Bookiew: Hero of Two Worlds

 In the 1980’s my mother began her career in HR as a recruiter for General Motors. She would travel around the various universities in Ontario to try and recruit the province’s top mechanical engineering prospects. To her amusement, every university she visited made the same claim about the quality of their engineering program – they had the second best engineering program in the country, after of course Waterloo. No one was stupid enough to pretend they had a better engineering program than Waterloo, and no one would insult my mother by pretending that she was that stupid to believe that.

In the world of history podcasts, one name stands similarly head and shoulders above the rest: Dan Carlin. Carlin, who holds a bachelor of history and spent his early years cutting his teeth in the world of talk radio and broadcast news, hosts what is almost certainly the largest and best respected history podcast on the internet: Hardcore History. Any history podcaster worth their salt will pay lip service to Dan Carlin as the grand-daddy of history podcasts – no one is really stupid enough to pretend that they have a better history podcast than he does. Neither shall I insult you the reader by claiming that there’s someone out there with a better history podcast than Dan Carlin.

I will however argue that the second best history podcaster on the internet is Mike Duncan. Duncan made his entrance upon the podcasting stage with what is arguably the broadest possible topic that still gives you any specificity at all: the history of Rome. His podcast, aptly named The History of Rome podcast started out modestly, with a meek Mike relaying the basic 101-level myths about the founding of the city of Rome. Heralded by GarageBand snippet Acoustic Picking 18, Duncan traces the history of Rome from its mythical roots after the Trojan war, up to the fall of the empire in A.D. 476 (including appropriate discussion over whether the empire really fell and if so what that actually meant) through 179 increasingly informative, witty, and entertaining episodes. More than anything else on the planet, The History of Rome Podcast ignited my current love of Roman history, for which I owe Duncan a debt of gratitude. If you take nothing else from this review, please listen to The History of Rome podcast. All of it.

After counting down to the deposition of the last western emperor and leaving the history of the east to be eventually picked up by Robin Pierson of the also wonderful History of Byzantium podcast, Duncan turned his attention to maybe the second broadest historical topic one could pick (no, not the History of China): revolution. Duncan’s second podcast, equally aptly named Revolutions traces the history of various famous revolutions through history with all the dry wit and simple yet remarkably clear storytelling that Duncan had honed over 73 hours of the History of Rome.

Revolutions, still in its final season as of the writing of this review, covers eleven different revolutions over time:

• The English Civil War
• The American Revolution
• The French Revolution
• The Haitian Revolution
• The Spanish American Wars of Independence
• The July Revolution
• The Revolutions of 1848
• The Paris Commune
• The Mexican Revolution
• The Russian Revolution of 1905
• The Russian Revolution(s) (of 1917)

The revolutions of Revolutions are covered in chronological order, and again I strongly recommend that the reader listen. However, while recording the podcast, Duncan says that he realised that there was a recurring character in these stories, of whom Duncan was aware, but whom he was surprised to see coming up so much, and in places where he wasn’t quite expecting: Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette. For Duncan, it was no surprise seeing Lafayette in the American Revolution, where he is well known for his significant role in the war, wintering at Valley Forge with George Washington, acting as General, playing a primary role in convincing France to help the Americans, and fighting in the battle of Yorktown. It was no more surprising to see Lafayette pop up in the French Revolution where he is initially captain of the National Guard during the early days of the revolution before infamously being sidelined for most of the revolution after being exiled by the Jacobins.

What was more surprising was to see Lafayette continue to show up in the Haitian Revolution, advocating for good relations between France and a free Haiti; in the Spanish American Wars of Independence, writing voluminous correspondence with Simon Bolivar, who admires Lafayette as the hero he’s aspiring to be; and finally in the July Revolution, returning to his old post as captain of the national guard to help and overthrow the French king while ensuring stability for the nation, successfully attempting to avoid a repeat of the chaos of 1791.

So in 2017, after having published his best-selling first book, Storm Before the Storm, about the period of increasing political violence in Rome before Julius Caesar and the fall of the republic, Duncan was searching for a second subject for a second book. As he happened to have recently finished the series on the July Revolution at the time, Lafayette was still fresh in his mind. Lafayette, whose persistence in the Revolutions podcast, along with the success of the then-recently released musical Hamilton, and his under-explored later life made him the perfect subject for Duncan’s next project.

And so, nearly 4 years after his first book published, having moved to France to do his research, and ten full series of Revolutions, Hero of Two Worlds was published by Public Affairs Books on August 24, 2021.

The cover is tinted off white to try and give an aged appearance. The effect itself is somewhat cheesy, however rather unfortunately THEY ALSO APPLIED IT TO THE FLAGS. Not the best work of graphic design. Fortunately, the cover is the worst part of the book. The portrait of Lafayette is by Joseph-Désiré Court, portraying the Marquis as he would have appeared in 1791.

Duncan, unsurprisingly takes us from cradle to grave with Lafayette. Part 1 opens the book with an examination Lafayette’s respectable though not top tier pedigree, then goes on to explore how he is placed into some of the more elite social circles of France, is recruited to join the American revolutionary cause, convinces the French government to join in as well, and ultimately plays a fairly significant role in determining the eventual outcome of the war. After a brief interlude where Lafayette returns to French society, all while keeping up his correspondence with his American friends, Part 2 takes us through Lafayette’s part in the French revolution, having him as a leading activist for reform, writing the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and becoming captain of the National Guard before being abruptly cut off when the Marquis is expelled from France, and captured by the Austrians who leave him to rot in a dungeon for 6 years. After this second interlude during his prison stay, Part 3 explores Lafayette’s life under, and his relations with the various post-revolutionary regimes that rule France (i.e. Napoleon, The Bourbon Restoration, and the July Monarchy).

