Sarah Vowell opens the book by giving a brief history of the Marquis de Lafayette, a Frenchman who would become a beloved figure in American history and an important figure in America’s Revolutionary War.

He became a major general in the United States army on July 31, 1777, after devoting himself to the cause of American liberty. He was 19 years old. In 1824, he returned to the United States. More than 80 thousand fans came to greet him at the New York harbor. Vowell later points out that this would have been more than two-thirds of the population of New York. However, relatively few Americans today could explain what Lafayette’s role in the war was or why he was celebrated.

For months, Lafayette toured America. He visited Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and gave speeches. Musicians wrote songs about him, and multiple towns threw parades in his honor. In Philadelphia, he spoke to a crowd of 20 thousand and proclaimed that the initial pursuit of America’s independence had been a change for the social order of the world. He saw in America a society that had, as its guiding principle, the inalienable rights of man.