton announcing the American intention to help the French in WWI with "Lafayette, we are here!" very moving.
  
  
  
  Also, I just love how saucy he looks in most paintings, albeit a little rough for 19-20. America's favorite fighting Frenchman, indeed.
• 
  Brierly

  Lafayette in the Somewhat United States is more than a non-fiction book; it is a history textbook, a Broadway companion, a travel guide, and political essay collection. I had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook -- I highly recommend it as it comes with an all-star cast (Nick Offerman as George Washington?!) as well as being read by Vowell herself.
  
  As a history textbook, this was the most comprehensive history of the Revolution that I have experienced; by focusing on a single character Vowell is able to flesh out an eight year period of time with relative consistency. This book came out a few months before the Broadway show Hamilton, fans will see numerous references to characters within the show as well as a further exploration of Hamilton, Washington, Laurens, and of course, Lafayette.
  
  Vowell uses her non-fiction books to set up an American roadtrip; she did this quite literally in Assassination Vacation and continues the tradition in Lafayette. Perhaps best of all, Vowell continues to contextualize boring ol' history with contemporary events, such as the Tea Party (21st century one), and closes her book with commentary on Lafayette as a location in America.
  
  Once again, hats off to Sarah Vowell. Forever wishing she was my aunt.
• 
  Renata

  I thoroughly enjoyed hearing Sarah Vowel read her book Lafayette in the Somewhat United States. I knew little of Lafayette's life but now I'd like to read a longer biography on this remarkable young man. She gave me an entirely different picture of George Washington than I had had. Loved her connections between past and present and her dry sardonic wit. She's a fun travel companion.
  
• 
  Louise

  Sarah Vowel tells the story of Marquis de Lafayette with anecdote and attitude.
  
  The book has a biographical chronology interspersed with travel snippets and general ruminations. Some are relevant (such as visits to Lafayette’s home and various monuments), some are modern interpretations of his life (such as his portrayal at Colonial Williamsburg and how of Lafayette Square in Washington, DC is used for the purposes he fought for) and others are tangential (such as the Brandywine Art Museum, Quaker meetings).
  
  Through the narrative you see how critical French support was to the success of the American Revolution. The concluding battle, Yorktown, has detail showing how it was planned and basically executed by the French. George Washington knew his role – he showed up. The British seemed to be surrendering to the French and not the Continental Army.
  
  Vowel highlights points not so well covered by others.
  
  • A continuing theme is Lafayette’s youth and attitude towards war. He is 19 years old when begins his military career in America and in his early 20’s is leading brigades. He was a noble, in a place and time where military position was conferred respect and manhood, without a continental war. Vowel has many citations showing his eagerness for war and action.
  
  • Lafayette was not the only European noble without a war. You see how France (and to a lesser extent other countries) was teeming with volunteers. Many were turned away. Nobles with military experience wanted to join the cause in high rank and were disappointed with the terms of recruitment. Their experience of military life in Europe, such as having regular rations and a uniform, was far different from that of their American counterparts.
  
  • Lafayette left his 15 year old pregnant wife, Adrienne Noailles. Vowel covers the reaction of her family and quotes significant parts of Lafayette’s letters to her.
  
  • Valley Forge did not have to be a disaster. Vowel shows the people problems of getting supplies to the freezing and starving troops.
  
  • The role of Pierre Beaumarchais in procuring arms and supplies.
  
  • While most emphasize the morals cloud hanging over the Baron von Stuben (who had served with Frederick the Great) Vowel emphasizes how he drilled the troops into shape and wrote a training manual that was used for several generations.
  
  The text can be overly glib. You get hit with the attitude right way. It starts with the title which refers to the squabbling among the patriots which is compared to that of today. Towards the end, I was either inured to it or the style gave itself out.
  
  The somewhat cartoonish line drawings of the main characters do not add to the book. They tend to break up the all text look of this chapter-less book. It would have been better to have snapshots from Vowel’s travels. There are no maps. There is no index.
  
  For those interested in this topic I recommend
  The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered and
  How the French Saved America: Soldiers, Sailors, Diplomats, Louis XVI, and the Success of a Revolution. These are well written conventional histories. Vowel, once you cut through the attitude, has a point of view on this material worth considering.
• 
  Kressel Housman

  Sarah Vowell is one of my favorite writers. She describes herself as a “historian-adjacent nonfiction narrative wise guy,” but I consider her a genuine historian and genuinely wise. Her signature style is to mix a meticulously researched account of history with snarky comments, but within her analysis come some absolute gems of political insight. This book stays true to her style.
  
