Lafayette in the Somewhat United States PDF Download

Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher:
ISBN: 1594631743
Category : Biography
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
From the bestselling author of Assassination Vacation and Unfamiliar Fishes, a humorous and insightful account of the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette - the one Frenchman we could all agree on - and an insightful portrait of a nation's idealism and its reality.

Author: Auguste Levasseur
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : United States
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1594484007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
In this New York Times bestseller, the author of Lafayette in the Somewhat United States "brings the [Puritan] era wickedly to life" (Washington Post). To this day, America views itself as a Puritan nation, but Sarah Vowell investigates what that means-and what it should mean. What she discovers is something far different from what their uptight shoebuckles- and-corn reputation might suggest-a highly literate, deeply principled, and surprisingly feisty people, whose story is filled with pamphlet feuds, witty courtroom dramas, and bloody vengeance. Vowell takes us from the modern-day reenactment of an Indian massacre to the Mohegan Sun casino, from old-timey Puritan poetry, where "righteousness" is rhymed with "wilderness," to a Mayflower-themed waterslide. Throughout, The Wordy Shipmates is rich in historical fact, humorous insight, and social commentary by one of America's most celebrated voices.

Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743282531
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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New York Times bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates and contributor to NPR’s This American Life Sarah Vowell embarks on a road trip to sites of political violence, from Washington DC to Alaska, to better understand our nation’s ever-evolving political system and history. Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other—a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage. From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue—it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and—the author’s favorite—historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.

Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Riverhead Books
ISBN: 159448564X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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From the bestselling author of "The Wordy Shipmates" comes an examination of Hawaii's emblematic and exceptional history, retracing the impact of New England missionaries who began arriving in the early 1800s to remake the island paradise into a version of New England.

Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0399573100
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
From the bestselling author of Assassination Vacation and The Partly Cloudy Patriot, an insightful and unconventional account of George Washington’s trusted officer and friend, that swashbuckling teenage French aristocrat the Marquis de Lafayette. Chronicling General Lafayette’s years in Washington’s army, Vowell reflects on the ideals of the American Revolution versus the reality of the Revolutionary War. Riding shotgun with Lafayette, Vowell swerves from the high-minded debates of Independence Hall to the frozen wasteland of Valley Forge, from bloody battlefields to the Palace of Versailles, bumping into John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Lord Cornwallis, Benjamin Franklin, Marie Antoinette and various kings, Quakers and redcoats along the way. Drawn to the patriots’ war out of a lust for glory, Enlightenment ideas and the traditional French hatred for the British, young Lafayette crossed the Atlantic expecting to join forces with an undivided people, encountering instead fault lines between the Continental Congress and the Continental Army, rebel and loyalist inhabitants, and a conspiracy to fire George Washington, the one man holding together the rickety, seemingly doomed patriot cause. While Vowell’s yarn is full of the bickering and infighting that marks the American past—and present—her telling of the Revolution is just as much a story of friendship: between Washington and Lafayette, between the Americans and their French allies and, most of all between Lafayette and the American people. Coinciding with one of the most contentious presidential elections in American history, Vowell lingers over the elderly Lafayette’s sentimental return tour of America in 1824, when three fourths of the population of New York City turned out to welcome him ashore. As a Frenchman and the last surviving general of the Continental Army, Lafayette belonged to neither North nor South, to no political party or faction. He was a walking, talking reminder of the sacrifices and bravery of the revolutionary generation and what the founders hoped this country could be. His return was not just a reunion with his beloved Americans it was a reunion for Americans with their own astonishing, singular past. Vowell’s narrative look at our somewhat united states is humorous, irreverent and wholly original.

Author: Sarah Vowell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743243803
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
The author shares her perspective on such topics as the 2000 election, present-day civil rights activists, and the relationship between the United States and Canada.

Author: Laura Auricchio
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307387453
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
Winner of the 2015 American Library in Paris Book Award The Marquis de Lafayette at age nineteen volunteered to fight under George Washington and became the French hero of the American Revolution. In this major biography Laura Auricchio looks past the storybook hero and selfless champion of righteous causes who cast aside family and fortune to advance the transcendent aims of liberty and fully reveals a man driven by dreams of glory only to be felled by tragic, human weaknesses. Drawing on substantial new research conducted in libraries, archives, museums, and private homes in France and the United States, Auricchio, gives us history on a grand scale revealing the man and his complex life, while challenging and exploring the complicated myths that have surrounded his name for more than two centuries

Author: Mark Dunn
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
The United States is a nation of counties-3,071 of them, to be exact. This reference book offers a brief profile and history of each and every one of them. The authors provide the following information for each county: name, county seat, population, land area, location and prominent geographical features, name derivation, date of establishment, and products and industries. Selected entries include history, a sampling of famous residents, interesting facts or oddities, population and area rankings and name comparatives. Connecticut and Rhode Island's counties were officially abolished a few years ago, but information about the former counties is included. Louisiana's parishes are also included. Alaska does not have counties, but its organized boroughs are listed in an appendix.

Author: Jason Lane
Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The Marquise (1759-1807), born Adrienne de Noailles, shared the same controversial beliefs as her husband, supporting and defending him wholeheartedly despite ongoing political persecution - including the Marquis's exile in an Austrian dungeon and her own imprisonment (and near-execution) by French radicals.