I don’t know what it was about this biography, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness, but every time I picked it up, something about it made me think, “Oh, James Monroe is so cute.” And then I followed it up with a sigh.
This biography made me realize just how little I knew about President Monroe. Of the founder-presidents I have read about, he strikes me as the one that you just stop and say, “I like this guy.” (I haven’t yet read about Adams, nor have I finished my Jefferson bio.)
What stood out to me here was Monroe’s relationship to his family. He had two brothers whom he very desperately tried to help and support, but his efforts were relatively fruitless. His marriage, as portrayed here, was fun to read about. And his ties to his daughters, well, they just make you think, “cute!” And then you sigh. And then you read about, how at the end of his presidency, that people kept describing his dress as “of the old style.” You think about this, how he continued to dress how he thought appropriate though the times were changing around him, as the leaders of the revolutionary era faded and a new generation came forward, and you sigh again.
An appendix included the Monroe Doctrine. Despite all of the history classes I’ve taken, I don’t recall every reading it as a whole, which actually quite makes sense as the Monroe Doctrine was actually part (a few nonconsecutive paragraphs) of a state of the union type speech. I am glad to have read this bio, and this appendix, at this part of the President reading project, as the Monroe Doctrine is something that has had political implications ever since and has been interpreted very broadly since.
*sigh*