  The book begins in 1824 with the return visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to America, but it is mostly it is about the American Revolutionary War. Sarah describes Lafayette as the best friend America ever had. He was a glory-seeking nineteen-year-old when he volunteered to join the colonial army. By the end of the war, he had matured and seen enough to know to be cautious with the lives of the soldiers in his command.
  
  If there’s one thing that this book makes especially vivid, it’s the hardships of war. Every American has learned about the cold, hard winter at Valley Forge, but Sarah brings it to life like no other author I’ve ever read. She quotes eye-witness accounts, usually Lafayette’s letters home and sometimes the writings of other soldiers. The clearest and most brutal image I now have of Valley Forge is the bloody footprints of the colonial soldiers who had to march barefoot over ice and snow. Even worse is the reason they were so ill-equipped: tax squabbles. Of course, the whole war was being fought over tax squabbles, but there’s a difference between a punitive tax policy and taxes for basic needs, like feeding and clothing the people risking their lives for liberty.
  
  Under these conditions, it’s not surprising that there was plenty of desertion amongst the rank and file, but there was plenty of dissension in the uppermost ranks, too. Most of us think of George Washington as a celebrated hero, but in his own time, there were several attempts to sack him. Lafayette remained his loyal defender through it all.
  
  I will admit that the sections describing military strategy made for dull reading. In general, I find military strategy difficult to follow, so there were some sections I had to re-read. At other times, my mind just wandered. I considered taking away a star for that, but I decided it was my failing, not the book’s. If anything, it proves that this is a “genuine” history book, and not “history adjacent.” As much as I love learning history, if a history book doesn’t have some dull parts, it comes across as too light-weight to me. Sarah’s books offset the dull parts with jokes, personal narrative, and forays into pop culture. Some may call that light-weight, too, but I say this is her most scholarly work yet. She really packed in the historical detail.
  
  After painting the dreary picture of the travails of the colonial army, Sarah explains how we won: foreign aid. Other Frenchmen followed Lafayette’s lead and volunteered, as did a disgraced German officer named von Steuben, who drilled the rank and file until they could hold their own in battle. Ultimately, France provided the naval help that won the decisive battle of the war. So the book is not just a tribute to Lafayette, but to France itself.
  
  Sarah began writing it after French fries were renamed “freedom fries” because France refused to participate in the Iraq War. Anti-France feeling was rampant then. But I happened to read this book in a week when sympathy for France was running high, the week of a deadly terrorist attack. This particular history lesson – that the United States owes its liberty to France – could not have come at a more meaningful time. So given the current climate, I recommend reading the book right away. It will make you a more grateful American.
  
  
• 
  Amy

  1.5 Stars
  
  
  
  In full disclosure, I read the title of this book, looked at the cover, and thought this was a YA novel. Probably one with a manic pixie dream girl. I was excited.
  This is not a YA novel. This is a pithy "biography" full of random tangents and author antidotes somewhat featuring Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, who I guess could be considered the Continental Army's manic pixie dream girl.
  
  
  
  I've loved Lafayette for years and years and years so I figured even if I didn't get my YA novel, I could get some interesting facts about one of my favorite heroes. Unfortunately, this novel has more in common with a silly YA novel than it does a well developed biography. Actually, that is too cruel to YA novels. This book is more like a tumblr post. But less funny.
  
  
  
  The historical aspects of this book primarily consist of flippant retellings of popular lore and basic revolutionary war history, with a few vulgar phrases thrown in for good measure (Lafayette "knocks up his wife" during his year back to France - I don't think she gets a single shout out without an adjective like "preggers" attached to it. Poor woman.)
  
  
  
  Even these facts get buried in random tangents about politics and stories of the author's trip to different Revolutionary War landmarks. I think there might be more facts provided about her taxi driver in one section than Lafayette. The taxi driver then leads to the story about some guy who carries pictures of Thomas Edison on his phone which leads to a random tangent about Edison, history, Teddy Roosevelt, boy scouts and President Eisenhower...well, you get the idea. The whole book runs on like that.
  
  
  
  Overall, a breezy look at one of America's lesser known Founding Fathers that left me wishing I'd just surfed Pinterest for 7 hours instead.
  
  
• 
  Theresa Alan

  I thought I knew American history, but it turns out that there was a whole lot of stuff I didn’t know, and this book helped fill in some gaps. Vowell is always funny, but some of the material in here is dense, so you have to love history and nonfiction to enjoy this book.
  
  Vowell wrote part of this during the 2013 temper tantrum in Washington that shut down all nonessential government services and cost our country $24 BILLION. (So much for fiscal responsibility.) The fact that our country is constantly fractured is a theme throughout the book.
  
