'Lion Of Liberty': Patrick Henry's Fiery Life from NPR Arts & Life by MICHAEL SCHAUB

It's unfair to reduce Henry's career to excerpts from two speeches, but it's also fitting that he's remembered chiefly for his words. Henry was a hardworking lawyer, a somewhat adequate military commander, and a popular, if inconsistent, politician. He wasn't the best farmer or the best businessman, but he was almost certainly the greatest orator in 18th century America. And he was, in a way, the Father of the Founding Fathers — as Harlow Giles Unger notes in his excellent new Lion of Liberty, Henry was the first of the American revolutionaries "to call for independence, for revolution against Britain, for a bill of rights, and for as much freedom as possible from government — American as well as British."

View the full NPR feature, including a free chapter of the book, here. See also: Lafayette, John Hancock: Merchant King & American Patriot, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness