The Last Founding Father by Harlow Giles Unger

Unger’s The Last Founding Father is both a superb read and stellar scholarship-action-filled history in the grand tradition.Ī former Distinguished Visiting Fellow in American History at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Harlow Giles Unger is a veteran journalist, broadcaster, educator, and historian. The only president other than George Washington to win reelection by unanimous vote, Monroe led the nation and its people to greatness and created an “Era of Good Feelings” never seen before or since in American history.

Secure from foreign attack, Americans streamed westward to claim a share of America, adding six states to the Union and producing the largest economic expansion and redistribution of wealth in U.S. Monroe climaxed his presidency-and startled the world-by proclaiming the landmark Monroe Doctrine, which closed the Americas to foreign incursions and colonization.

Monroe rebuilt national defenses, expanded the military, ripped Florida from Spanish control, and extended national boundaries to the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean. With his courageous first lady at his side, Monroe took command of a nation nearly bankrupt, its people divided, its borders under attack, and its capital in ashes after the British invasion in the War of 1812. Decorated by Washington for his courage and leadership, Monroe went on to serve America as its first full-time politician-a member of Congress, minister to France and Britain, governor of Virginia, secretary of state, secretary of war, and, finally, fifth president of the United States. In this powerful new biography, award-winning author Harlow Giles Unger reveals the epic story of James Monroe-the last of America’s Founding Fathers, who transformed a small fragile nation beset by enemies into a glorious and powerful empire stretching “from sea to shining sea.”Ī fierce fighter in the Revolutionary War, Monroe suffered a near-fatal wound at the Battle of Trenton, survived the cruelest winter at Valley Forge, and fought heroically at the Battle of Monmouth.

The Last Founding Father by Harlow Giles Unger