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

Evan Thomas

Jun 2010 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

The New York Times bestseller from master biographer Evan Thomas brings to life the tumultuous story of the 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.

Ratings and reviews

I’ve always enjoyed reading books about the revolutionary period. I find this era of history to be fascinating and very interesting. So, this book was made to order for me. The book was certainly more instructive in many ways, is the personal history of John Paul Jones than some other books I have read. The author reveals that Jones was a courageous, brilliant, but flawed individual. The author is a gifted biographer and historian. This book was a great book to read, and it is well written and researched. If you want an insight into naval warfare during the revolutionary war then I think this book would be a benefit. Highly recommend.

A terrific book on John Paul Jones's life and sea career.

About the author

Evan Thomas is the author of ten books, including the New York Times bestsellers JOHN PAUL JONES, SEA OF THUNDER, and FIRST: SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR. Thomas was a writer, correspondent, and editor for thirty-three years at Time and Newsweek, including ten years as Newsweek’s Washington bureau chief. He appears regularly on many TV and radio talk shows. Thomas has taught at Harvard and Princeton.