  One of the things I hadn’t realized was the importance of the French helping secure American independence, specifically Marquis de Lafayette, who was only 19 when he came over to fight on the side of the Americans against the British during the Revolutionary war. I also never realized that George Washington was fighting with an untrained army of hungry (sometimes to the point of starvation) troops who often didn’t have boots for the feet to fight in NEW ENGLAND (which, of course, gets a bit nippy in winter).
  
  This quote illustrates Vowell’s writing style: “The newly dubbed General Lafayette was only 19 years old. Considering Independence Hall was also where the founders calculated that a slave equals three-fifths a person and cooked up an electoral college that lets Florida and Ohio pick our presidents, making an adolescent who barely spoke English a major general at an age I got hired to run the cash register at a Portland pizza joint was not the worst decision ever made there.”
  
  The best quote of the book, however, is when she talks about Lafayette Square across from the capitol in DC, where innumerable protests have taken place over the years. In reference to a Klan rally held there she writes, “Freedom of expression truly exists only when a society’s most repugnant nitwits are allowed to spew their nonsense in public.”
  
  If only we could get rid of the electoral college and preposterous gerrymandering and we might actually get something resembling a functional congress.
  
• 
  Veronica

  This is my first book from Sarah Vowell, I heard so many good things about this one & many other of her. This did not disappoint. She has a very unique way of writing a narrative that makes history really fun to read. You can see her extensive research in her words too.
  
  I came in this blindly not knowing really who Lafayette was other then having something to do with the American Revolution. Boy, I got that and more! I think people tend to forget that the French were really a lot of help to American winning their independence from Britain. I mean the amount of money, soldiers, etc. was tremendous. I think this would be a very good read for kids in school as well as other adults to read!
• 
  Kendra

  This was an absolutely delightful, snark-filled history of a war hero I had never heard of before Hamilton: the Musical. Did I read it because of the musical? You bet I did. Did I maybe enjoy it more because I was thinking of the musical or fanposts on tumblr? Absolutely. But even without that. The cast was delightful, the author's narrative voice was enjoyable, and okay I went through the whole book picturing Daveed Diggs so what.
  
  LafayETTE!
• 
  Celia

  Sarah Vowell has a unique writing style: factual, yet fun. Example: Lafayette 'knocked up' his wife before he left for the 'New World'. Other examples abound!!
  
  I learned the following about Lafayette:
  He came to the colonies to find his fortune at the age of 19.
  He was commissioned as major-general at that age to fight in the Revolutionary War
  Injured at the Battle of Brandywine
  Instrumental in winning the Battle of Yorktown
  4 children including his son, Georges Washington (obviously named after our 1st President)
  Exiled during the French Revolution (his wife was imprisoned in Paris)
  
  I am also reading about James Monroe, our fifth president. Before Monroe was president he was Ambassador to France. Monroe's wife rescued Lafayette's wife from prison and arranged for her and Georges Washington to flee to the US.
  
  I enjoy it when two books that I am reading provide supporting information for each other.
  
  I listened to the audio, read by the author. I do not recommend the audio as Vowell's voice is nasally and somewhat off-putting.
  
  I enjoyed learning about Lafayette however.
  
  4 stars
• 
  Paul

  Sarah Vowell's descriptions of dashing around the Eastern Seaboard to visit sites of Revolutionary War events, homes of founding fathers, re-enactments of key battles -- accompanied by friends, siblings, nieces and nephews, occasionally a patient hired driver -- are, if I have to pick just one adjective, endearing. These glimpses into her own life help her bring history to life for so many readers.
  
  I've read Assassination Nation, Take the Cannoli, Unfamiliar Fishes, and The Wordy Shipments, and have noticed this writerly technique at play in all of them. And I approve. It works. I'm a fan for life. If Sarah Vowell writes it, I'll read it.
  
  What you walk away with, after a history lesson from Sarah Vowell, is a sense of historical figures as real people, as real as you or me. I will never think of George Washington as a wooden figure again (even if he did have wooden false teeth, which he didn't). And LaFayette, about whom I knew almost nothing, virtually leapt off the pages of this book and kept me company as I read. Even the pencil illustrations of key figures on both sides of the Revolutionary War are uncannily lifelike.
  
  And tell you what, next time some know-nothing Teabagger twerp goes off on the French, I'll have a quiver full of arrows to shoot back with. Thanks, Sarah, for straightening us out on who our true friends are!
  
