The Last Founding Father — James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness by Harlow Giles Unger (2009) is a well written and eloquently narrated book that goes a long way to James Monroe Dust Jacketaccomplish what it set out to do — to make James Monroe, not only the last Founding Father, but also the greatest of the founders, second only to George Washington.
This tome then fulfills in many ways what various eminent authors have set out to do for the most illustrious of the Founding Fathers, to place them on the pedestals where they belong, but from where they have been gradually demoted by the neglect of many academic institutions of higher learning, not to mention, the public education system. I refer to the following masterful biographies: Ralph Ketcham's James Madison (1971); Willard Sterne Randall's Alexander Hamilton: A Life (2003); Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton (2004); David McCullough's John Adams (2001); and the forgotten masterpiece, W.P. Creeson's James Monroe (1946), among others. These biographies enshrine the notable careers of the founders, as men of flesh and blood, who without vacillation, pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for the fledging nation. This book, though, is a bit more elementary and easier to read for the initiate, less detailed, and although certainly more obsequious and idolizing of its subject than the preceding volumes, it is not slavishly to the point of detracting. Unger has certainly fallen in love with James Monroe, singing his praises far and wide, but not to the point of satiety.
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