I’ll save you from me recounting further the details of Lafayette’s life like I did in my first draft (here’s his Wikipedia page if you’re looking for the 2-pager version), but I’ll focus on what the book does well, what it does poorly, and what is simply different or notable.

Firstly, the book really isn’t as much about recounting the events of the Marquis’ life, but rather recounting the events in the world in which he lived, and recounting his place in that world and in those events. Hero of Two Worlds is a book which takes neither the Great Man view of history, nor a Trends and Forces view, but rather displays convincingly the way the two interact – Lafayette is constantly in a world where he is reacting to circumstances of others’ making, and pushing back, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully, but rarely completely ineffectually. Lafayette interacts with those around him great and small, and leaves a concrete impact on their world.

Perhaps no more clear example of this could be made than Duncan’s treatment of the Marquis’ upbringing. The first couple of chapters of the book explore, more than any actual events in Lafayette’s life, the world into which he is born and how this helps shape him. Lafayette is born into a profoundly unequal society, but with him having been born near the top of the pyramid. Without any effort or merit, he is placed into the most prestigious school in France with the boys of the most important families in the country. He rubs elbows with future kings and ministers, but, having spent many of his early years at his country estate, he never quite fits into the high society of Paris. Even when his father-in-law is able to pull some strings to find Lafayette a position as an officer in the French army, Lafayette is caught up in a reform designed to rid the army of inexperienced officers like him who found themselves in their position due to their connections rather than their merit.

Despite the unequal nature of Ancien Regime French society, it was also a society that has undergone a recent shift in the intellectual climate. Lafayette is raised during the early years of the enlightenment, when old superstitions and authorities were questioned, when reason was taken as the highest virtue, and when students would study the ancient past and question whether modern Europeans could actually learn from the political systems and the histories of ancient societies.

These dual facts about Lafayette’s early environment would stay with him to the end of his days. Unable to prove himself by the normal paths expected of a French noble of the era, Lafayette sees his golden opportunity to make his reputation while fighting for his enlightenment ideals in America, and escapes the confines of his cloistered world overseas. Despite the constant cynicism of those around him, reminding him of the hypocrisies of the American rebels, he never loses his faith that the Americans would come around to live up to those ideals which they proclaimed, for which he fought, and of which, he would constantly remind his American friends.

Lafayette wrote to George Washington encouraging him to free his slaves and to move to end slavery in the United States. He purchased a group of slaves and moved them to the Caribbean in a plan to eventually emancipate the American slaves (though ironically he never ends up freeing those slaves himself until the French government does it for him under the Bourbon Restoration).

Indeed it is clear that Duncan has his audience in mind while writing this book. While Duncan focuses mainly on the path of Lafayette, it is clear that in a few instances he wants to make some things clear to his modern American readers: when we are talking about the founding fathers owning slaves, we should remember that they lived during the time of the rise of the abolition movement in Europe, and had good friends telling them, in writing and to their faces, that owning slaves was wrong and that they should free the slaves. Lafayette is Duncan’s foil to Washington and Jefferson.

He is also not afraid to take a moment from time to time and give his opinion on the moral weight of Lafayette’s action – criticising him most harshly for his purchase of a slave upon his first arrival to America, and his failure to free the slaves he later purchases as part of his abolitionist plan. He also criticises Lafayette’s cultural insensitivity to a Native American boy he brings back to his household in France for a while, though he concludes after Lafayette’s death that his constancy in his principals throughout his life, and his overall refusal to make self-serving exceptions, and his willingness to openly stand up for those principles in the face of power when that power threatened him makes him an admirable person.

While Duncan has made a good case for this judgment, I did find his judgments to be a bit on the nose at times – a good writer should make his case but leave the reader to draw their own conclusions on the man.

This is unfortunate, because otherwise Duncan is a very enjoyable and persuasive writer. His prose is never too flowery nor simple, but manages to stay engaging throughout the book. His grasp of the history is solid, and he has a knack for explaining succinctly yet effectively some of the larger and more important concepts in what are some very complex subjects – for instance, despite having read and heard a good bit about the French Revolution (including listening to Duncan’s own podcast on the subject), I never quite understood exactly who the Jacobins were, or where they came from until Duncan summarised it in two paragraphs in Hero of Two Worlds. His view of historiography, the interplay between individuals in the story and the broader trends and forces enables him to show why our characters do what they do without resorting to the common biographic tendency of turning the subject into a saint. Even without Duncan’s prodding, I can only feel that I would have walked away from this book convinced of the profound goodness, despite his flaws, of the Marquis de Lafayette’s soul.

Perhaps it is Lafayette’s goodness, more even than his actual importance to history or the present, that is the best argument for reading the Hero of Two Worlds. Lord Acton once said:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority.

Lafayette was one of those rare men who managed to make his mark on history while maintaining his own morals, and bringing forward the world he lived in with him. This may be, as Duncan would later say in an interview, why Lafayette never made it to the tier of capital G, capital M Great Men, like Napoleon or Washington. However, Lafayette is a man who deserves more than to simply stand in their shadows, and Hero of Two Worlds provides one of the most complete, engaging, and relevant biographies of the man who truly deserves the title of hero.