  Seriously, this is a marvelous read. Educational AND fun, as they say. If history books had been written like this when I was in school, I might have paid more attention.
• 
  Carol Jean

  Ms. Vowell at her snarky best, as she takes on the various characters in the Revolutionary War and their assorted motives and conflicts, both on and off the battle field. I was going to quote some of her best lines, but over all I think my favorite quote comes from a letter George Washington wrote to Lafayette:
  
  "In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude; every man will speak as he thinks, or, more properly , without thinking, and consequently will judge at effects without attending to the causes."
  
  I love that she found this quote, which really makes it sound as if Washington has been present at the recent Republican debates.
• 
  Lauren

  A French teenager with romantic notions of glory, liberty (and sticking it to the British) comes to the American colonies to fight in the revolution. Along the way, he becomes bosom buddies with George Washington, leads troops into battle at various sites in Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia... and had a distinct role in the founding of a new country.
  
  ...and 240 years later... no one remembers him.
  
  Sarah Vowell attempts to change this with her 2015 bio/history of Lafayette and the American Revolution. Like Vowell's other books, this one is a good blend of history, based on primary sources (lots of letters, journals - more of that in a minute) and her visits to the geographic locations.
  
  Vowell's signature wit and humor have always amused me, and this was no different. I chose to listen to this book as it has a large cast of narrators/readers for the source documents: among them, Fred Armisen's French accent for Lafayette, John Hodgeman for John Adams, and my personal fave, Nick Offerman as George Washington.
  
  While I enjoyed the play-by-play of the Revolution and Lafayette's role in it, my favorite part of the book was Vowell's visit to Brandywine, Pennsylvania and her conversations with the modern Quakers. This section stood out as it brought up many big questions about the way history is written, i.e. focusing on wars, revolutions, and battles.
  
  This is a good addition to Sarah Vowell's continued look at American history, and I look forward to what era she turns to next.
  
  
• 
  Jessica Woodbury

  I straight up love Sarah Vowell's books. Whenever I read one I wish I was one of her quick-witted, dryly sarcastic pals who goes bouncing around on research trips with her. And as I'm currently in the middle of a Hamilton obsession that shows no sign of stopping, a book on Lafayette and the Revolutionary War was right in the sweet spot.
  
  I always do Vowell on audio. I think her dry reading voice matches her tone well. Recently they've been adding more readers to her audiobooks to do the quotations and this time it wasn't quite as effective as I remember it being in the past. Several readers are faking French accents and for whatever reason it distracted me. (Yes, John Slattery, I know that's you, even with a French accent!) Only Nick Offerman really hits a home run here (most are rarely heard with only the occasional blurb, which I'd rather Vowell read herself) as Washington, with a mix of stuffy solemnity and vexed frustration that works perfectly.
  
  I wish this book was longer. I was very disappointed when it ended. I wanted to know more about what happened next, though I recognize that the Revolutionary War is the focus. The factoids are just as fascinating as you've probably come to expect from Vowell, and her honesty about how we actually won the war is necessary. As is the way she turns it all back on the state of our country today. Vowell's wisdom is really what I come back for, her ability to put all of this in perspective. I really really hope she does more on politics because she does quite well with it and I'd be excited to hear her version of much of the absolutely ridiculous antics that have happened in our congress for the past 200 years.
• 
  Kaethe

  I read this because Hamilton has been on repeat in my car for a year or something now, and he *is* my favorite fighting Frenchman after D'Artagnan and before General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. I enjoyed learning about his family of military bigwigs and how desperate he was to get over here and fight.
  

  Lafayette, a descendent of Christian warriors stretching back to the Crusade, cheerfully belly flopped into the bloodbath.

  
  And later, on his farewell tour of the US, it's easy to imagine him in a sort of Dickensian popular tour. Because this is a book about how Vowell feels about things she reads and places she goes and What History Means to Me, there is no pretense of reporting, no effort to be fairhanded. There is humor; there's snark: especially every time he manages to impregnate his wife before running off for several more years. It all works because it makes us think about what history means to us, and some of it is funny and some of it is rage-inducing, and all the best bits were never included in our text books.
  
  Library copy
  
• 
  Amanda Morgan

  Wow, this book really was not for me. I enjoy history and I really enjoy sarcasm, but apparently the two of them combined isn't my thing. The author relates the historical story of how the Frenchman Lafayette came to be a part of history during the Revolutionary War with much "humor" aka sarcasm woven in. Maybe it's the way the author somewhat jumps around in the tale, maybe it's the way she has a flippant remark about almost every historical tale she tells, maybe it's hard to take her seriously as a historian the way she writes with so much personal take on everything she relates, but I just could not get into this book at all. I won this copy via First Reads and will be donating it to my local library where someone else can hopefully enjoy it.
• 
  Simone

