They began as courtiers in a hierarchy of privilege, but
history remembers them as patriot-citizens in a commonwealth of
equals.
On April 18, 1775, a riot over the price of flour broke out in
the French city of Dijon. That night, across the Atlantic, Paul
Revere mounted the fastest horse he could find and kicked it into a
gallop.


So began what have been called the ?sister
revolutions? of France and America. In a single, thrilling
narrative, this book tells the story of those revolutions and shows
just how deeply intertwined they actually were. Their leaders,
George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, were often seen as
father and son, but their relationship, while close, was every bit
as complex as the long, fraught history of the French-American
alliance. Vain, tough, ambitious, they strove to shape their
characters and records into the form they wanted history to
remember. James R. Gaines provides fascinating insights into these
personal transformations and is equally brilliant at showing the
extraordinary effect of the two ?freedom fighters? on
subsequent history.