Revolutionary Brothers

In a narrative both panoramic and intimate, Chaffin captures the four-decade friendship of Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette.

Thomas Jefferson first met the Marquis de Lafayette in 1781, when the young French-born general was dispatched to Virginia to assist Jefferson, then the state's governor, in fighting off the British. The two could not have seemed more different. When Jefferson moved to Paris three years later as a diplomat, speaking little French and in need of a partner, their friendship began in earnest. Chaffin shows how their friendship endured through the making of two revolutions-- and two nations, to a powerful and emotional reunion at Monticello in 1824. -- adapted from jacket