  
  It's probably not a good thing for Sarah Vowell that I spent much of this book envisioning that George Washington looked and sounded like Chris Jackson, but then again it's probably not a bad thing. Also it was occasionally hard to focus on Vowell describing the battle of Yorktown without hearing Guns and Ships/Yorktown in my head, but you know that's typical. This, like Vowell's other books, is really funny and also really insightful.
• 
  Daniel Chaikin

  8. Lafayette in the Somewhat United States (Audio) by Sarah Vowell
  reader: the author and several actors for all quotes
  published: 2015
  format: Overdrive digital audio, 8:07
  acquired: Library
  read: Feb 3-13
  rating: 4
  
  Vowell is the snarky, entertaining, historian with the funny voice. She is also sharp and thorough, although there isn't really all that much to dig up on Lafayette. The French Lafayette is an obscure hero with a somewhat recognizable name. He played a critical role in the American Revolutionary War/War of Independence, but did not do anything we can specifically point to as heroic and helpful. I suspect we tend to know him, but only as some French helper to George Washington in some possibly important but poorly defined way.
  
  Vowell also doesn't do straight narratives. She does walk us through the war, but with many references out of sequence and many side-tracks along the way, and often having little or nothing to do with our subject at hand.
  
  I'll give this one kudos for being short, entertaining, and informative. It was well worth my time and something of a medicine to current events. I always find this revolutionary era inspiring, irregardless of the baggage I carry when I approach it.
  
  The real Lafayette was quite something, a spoiled orphan with an astonishingly charming, pure, and faux-humble personality. He was a French noble of a military family who came to the not-yet-independent-or-united states at the age of 19 to fight the British, and avenge his father's death. A surprisingly fine and suicidal youth, he would spend several years in the American Revolutionary War/War of Independence, becoming more prominent, taking George Washington as something of a surrogate father. He played a very large role in helping to motivate the French government to provide critical and, for them, self-destructive support of the America states. He matured in America. His biggest military accomplishment appears to have been his decision not to attack Yorktown - long story there, but he chose to wait, sacrifice his own glory, save a lot of causalities, further endanger a French fleet (who, because of this, fought a little known battle - the Battle of Capes, that saved the states...really), and let the Yorktown advantage play out, ending the war. Lafayette was then 24, and a much more mature military leader. He still had a challenging life ahead. He would return to the now independent and united states in 1824, himself and his family having survived imprisonment and likely execution during the French Revolution. He toured the country, a universal hero celebrated by all Americans.
• 
  Anna

  4 stars for the history - I didn't know much about the Marquis de Lafayette beyond what I've heard in the "Hamilton" musical, so it was extremely enlightening to read all about his life and times, and how great an asset he and his country (France) were to the colonies in their fight for independence. Sarah Vowell explains history in a tongue-in-cheek, wry manner that makes it easy to understand and entertains at the same time.
  
  2 stars for the rest. When Vowell uses her unique writing style to focus on the history, I really enjoyed this book. When she uses it to make anecdotes about her travels or her personal thoughts on subjects or herself, I couldn't stand it. I'm aware many people read Vowell's books rather than more in-depth history books because they want that biting, sarcastic narrative voice, but I guess I'm very in the minority there - I found her to be annoying, whiny, and close-minded, and I got the impression that she thinks she's way wittier than she actually is. I rolled my eyes many times.
  
  4 stars for the history, 2 stars for the Sarah Vowell show rounds this rating out to 3 stars. I have heard some people liked this book less because it's more factual and "history"-focused than many of her other books and thus contains less of her musings - probably an incentive for me to not read any of her other books, then.
• 
  Cher

  3.5 stars - It was really good.
  
  This was the first book I have read by this author and I really enjoyed her writing style. She has a casual narrative that highlights the most interesting parts of history and infuses everything with her clever sarcasm. I look forward to getting around to reading her other works.
  
  I listened to the audiobook which was well made and easily recommended. The author does the majority of the narration, but they also pulled in other big names to narrate historical figures:
  John Slattery as the Marquis de Lafayette
  Nick Offerman as George Washington
  Fred Armisen as Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben
  Bobby Cannavale as Benjamin Franklin
  John Hodgman as John Adams
  Stephanie March as Evelyn Wotherspoon Wainwight and Linda Williams
  Alexis Denisof as The British Leadership
  Patton Oswalt as Thomas Jefferson and Sherm
  -------------------------------------------
  Favorite Quote: That, to me, is the quintessential experience of living in the United States: constantly worrying whether or not the country is about to fall apart.
  
  First Sentence: How did the Marquis de Lafayette win over the stingiest, crankiest tax protesters in the history of the world?