John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy

John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy
by Evan Thomas

John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy
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Book Summary Information

Author: Evan Thomas
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Large Print
Published: 2003-11
ISBN: 0786258756
Number of pages: 644
Publisher: Thorndike Press

Book Reviews of John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy

Book Review: Background to US Navy Traditions
Summary: 4 Stars

John Paul Jones was a historical figure, but I really did know much about him until reading this very well written story. I gave this book to a number of friends this year as a holiday gift. Jones made two voyages around England during the Revolutionary War sailing ships procured for him from France. There have been modern ships in the Navy named Ranger and Bon Homme Richard, but I did not know until reading this that those were the names of Jones ships during those famous voyages. After reading this you will know the answer to a great quiz show question which is who is the patron, that the ship, Bon Home Richard was named after. I look forward to reading the story that Evan Thomas just released describing American naval heroes of WWII.

Summary of John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy

John Paul Jones, at sea and in the heat of the battle, was the great American hero of the Age of Sail. He was to history what Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey and C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower are to fiction. Ruthless, indomitable, clever; he vowed to sail, as he put it, "in harm's way." Evan Thomas's minute-by-minute re-creation of the bloodbath between Jones's Bonhomme Richard and the British man-of-war Serapis off the coast of England on an autumn night in 1779 is as gripping a sea battle as can be found in any novel.

Drawing on Jones's correspondence with some of the most significant figures of the American Revolution -- John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson -- Thomas's biography teaches us that it took fighters as well as thinkers, men driven by dreams of personal glory as well as high-minded principle, to break free of the past and start a new world. Jones's spirit was classically American.


Evan Thomas?s John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy grounds itself on the facts of Jones?s life and accomplishments to bolster his place among the pantheon of Revolutionary heroes while also working to deflate the myths that have circulated about his name. Jones, we learn, was confronted throughout his life with controversy and was crippled by ambition. But Thomas lauds Jones for early innovations as an American self-made man who rose from Scottish servitude.

Jones, despite his too brisk manner, was a true success, if not genius, as a naval captain. Early in the Revolutionary War, he captured a shipload of winter uniforms destined for General Burgoyne?s army in Canada, which instead warmed General Washington?s troops as they swept across the Delaware to defeat British at Princeton and Trenton. Later, Jones helped formulate the Navy?s plan of psychological warfare on British citizens. And Jones?s strategy to cut off the British fleet via the French Navy was arguably the most decisive strategic decision of the War.

In the end, Thomas makes a good case for a renewed appreciated for Jones?s role in the broader revolution, citing his many connections to the Founding Fathers and his contributions to the broader war effort. While it may be that the John Paul Jones who proclaimed "I have not yet begun to fight" never existed, the real man behind the textbook legend is every bit as compelling a figure in Thomas?s hands. This temperate biography situates Jones in what will likely prove durable fashion among portraits of Adams, Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson. --Patrick O'Kelley

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