His role in the French revolution is controversial, and he was ultimately unsuccessful when his liberal reformist government was replaced by revolutionary terror.
The above is an incredibly simplified account and if you're interested in reading more about Lafayette you should preorder this:
https://www.amazon.com/Hero-Two-Worlds-Lafayette-Revolution/dp/154173033X
(it's later)
First, it's good that you've recognized that you're having a hard time loving yourself, and want to change that so that you can love others.
Someone mentioned therapy, and that is worth looking into. I currently see a cognitive behavioral therapist (for clinical depression) - I spent a while in an environment where I was being told by someone I loved and trusted that I wasn't good enough, couldn't do minor tasks right, wasn't trustworthy, etc. I am a positive, optimistic, relatively confident person, but after a while that stuff gets into your head because of hearing it so much. So I had to do a little relearning to think that I am lovable, that I am able to do things. Our emotions call up thoughts that reinforce those emotions; our thoughts call up emotions that go with the thoughts; it makes a loop; if you get into a bad loop, there are techniques for getting out of it and for getting into a better pattern of thinking and feeling. You could find out a little about CBT and see if that sounds like it would help.
Second, I suggest reading either Story of a Soul or Time for God (take a look on amazon https://www.amazon.com/Story-Soul-Autobiography-Therese-Lisieux/dp/0935216588 https://www.amazon.com/Time-God-Jacques-Philippe/dp/1594170665 and go with whichever appeals to you more at the moment.)
Third, when saints love their neighbors it is as an overflow from loving God (we love God; we know God loves everyone and wants them to get to heaven; we want what God wants because when you love someone you like to please them; so we want everyone to get to heaven and we love them for God's sake). I do not think we start out by doing that... But in the long run you will want to ask God for a greater love of God, and in the short run also ask him to help you to be willing to let him love you (we love God because he loves us first. Our love is a response.)
"When we suffer much we have a great chance to show God that we love Him, but when we suffer little we have less occasion to show God our love; and when we do not suffer at all, our love is then neither great nor pure. By the grace of God, we can attain a point where suffering will become a delight to us, for love can work such things in pure souls" - Saint Faustina
By His graces, He sees fit to mature your soul in, trial. It is only through suffering (trials) will one have the opportunity to attain virtue and attributes of God, through self-denial. If during a trial you keep your eyes fixated on Christ as Peter did when he stepped outside the boat, He will guide you through the storm...but if you let your senses (outside world) get your attention then you will sink.
The lesson here is don't take your eye off of Christ when in a trial keep focused on Him. The world will shout 'no, its this way, isn't this easier, come on, you are imagining this, are you sure'. If you do though take your eye off of Christ and turn to the world don't get so down on yourself. You can call to the Lord He will give you hand up out of the water and reaffirm what He told you before. Know though that the trial still lay in front of you, an unfinished race as the Church Fathers say.
Two books I highly recommend, where the idea of suffering is a major focus.
"The Life of Faustina Kowalska"
Check out Evan Mcgormans book about the Legion its good. Next I would say you need to do chinups running, hiking, push ups sit ups and optionally swimming(if you can't swim they'll teach you.) You do not need to learn french before hand they'll teach you. Seriously read that book though its the best book ive found
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1555716334/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_JY0PZQRXSZQWD3EF35NZ
If he has enjoyed tales of the Count of Monte Cristo, he might love the true story of the real man who was biracial, born into slavery, freed and became the legend we're familiar with. It's a fascinating story and includes lots of resource material regarding the French courts, which were hearing cases from French slaves, granting them their freedom AND backpay for their years of labor. It gets into the French Revolution and Napoleon. It's a meaty book but fascinating, informative, and enlightening. It shines a very different light on American slavery just from the contrasts.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Count-Revolution-Betrayal-Cristo/dp/0307382478
Although certainly co-written, Audie Murphy's "To Hell and Back" ranks as one of the most intense first-person accounts of WWII. Murphy, the most-decorated American soldier ever, was a bona-fide war hero several times over, but the book barely makes any mention of his medals. Instead, it focuses on camaraderie, staying together, facing down fear and terror and simply trying to survive. The book pretty much covers only Murphy's military career so there's almost no "profiling" typical of modern military histories.
Get him a book called Poilu. It’s the memoir of a French reservist corporal in his late 30s who was called up to fight in WW1. He fought on the Western Front from late 1914 to the spring of 1918 and saw action at Verdun, the Somme, Champagne, etc… It’s one of the best war memoirs I’ve ever read.
Dumas' father was amazing. There's a fantastic book about him, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, https://www.amazon.com/Black-Count-Revolution-Betrayal-Cristo/dp/0307382478. He was a general and commanded armies for France, and then he pissed off Napoleon, which did not go well for him.
He should take a stab at the role, if only based on this more aristocratic look that he pulls off well:
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Count-Revolution-Betrayal-Cristo/dp/0307382478
Not only a good extension of the racial commentary that Gunn occasionally mused on, but a good opportunity for oft ignored historical narratives.
His degree of earnest starry-eyed faith in the stated ideals of the Revolution and its major is truly something that beggars belief. Dude believed in the movement more than its leaders did. How do you not love a guy like that, who looks with his own eyes at the mess you are and yet only sees the best of what wish you could be? Lafayette is the OG himbo.
If you fancy a good read, I am about 3/4ths through a book called Poilu. I can't really comprehend what these guys went through.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0300212488/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_TG3C1XN2AE5JDBACFBV2
Count of Monte Cristo is so well done and so much fun! You will realize so many film and book tropes originated with this book. You may be interested in this non-fiction book when you finish it was fascinating: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Count-Revolution-Betrayal-Cristo/dp/0307382478
If you’re interested, I definitely recommend these books.
I bought his book about LaFayette I think after someone in here recommended it, but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet
The Black Count. 10/10 would recommend
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307382478/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_JNXDRGAGF5XAX7T3P9AX
There is a very interesting book, D-Day Through German Eyes that is worth reading whether or not you are a WW2 buff.
Some of the things that stuck in my memory; German soldiers had never experienced White Phosphorus and were terrified (rightfully so), another was the description from Germans who were in tank turrets permanently affixed to concrete foundations a few thousand meters from the beach.
Mike Duncan, seemingly primordial podcaster from the History of Rome, and the Revolutions podcast is coming out with a book called just that. Hero of Two Worlds. https://www.amazon.com/Hero-Two-Worlds-Lafayette-Revolution/dp/154173033X
I suspect Brian got some of his German viewpoint from "D-day Through German Eyes". I read it (for free) on Kindle during our original lockdown. It was a fascinating perspective that was well written by a "military journalist" who interviewed soldiers on the Atlantic Wall in spring 1944 then went back 10 years later to find out how things actually went for them.
The author let the soldiers set the tone so you get a mix of repentance and bravado.
The Germans watching the Allies land in Normandy were confused, wondering where all the expected horses were.
(Let me recommend the excellent Kindle book "D-Day through German Eyes".)
> Not really sure what I'm going to read next or if I'm going to fiction or non-fiction.
I've been on a WWI kick.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker is one of the best first account books I've ever read. It starts with his conscription through the end of the war. While lacking formal education, Barthas was a natural writer & has these amazing descriptions of the events around him. He was also a 35 year old socialist, so he's very against the War & has this "I'm too old for this shit" snarky-ness against the incompetence of his superior officers.
Fall of the Double Eagle: The Battle for Galicia and the Demise of Austria-Hungary - I'm only about halfway through, but if you like military & political history, it's great. Austria-Hungary was such a unique Empire.
Jacob Walter's account of the hardships he suffered as part of Napoleon's Grand Armee in the Russian campaign of 1812 is one of the best. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Diary-Napoleonic-Footsoldier-Edited-Introduction/dp/0140165592
>Had his wisdom and that of numerous war resisters in the U.S. prevailed, the U.S. would not have entered W.W. I. The author of War Against War, Michael Kazin, conjectures about how W.W. I would have ended if the U.S. had not intervened. “The carnage might have continued for another year or two,” Kazin writes, “until citizens in the warring nations, who were already protesting the endless sacrifices required, forced their leaders to reach a settlement. If the Allies, led by France and Britain, had not won a total victory, there would have been no punitive peace treaty like that completed at Versailles, no stab-in-the back allegations by resentful Germans, and thus no rise, much less triumph, of Hitler and the Nazis. The next world war, with its 50 million deaths, would probably not have occurred.”
This kind of conjecture really irks me. Anti-semitism was widespread in Europe at this time, even if the outcome had been the opposite you'd just as likely see a Naziesque movement in France (see the Dreyfus Affair). The only way to prevent a stab in the back legend would have been a complete destruction of either losing side, which of course happened to Germany in WW2.
For an account of a pacifist, socialist Christian involved in WW1 I'd recommend reading Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918. Particularly interesting are parts where the author tells a fellow soldier to wait to see what a German approaching their trench is up to, lest any needless aggression trigger a violent response, or where he draws his Lebel rifle on a murderous officer wanting to makes an example of a careless artilleryman.
>in the same way as the Bolsheviks were undeniably a leftist authoritarian movement.
Right, so the individual belonged to the state under both the Bolsheviks and the Nazis. Both controlled the means of production to a very high degree, and both were authoritarian.
Victor Klemperer lived under both and claimed that if there was a difference between the Nazis and the Bolsheviks, he sure as hell couldn't see it.
Specifically in the case of Napoleon's army, they didn't carry food for the entire campaign. In fact, they bought or requisitioned what they needed as they went along, which worked fine on the way out, but not so much as failed to force the Russians into the defining battle Napoleon wanted and had to make their way back after the Russian winter began to take its toll.
There's actually a pretty good eye witness account of the Russian campaign, written by a German soldier who served in the ranks (as an aside, a lot of the troops in this particular army were actually German, as Napoleon had formed an alliance of the various German princely states, who then agreed to provide him with troops). The book takes you through the thrill of the initial march out, the first victories, then the onset of winter and the long, disastrous march back. Recommended...
Here's a link to the book on Amazon - Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier ->
>rightist
There is no "rightist". Fascism is just economic leftism with some nationalism and racism tossed in for good measure. Mussolini was a life-long socialist, and Hitler ordered that all communists be automatically allowed to join the Nazi party because they had so much in common. Even Victor Klemperer remarked that the differences between the Nazis and the Bolsheviks were trivial.
You'd have to be partially insane to go this route... read this first https://smile.amazon.com/Life-French-Foreign-Legion-Expect/dp/1555716334/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1476741304&sr=1-2&keywords=french+foreign+legion
You may be interested in Victor Klemperer's diaries of a German Jew living under the Nazi Regime. My mum really liked These books.
Out of all of the references Hitchens made in this debate, the following is a must read.
You can get second hand copies for $00.01 excluding shipping. I just picked one up for $4.00 including shipping.
Enjoy.
The often repeated quote from Napoleon (somewhat paraphrased), "An army marches on its stomach.." has it's history from this campaign.
"Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier." really brings the suffering into perspective and an excellent read for history buffs.
Phenomenal translated book of the journal of Louis Barthas! Check it out on Amazon
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0300212488/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_QvdNvb4YC2HNY